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Development Tools

Posted by Edwin Chau
Edwin Chau
Courses Plus Student 5,702 Points

Best text editor

Hi, I would like to ask what is the best text editor to write html & CSS code? I had finished some lessons on treehouse and I want to try to write some code on a real text editor

Any suggestion of the best text editor? Thanks!!

3 Answers

Raúl Barrera C.
Raúl Barrera C.
18,943 Points
Raúl Barrera C.
Raúl Barrera C.
18,943 Points

There are some good text editors, but I recommend Sublime Text :D

Craig Watson
Craig Watson
27,930 Points

Agreed! I use sublime text with a combination of some CodePen for speed of front end development.

But to answer helpfully, it would all depend on what you are looking for... FREE? not free :( ? Real time preview Vs Local Development?

But I did hunt around because I was new at the time and for me the best combination without having to pay a penny is Sublime Text with a little CodePen for speed and fun!

Dreamweaver was one I looked into but Guil was teaching on sublime so that helped my decision to ....

Hope this helps if only a little

Edwin Chau
Edwin Chau
Courses Plus Student 5,702 Points

I have downloaded sublime text 3 too as the teacher mentioned it on the lesson. May I know how do I set the setting?

Thanks,

Shawn Denham
seal-mask
PLUS
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Shawn Denham
Python Development Techdegree Student 17,801 Points
Shawn Denham
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Shawn Denham
Python Development Techdegree Student 17,801 Points

Not sure about a "best" since a lot of it is personal preference. Also not sure if you are looking for windows or Mac, but I will throw out a few that I have used and like.

I agree with Rau, I love Sublime and it works on Windows, OS X and Unix! http://www.sublimetext.com

Here are a few others you can check out if you are on a Mac

Textastic - http://www.textasticapp.com ( I like this one too )

BBedit - http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/

TextMate - http://macromates.com

For Windows only:

notepad++ - http://notepad-plus-plus.org

TextPad - https://www.textpad.com (I used this one a lot when I was on a windows box)

And last but not least you have web development IDEs

Brackets - http://brackets.io

Coda2 - https://panic.com/coda/

There are 1000s more out there but these are the ones that I have used and liked. Most are free some you have to pay for. In the end the text editor you use will be dependent on what you like...how it "feels" to you when you are working in. I recommend that you try out a few of them and see which one clicks with you :)

Good Luck! and let me know if you have any questions!

nancy
nancy
132 Points
nancy
nancy
132 Points

Treehouse has a terrific article from Dec 2013 explaining a variety of text editors at http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/which-text-editor-should-i-use The short answer from that article is to use the text editor that makes you the most efficient. Sublime Text is recommended and is used in most Treehouse videos.

Another good review source is at Lifehacker: http://lifehacker.com/five-best-text-editors-1564907215
Readers nominated their favourite text editors in April 2014. The top contenders were...

  1. Notepad++ (Windows only; free)
    Simple, lots of plugins and totally free

  2. Sublime Text (cross-platform; free to try for an unlimited time and $70 US to buy) Impressive features, developer-friendly plugins and API, side by side file comparisons and more

  3. Vim (cross-platform; free) Takes a commitment to learn but "the sky's the limit"

Although the above text editors are more popular, I personally use TextWrangler (OS X; free) because I find it flexible and fast. However, As Rau and Craig and Treehouse already suggested, Sublime's a great choice. Enjoy!