IDEs such as Dreamweaver can cost alot of money for the results they produce.  As the web changed, a Java based-platform, Eclipse exploded onto the development scene.  As Eclipse gained more popularity, communities formed and open-source editions that packaged it into a PHP IDE.

One of these IDEs is called Aptana. 

This Howto covers downloading and configuring Aptana for PHP and Drupal development.

Download and Install Aptana from here:

http://www.aptana.org/studio/download

Configure Aptana for PHP Development:

1. Go to Window->Show View->Plugin Manager
2. Under Feature Plugins, select PDT SDK. For
   minimalists, you can choose to select only the Runtime
   sub-checkbox.
3. Click the Next button
4. Confirm the items you are installing and click the
   Next button once more
5. Accept the terms and conditions and click the Finish
   button
6. After the install completes, click Yes when asked to
   restart Aptana and wait for it to finish restarting
   before continuing.

Customize Aptana for Drupal Coding Standards:

1. Go to Window -> Preferences 

• Expand the left-hand menu to General -> Editors -> Text
  Editor: Enter 2 for Displayed tab width.
• Expand the left-hand menu to Aptana -> Editors: Under Tab
  Insertion on the right, click Use Spaces.

Customize Aptana for Drupal PHP file extensions:

Unless you want all the source files you develop to look like Plain-Jane text files, an association for those files must be created.

The extensions that must be associated for Drupal that should probably be treated like PHP documents are:

MODULE,THEME,ENGINE,INFO,INC,INSTALL

To configure this do the following:

1. Go to Window > Preferences
2. Expand General > Content Types > Text
3. Select PHP Content Types and add the desired types.

Restart Aptana for these changes to go into effect.

Next steps:

Create a new Project and create a connection to your development box.

Install Drupal Snippets or Druppets:

Snippets are a great way to save a bit of time when writing large amounts of code.  In time, your collection may grow and you will have a custom library which will supplement your workflow.

To get started Download Druppets from here:  http://timonweb.com/download-druppets.php

1. In any top-level folder of your Project View, create a folder named
snippets (if not already);

Note:  You need to have a project associated to create linked folder.

2. Unzip content of snippets_here folder to the 'snippets' folder;

My path in Windows 7 is:  C:\Users\Endor\Documents\Aptana Studio Workspace\snippets

3. Restart Aptana;
4. Activate Snippets View (Window -> View -> Snippets);
5. Find a Drupal 6 folder in Snippets View;