The Issue
While I’m still new to EE I find the page development options a bit lacking. Editing files in the browser proves difficult most times, especially when your used to an editor like TextMate or skEdit. Almost equally annoying (in my opinion) is when using the ‘save templates as text files’ feature there are minor extra steps to get the file saved in EE. Now don’t get me wrong, the current system works. It’s just I feel like there are speed bumps that just slow down the process when building website.

The Question
While the next version of EE address working with external editors in a better way? I know you EE guys (and gals) are busy with a bunch of other cool features. I guess, to me, this is one of those daily things that could be improved.

A Solution?
The only thing I could think of that might work as a solution is to have a “Developer Watch Folder”. Inspired by the idea of CodeIgniter’s scaffolding feature which the developer enables during his/her development; it allows you to quickly add content to a table quickly through the browser. While what I’m thinking of isn’t directly related to that feature it does pull from the concept of having a feature in EE that is enabled during development and then disabled when live.

I’m thinking it could work like this: I as a web developer would enable this feature in the EE CP and start developing. The main folder that EE watches could be named by the developer (much like CI’s scaffolding secret word) in the CP. Template groups would appear as folders under that main folder. Under each template group you place the files. EE would see these new files or changed files and then import the file into the db (like the update feature but automated) replacing earlier version right away. This could make it feel like your normal development with FTP. After development of the site is complete the developer could disable the feature and make minor tweaks and changes via the browser interface.

Anyway, the idea is rough and probably not well thought out but I’d like to see editing files in EE get improved. Not sure if this is the best way to do it or if it makes sense at all. If nothing else maybe a good discussion will follow.

Hi Backspace,

that’s a very interesting idea. I’ll see what the dev team thinks.

In the short term there is a really, really easy low-cost way to use EE with external editor’s on a Mac.

1. Get Saft for Safari.
2. In the template form field right click and select “Open In” and choose your favorite editor.

Basically Saft allows you to take any text in a form and open it in a external editor. When you save in the editor the form field is updated in the browser (updated meaning the text area is updated, it is not the same as clicking update on the template page). When you’ve made all your changes just hit update on the template and there you go. You’ll have to reopen the template every time you click update on the template page but while this seems a small hassle at first what it does is give you reliable backups (assuming you have template revisions turned on).

This makes developing on EE incredibly easy for Mac users and I’ve used with BBEdit and TextMate. I believe there is also a FireFox plugin that does something similar but I don’t recall the name. If you use Safari you should own Saft anyway since it has a bunch of extremely useful features.

If a template is saved as a file, EE reads it instead of the one in the DB, so you don’t have to press the edit button unless you want to synchronize the DB with the file or keep a revision.

What I do is use the FTP client Transmit for Mac, double click on a template file, edit it in Dreamweaver 8, when I save it in DW in fact Transmit transparently updates the file on the server and EE instantly uses the new file, without me accessing the CP.

Backspace, what do you mean by “when using the ‘save templates as text files’ feature there are minor extra steps to get the file saved in EE” ? I just edit live on the server generally and its easy as pie. Do you mean syncing the templates with the EE DB? Maybe a “Sync to files -> DB” or “Sync DB -> files” buttons would do the trick? Or a cron script that would run every so often..

Leslie, I am on a mac so thanks for the tip!

Sim, That’s interesting. I had assumed it would work that way when I was testing it but it didn’t seem to work for me. I must be mistaken.

Luke, Yeah, I just meant having to go the browser, navigate to the template and hit the update button. I mean there are times I’m debugging an issue and have use a little trial/error to figure out the problem. In that case, making a small change, uploading it, navigate to the template, update the template, and testing the page (and doing it multiple times) can get to be tiresome and annoying. Anyway, your asking if I meant ‘syncing the templates to the db’. Yes, I thought that it was necessary to sync it with the DB. I just went back and reread the documentation on that feature and it looks like I have misread it. But for some reason, surely my own stupidity, just uploading the file before didn’t work. I’ll have to test this some more. Maybe it was a server issue. I’m not sure.

Thanks guys for your help. I feel sheepish now.

Does somebody know the name of the alternative for Saft that works with Firefox?

The one that I remember most clearly is Scribe however I bet browsing the Firefox extensions site would yield others. =)

The one I use with Firefox is It’s All Text.