I use Wordpress as publishing platform. It is easy to use and making plugins and themes is simple. Development is pretty progressive and it can even be used as CMS for medium to small websites.

As Wordpress is built in php you need a good text editor to make plugins and themes, preferably one with syntax support for html and php. Textmate does the job pretty well and allows you to open a folder with files and you can easily open a folder to work in multiple files in tabs.

To administer the database, including making back-up copies, opening different databases on different database servers Navicat is an excellent choice. It even allows you to open databases on servers with only a php connection and you can do virtually all you need to be able to. And it not only is capable of working with MySQL but it does PostgreSQL and Oracle databases too.

For CSS you need a good CSS editor. I can endorse CSSEdit to anyone. It provides visual and source editing and even a combination of both.

Lately I have started to use Coda, which provides an integrated suite for editing php and CSS as well and an ftp site manager and more. The killer feature for me is integrated ftp which allows you to synchronize your online and local site. As with all synchronization tools, operating it needs some caution. Especially when syncing folders as you can choose to overwrite the original folder (thus deleting all original content) or merging it with the original content.

The tools that come for free with OSX are is the digital color meter, which allows you to sample a color from anything on your screen –set to 8-bit HEX value- to the color code for in your CSS at once. Another excellent tool is the screenshot capability –COMMAND-SHIFT-4- with backspace for a window shot.

I don’t do much with images. I am just not creative enough and don’t have the patience to work on that. If I would Photoshop would definitely be my favorite. I used a lot of alternatives, both paid and free, but nothing seems to be able to beat it, even though it has a relatively steep learning curve. Job targeted online tutorials can help you overcome that.

What tools do you use for web development?