Thread

You know…. I had no idea… I have had Coda for a year now and never use it because I didn’t get it. That video helped me “get” it. Once I get through my current haze of projects I may give it a go just to see if it fits.

Thanks!
M.

Ron,
CSSEdit has earned it’s stripes. Purchased. It should be fun working with this new tag-team. Thanks for the heads up.

Deeper,
I’ll put something together this weekend if I can stay on top of my school work this week. I don’t foresee any issues though so check my site on Monday.

CSSEdit has earned it’s stripes. Purchased. It should be fun working with this new tag-team. Thanks for the heads up.

Funny circle we got goin’ here. I’ve had Coda for a couple of years and just never stuck my toe in deep enough to swim around. Now it’s bumped BBEdit out of the work flow. Thanks.

I have been using coda for years, but it’s not the best tool for developing ee websites. The problem is that when you update your CSS in coda, you still have to log in to your ee control panel, go to to the templates, replace the old css with the updated version, save and reload the website.

In CSSEdit you don’t have to do this. You make a change to your ee CSS and you can see that change instantly without having to replace the CSS in ee templates (or even without reloading your site).

Huge difference in work flow and time spent in fine tuning your CSS code!!!

zen, i love cssedit as much as many of you, but there is no difference to how you work in either app when it comes to working offline. both have the ability to preview changes offline.

now you can export your templates from ee to work within pretty much any editor and publish directly to the server for live previews. derek did a nice article about it that can be found here ››

zen, i love cssedit as much as many of you, but there is no difference to how you work in either app when it comes to working offline. both have the ability to preview changes offline.

Actually, I think there are some notable differences, most of which lean in CSSEdit’s favor. The preview function in CSSEdit is more robust (even Panic admits to a ‘refresh’ problem with some static CSS files in preview, which I’ve run into regularly). CSSEdit can also pull a live, online site’s HTML code into WebKit for preview, then download and override the site’s CSS files. Editing the CSS appears to be ‘live’ and the preview is instant. CSS can be modified accordingly, then becomes a simple copy and paste (or save) to update an entire site’s CSS files. Panic’s CSS implementation is crude by comparison (but allows for editing inline CSS). CSS cannot be edited as live code from the point and click tools without opening yet another window. That’s a bit cumbersome, too. CSSEdit cleans up code quite nicely, making for easier editing, but doesn’t compress code (though it uncompresses compressed code). Coda requires 3rd party plugins for similar functions (sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t). If you use the two, Coda and CSSEdit, regularly, it’s easy to see why the folks at Panic originally wanted to put CSSEdit into Coda. I’ve finally managed to supplant BBEdit with Coda in my workflow. Coda gets the early nod for development because of those three windows—code, CSS, preview. But once the basic layout and CSS are complete, all the tweaking comes via CSSEdit. Not incorporating Espresso’s coding and management capability into CSSEdit (or, the reverse) was a huge mistake by MacRabbit.

Not incorporating Espresso’s coding and management capability into CSSEdit (or, the reverse) was a huge mistake by MacRabbit.

Time will tell. I’m sure MacRabbit has heard us loud and clear on that one. Here’s hoping they incorporate CSSEdit’s functionality into Expresso. Then we’d have the option of buying CSSEdit as a stand-alone product, or go for the whole shebang and pick up Expresso. Besides, Expresso is still young compared to even Coda, so I’ll give it some time.

Coda, on the other hand, is great for roughing out the site in the initial stages as well as upkeep once a site is live, but it does fall short during the tweaking phase. CSSEdit jumped right in front of Firefox/Firebug/WebDevbar to fill that void though.

Coda + CSSEdit = Awesome 1-2 combo.

Coda + CSSEdit = Awesome 1-2 combo.

Agreed.

Regarding MacRabbit’s delightful and elegant CSSEdit and the disturbing Espresso, I sometimes wonder what goes wrong in a company that releases a product that everyone loves, then follows it up with a product that is universally panned.

Then I remember the Apple II, followed up by the Apple III.

Sigh.

Have any of you Coda user (I have not yet decide between Coda and TM) manage to get the “Look up in reference” to work. I have added EE user guide (Thanks for the image, James ). But when command double-click on a ee word I end up on Google’s startpage with a empty search field.

