Espresso, A Cool way to Edit
So I just wanted to start off by saying that February marks off 5 years of awesome hosting being provided by the Twirpin Around Network (4 years under the TyL Domain). That’s pretty awesome, or at least I think it is, but that’s not what I’m hear to talk about today.
In the hopes of starting articles about web design and development here, I’m going to start of introducing you to my new favorite HTML editor, Espresso. If you don’t want to be tempted to buy something, stop reading now. If you have some money and a Mac, and you’re looking for a cool HTML editor, keep on reading.
Why is Espresso my favorite? The design is great, it has awesome features, and it’s simple. I would have gone with Coda if I haven’t found Espresso. Coda has great features, but it doesn’t fit me (it might fit you though).
So it has a nice welcome screen, and an Example project. Just by playing with the example project, I already knew I wanted it (I also started to work on the next layout for TyL as well). You’re presented with a single window with the list of files for your site (or project) in the left column. You can show or hide the tools using the wrench icon in the upper right.
It doesn’t look or feel complicated at all. It’s just appears to be a normal text-editor with syntax highlighting. To activate live preview, you have to choose “New->Live Web Preview.” It create a preview window in the “Workspace Area.” You can drag items in the Workspace in and out of it. If you drag it out of the Workspace area, the page or preview you selected will appear in a new window.
You can drag other items off of the Workspace into other windows and they’ll show up as tabs. You can also rearrange the tabs 
The interface alone is pretty awesome. I suggest you download it and try it out. The syntax highlighting is great. It’ll auto-complete things your type and create the closing tags if needed. It also knows more than I do about CSS, but it is from the guys who made CSSEdit. Personally, I’d never buy CSSEdit, but Espresso changes the way I’ve worked in the past.
In the past, I’ve mainly used Notepad++ and Smultron. Espresso has similar features to those, and then some. The Live Preview is epic. As I type, the preview window updates. I don’t have to save it first, and I don’t have to click refresh. This is a major plus for me. Other programs that I have used that had a preview window either waited till I saved, or it needed me to hit refresh. Out of those that had a “live preview,” if I was using a Stylesheet, then it wouldn’t detect changed that I made.
So Espresso has won over my heart in a day. It has also become my HTML editor of choice in under a day. I’m fairly certain I’ll still use Smultron for when I embed PHP, but for creating the template or layout, Espresso has that part of my heart.
This video below just shows the live preview and how cool it is (or how cool I think it is). A few freeware programs have live preview, but you have to save first. Espresso offers a live preview, and you don’t have to permanently modify the file.
Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 11:26 pmand is filed under Reviews, ScreenCasts, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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