Aptana Studio is an open source web programming IDE. It has many great features including javascript debugging, code completion, and support for a wide variety scripting languages used on the web (HTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, Python, ect). It also has built in support for many JavaScript libraries such as jQuery and MooTools. Aptana is built on the Eclipse platform which means you also have access to a huge library of plugins.

Installation:

First we need to make sure Java and the correct version of xulrunner are installed on Ubuntu. Here we will use the open source version of Java, but the sun-java6-jre version also works.

sudo apt-get install openjdk-6-jre xulrunner

Next, download the standalone Linux version of Aptana Studio from www.aptana.com and extract the zip file somewhere in your home directory.

In order for Aptana to run correctly we must set the MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME variable to point to the correct version of xulrunner. To do this we need to create a start script in the aptana directory. Using your favorite text editor, create a file in the aptana folder called runAptana.sh and insert the following code:

#!/bin/bash
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME="/usr/lib/xulrunner"
/path/to/aptana/AptanaStudio

Make sure the /path/to/aptana corresponds to the location of the aptana directory in your home directory.

Remember to make the script executable

chmod +x runAptana.sh

Now simply run ./runAptana.sh and enjoy the Web 2.0 IDE goodness.

This is the first of many posts here at my new site. I've decided, with a little push from a good friend of mine, to create a personal web site for myself. Let me start by giving you a little background. I am a systems administrator and website designer by trade and I run an IT consulting firm called Fossit Solutions (www.fossitsolutions.com). Fossit is a pseudo-acronym which loosely stands for Free Open Source Software Information Technology and I believe that gives you a good idea about the area of IT that I focus on. Whenever possible I try to leverage open source technology because I believe commodity software should be free (as in beer and freedom).

I have been helped tremendously in the past by bloggers who post about setups and fixes for various open source technologies and that is what I plan to do here. As I work on new projects and try new software I will write about my experiences and hopefully the few people who happen by my humble little page can gain some information from it.

Thank you for visiting my site.