//magnus

Actually, I think there are some notable differences, most of which lean in CSSEdit’s favor. The preview function in CSSEdit is more robust (even Panic admits to a ‘refresh’ problem with some static CSS files in preview, which I’ve run into regularly). CSSEdit can also pull a live, online site’s HTML code into WebKit for preview, then download and override the site’s CSS files. Editing the CSS appears to be ‘live’ and the preview is instant. CSS can be modified accordingly, then becomes a simple copy and paste (or save) to update an entire site’s CSS files. Panic’s CSS implementation is crude by comparison (but allows for editing inline CSS). CSS cannot be edited as live code from the point and click tools without opening yet another window. That’s a bit cumbersome, too. CSSEdit cleans up code quite nicely, making for easier editing, but doesn’t compress code (though it uncompresses compressed code). Coda requires 3rd party plugins for similar functions (sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t). If you use the two, Coda and CSSEdit, regularly, it’s easy to see why the folks at Panic originally wanted to put CSSEdit into Coda. I’ve finally managed to supplant BBEdit with Coda in my workflow. Coda gets the early nod for development because of those three windows—code, CSS, preview. But once the basic layout and CSS are complete, all the tweaking comes via CSSEdit. Not incorporating Espresso’s coding and management capability into CSSEdit (or, the reverse) was a huge mistake by MacRabbit.

you won’t get any arguments from me regarding the merits of cssedit. i do agree that it is a better tool for css, but i think you are splitting hairs here when it comes to overall work flow. yes, i love and miss the ability to edit from a url, but let’s not mistake that for true inline editing. in either situation, assuming your not working directly with templates on the server, you will have to copy changes made and paste them into ee control panel from either environment. the only distinction for me that i recall in coda is that you have to save changes to view them in a display pane which can be open side by side within the same window as your css code. command save is not that much of a deal breaker for me since it does allow for undos.

Regarding MacRabbit’s delightful and elegant CSSEdit and the disturbing Espresso, I sometimes wonder what goes wrong in a company that releases a product that everyone loves, then follows it up with a product that is universally panned.

Unfortunately, I can’t make the call on Expresso since my MacBook is running Tiger at the moment. I have to take everyone else’s word - but I’m itching to get a hands-on with Expresso and see what all the beef is. What was it about Expresso that irked everyone so much (aside from the fact that the CSS mode didn’t stack up to CSSEdit)? How did everything else function?

Have any of you Coda user (I have not yet decide between Coda and TM) manage to get the “Look up in reference” to work. I have added EE user guide (Thanks for the image, James ). But when command double-click on a ee word I end up on Google’s startpage with a empty search field.

//magnus

You’re welcome Magnus.

I added

<a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=&as_sitesearch=expressionengine.com/docs/&x=0&y=0">http://www.google.com/search?q=&as_sitesearch=expressionengine.com/docs/&x=0&y=0</a>

to the search url field. Works like a charm.

Thanks James.

Added a star (*) after “...search?q=” and it worked perfect. 😊

//magnus

zen, i love cssedit as much as many of you, but there is no difference to how you work in either app when it comes to working offline. both have the ability to preview changes offline.

now you can export your templates from ee to work within pretty much any editor and publish directly to the server for live previews. derek did a nice article about it that can be found here ››

I think this has already been noted in other posts, but just in case I am missing something here. In CSSEdit, you don’t “export” the template and there is no need to “publish” it back to your server to preview the changes. What happens is CSSEdit extracts the CSS from the site, creates a local copy and uses that to override the online CSS. You also don’t refresh the preview, all changes that you make to the CSS file are reflected in your preview live.

Am I missing something about Coda? Can it do this as well???

Am I missing something about Coda? Can it do this as well???

Nope.

That’s one of the really beautiful features in CSSEdit. Using WebKit, CSSEdit allows you to enter any site’s URL, download the site to the browser window, download the site’s CSS, and edit the CSS (again, that’s of any site) in a live preview (not live to the internet, just to CSSEdit).

That feature alone is worth the price of admission.

Otherwise, CSSEdit is a nice CSS editor and not much more. That implementation of preview works seamlessly, though not without an omission or two. It won’t download and edit inline CSS. On the other hand, Coda will do that but has consistent trouble editing static file CSS linked to by an HTML document (YMMV, of course).