X-cart development tools
 

I would like to know from x-cart developers what tools are used to develop x-cart custom skins, and mods to functionalities. I would like to see a more comprehensive approach rather than just a name of tools if you will. Do you generally setup a localhost to have PHP, MYSQL and web app server running and develop directly locally? Or you prefer to set up a test site and test the code directly on the test site? Is there a tool that can visually help you with smarty and HTML along with PHP codes in between?

Thanks for any feedback.

Re: X-cart development tools
 

Ideally we like to develop on an actual site, whether that be a completely new site in its final location, or on a copy of a site in a development directory. Always better to have the site functioning in its final location, as server settings can drastically affect what works and what doesn't.

As far as tools go, I'm an old school coder, so I prefer to edit code by hand. I use both UltraEdit and the template editor itself. Most of the sites we create are stripped of most of their tables, and all of the formatting is moved to the skin.css file, which makes it much easier to edit. We have also removed most of the 'template inside a template' kinds of situations (rectangle_bottom.tpl, bottom.tpl and copyright.tpl for example) so it is much easier to understand what is what. If you are still dealing with the tables, Dreamweaver can often help just to see how a table is cut up.