This page discusses some of the basic terminology for you to become familiar with when working in an Eclipse-based environment, such as Aptana.
The Workbench is the basic development environment for Eclipsed-based applications. Like all Eclipse-based IDE's, Aptana uses the Workbench model. As you learn about the Eclipse environment, you will encounter the following terms:
- Perspectives - A perspective defines the initial set and layout of the views in your Workbench window. Each perspective is focused on a specific development-related task, such as debugging. In a sense, Eclipse operates as an "IDE framework" - a bare car chassis. Through the use of plug-ins (i.e., perspectives), the vehicle is finished and the result is a highly functional IDE. Aptana is a highly customized Eclipse Perspective. It is also a fantastic introduction to Eclipse in general.
- Views - Around the edges of your workbench (depending on how you customize them), you'll find many small windows and sidebars. These are Views. A view helps you to navigate your Workbench. Different views present information in different ways. In many ways, Views are analogous to the small palette windows in graphic design programs. Clicking on various items inside the views sometimes affects other views, but it almost always affects the Editor.
- Editors - Aptana has three Editors: JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. These Editors are where you will be doing the actual coding for your web development. Aptana blends these three editors together so well that you don't need to worry about which you're using. If you enter into <script> tags inside an HTML document, you'll suddenly have access to all the code completion of a Javascript editor.
- Workspaces - Your Eclipse workspace is just a directory where your work will be stored.
- Projects - A project is a container used by the Workbench to group associated folders and files.
The image below gives an overview of some of the areas of your Workbench.
