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Posted by Josue Sandoval
Josue Sandoval
946 Points

What text editor do you use?

I have been using Dreamweaver since it was called Macromedia Dreamweaver 3.0 many years back. I am currently using Adobe Dreamweaver CS6.

I just got a new imac and I love it but want to start using another type of text editor to build websites and program.

Can someone recommend some good text editors that I can try out?

Tj Dhavale
Tj Dhavale
1,921 Points

Coda 2. I spent the last week test driving Chocolat, TextEdit, Espresso and Sublime. Some of the things I like about Coda 2 are as follows: <ul> <li>Live preview (can be distracting because it updates as you type</li> <li>Clips (bits of code that get saved to the side bar and you just click 'em to put 'em into your work without having to type them out)</li> <li>Good autocomplete including a color picker</li> <li>Access to their reference books for all the diff. languages</li> </ul>

Chocolat would be second on my list because it's the most affordable of the bunch and great for the price. It's autocomplete isn't as awesome as Coda2's version but it is half the price of Coda2.. Sublime has good response but no live preview. Espresso felt a bit buggy to me but my mac is acting up so it might not be the editor's fault.

Will end up buying Coda 2 when my trial ends-2 days =D

16 Answers

Danh Hoang
Danh Hoang
10,967 Points
Danh Hoang
Danh Hoang
10,967 Points

Sublime Text 2 is the best. It's on both PC and Mac in case you ever convert. Notepad++ is PC.

bills
bills
7,668 Points
bills
bills
7,668 Points

Expresso in my opinion is the best. I've tried coda, sublime, and many more but I've enjoyed using expresso the most!

Kyle Wiebers
PLUS
Kyle Wiebers
Courses Plus Student 7,370 Points
Kyle Wiebers
Kyle Wiebers
Courses Plus Student 7,370 Points

I think SublimeText is awesome but you'll have to dig into the plugins and configurations. You may have to tweak it to get it just right, but once you do there's nothing better.

I'd recommend checking out the following plugins as well as packages for any type of dev you work with (JS, Ruby, Node.JS, etc).

  1. Package Control
  2. Emmet
  3. GitGutter
  4. SublimeCodeIntel
  5. SideBarEnhancements
  6. SublimeLinter
Kevin Snider
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Kevin Snider
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 25,275 Points
Kevin Snider
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Kevin Snider
Front End Web Development Techdegree Student 25,275 Points

i love sublime 2 as well. kyle is right about the plugins but well worth it. a friend just showed me a few of what the plugins can do and they are amazing! i need to take the time to learn them but from what he showed me, well worth learning them.

as everyone has mentioned, personal pref will be your deciding factor.

good luck

Nicholas Stanfield
PLUS
Nicholas Stanfield
Courses Plus Student 216 Points
Nicholas Stanfield
Nicholas Stanfield
Courses Plus Student 216 Points

Notepad ++ is the best text editor in my opinion

Ibrahim Rodrí­guez
PLUS
Ibrahim Rodrí­guez
Courses Plus Student 2,495 Points
Ibrahim Rodrí­guez
Ibrahim Rodrí­guez
Courses Plus Student 2,495 Points

Lot of people are just using SublimeText these days, I use Coda right now because it has built-in FTP but this is just a matter of preference.

Josue Sandoval
Josue Sandoval
946 Points
Josue Sandoval
Josue Sandoval
946 Points

Thanks I will try out both Coda 2 and Sublime Text.

Josue Sandoval
Josue Sandoval
946 Points
Josue Sandoval
Josue Sandoval
946 Points

Thank you Nicholas for your post. I would love to try it but did not see a mac version of the software.

Rick Rakin
Rick Rakin
6,531 Points
Rick Rakin
Rick Rakin
6,531 Points

Brackets Sprint has a really cool mouse over preview feature.

I tried 2 or 3 different text editors. Going to buck the popular trend by saying IDEs are better. Netbeans is my favorite to code in, but mostly because it was an arbitrary first choice among many.

IDEs might seem bloated to some users, like driving around in a mobile home compared to the motorcycle that might be Sublime Text 2, but I think it's worth it with all the extra power it has. Plus designing websites never seems to be a leisurely 2 or 3 hour tour in my limited experience so far. I code on a zippy, multi-monitor desktop with tons of ram so the extra second or so to boot up the program is almost unnoticeable anyway.

Stergios Kontogiannis
PLUS
Stergios Kontogiannis
Courses Plus Student 1,642 Points
Stergios Kontogiannis
Stergios Kontogiannis
Courses Plus Student 1,642 Points

I recently got a new mac and tried both Coda 2 and Sublime Text 2. It seems that i like sublime more but i think it's just a personal preference. Use a trial for both and see what you like more.

Luisa Nino
Luisa Nino
1,532 Points
Luisa Nino
Luisa Nino
1,532 Points

I started with Sublime Text when I subscribed to Treehouse and I haven't tried any others. I do commit the unspeakable sin of editing my CSS directly in wordpress (on my child theme).

Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points
Alex Hedley
Alex Hedley
16,381 Points

Textastic is good, Mac and iOS

http://www.textasticapp.com

I used TextMate for a while: http://macromates.com

Josue Sandoval
Josue Sandoval
946 Points
Josue Sandoval
Josue Sandoval
946 Points

Thank you guys so many different options to try. Which of these text editors have some of these features?

  1. Lets say I type <div c. In Dreamweaver it would automatically show me a list of classes and I just click it. If I would have typed <div s. It would have gave me an option list. If I select style it would automatically show a long list of different styles that you just click on for example padding-top etc... after this I can just type m and select margin etc...

  2. Auto close tags. Not really important but it would be nice.

Tj Dhavale
Tj Dhavale
1,921 Points

Coda 2 does all of these. Also lets you make up your own shortcuts using system prefs.

Danh Hoang
Danh Hoang
10,967 Points
Danh Hoang
Danh Hoang
10,967 Points

Sublime does auto complete as well. Download the demo now and try it out. That's free.

Chris Roberts
Chris Roberts
493 Points
Chris Roberts
Chris Roberts
493 Points

I used Coda for a while (Started with Coda, upgraded to Coda 2) and sang its praises loud and clear until a few months ago when I used Sublime Text 2 for the first time. Great editor, I love it.

Coming from Dreamweaver (good call, BTW, to look for a new editor), Coda would likely be the easier transition but I think it would be worth the time to learn Sublime Text. A little bit of time spent learning the editor will save you a lot of time in the long run because of all of its time saving features.