Vim The number one choice for probably the majority of programmers these days, is the most complete code-editing tool around. It uses much less memory than its rivals, it’s open source, and can be used remotely via SSH. Related: That’s not all.

Vim works on all Unix platforms (so Windows and Linux as well), and is brimming with keyboard shortcuts that make writing long chunks of code a cinch. It may seem like a lot to take in, but all the shortcuts are designed to be memorable (so d for ‘delete,’ obviously), making Vim rather accessible. With its vast community churning out a constant procession of plug-ins and add-ons, Vim is a vast, flexible tool that can be used for many of the most popular coding environments (C, Python, you name it). It’s number one for a reason. Sublime Text One of the best and simplest coding tools ever available to Mac users. Is a notepad-like application that lets you write your code, highlight certain parts using its various syntax detecting algorithms and so on. The app has a number of features including Goto Anything, Multiple Selections, Command Palette, etc.

If you think the other apps or things are distracting you while doing your coding work, then you can enable the distraction-free writing mode. It disables everything except for the area where you write your code.

Sublime Text is not free, though you can download the free trial version and it never seem to expires. Nevertheless, if you use and love Sublime Text, it is always good to purchase the license and support the development. The app is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. BBEdit This is yet another nice tool for coding programs. Says it does not suck, and that probably means something good for the coders. The app has a nice interface identical to Sublime Text.

The app seems to be inclined towards those who do a lot of HTML coding, and maybe that is why there are a number of options to manipulate webpages in the app. It contains FTP and SFTP support, so there is no issue with uploading your files to your server as soon as you are done writing them. Sounds cool, huh?

TextMate Do you have a load of coding work that needs to be done in a short span of time? Is available to help you out.

The app makes coding much easier on your Mac than ever with a number of features it comes preloaded with. Syntax highlighting, Multiple Tabs, and Search and Replace are some of the salient features of the app. If you missed closing a bracket, that happens most of the time you are coding; it completes it automatically for you. So the next time you write a program, there is much less of a chance that it will have errors.

Brackets What is it that you use most often while writing code? Yes, you are right. It is brackets. By Adobe brings a powerful tool for you to code the next big thing. The app is actually built for HTML coders who build hundreds of webpages a day, or maybe even more. It highlights the syntax making it easier for you to find your code blocks and errors and comes with a Live HTML Development that shows the output of your code without having you save or refresh the page.

That is really something cool about this app, isn’t it? Textastic for Mac is a simple, yet faster, coding tool that delivers what it promises. With features like Auto Completion, it auto-completes some of your code that you would otherwise have to do yourself, saving you some time that you could use to do something else. While most of the other features remain the same as the apps above, it includes a new feature called iCloud syncing. What it does is let you sync your code across your various Mac machines so that you can pick up where you left off easily.

There is some very nice software out there for creating and editing CSS files. Since I'm mostly a Mac guy, this review is Mac focused, but I would love to hear about Windows CSS editors if anyone has anything to share. It's all about the best tool for the job, after all.

Available from for $19.95. Xyle Scope takes the approach of a completely visual CSS editor. Essentially it's a web browser that enables you to select elements right on the page. The sidebar of the window will 'drill-down' and display the HTML and CSS of whatever element you have selected. You are able to make edits right on the fly and see their effects.

This is a very powerful feature and is an awesome tool for troubleshooting borked layouts. In fact, Xyle Scope has become my go-to tool for quick troubleshooting. Xyle Scope has a couple of weaknesses. For one, it's not really a 'CSS Editor'. There is no traditional 'code view' and no way to save out CSS that you have edited on a non-local site. This makes it much more a trouble shooting tool than a full blown editor.

I think that was kind of the intention, hence 'Scope'. The other weakness is that it is basically Safari as far as web rendering goes. So troubleshooting is basically limited to an already-decent browser.

Even if you make changes and then 'Preview' in a different browser, those changes don't hold so it's kind of pointless. Available from the for $29.95. The biggest strength of CSS Edit is that it is truly a full-blown feature-rich CSS editing powerhouse. The editing window is the best around, featuring a left sidebar of all your selectors, a middle pane of the 'code' view, and a right sidebar of a super easy to use click-buttons-to-edit style editor. Combining all of this into a single editor window is a great move. I don't really like the simplified editors if I can't see what it is actually doing to the code.

CSS Edit is absolutely loaded with cool features like built-in code validation, easy commenting, 'grouping' of selectors, search, and milestones management. But what makes CSS Edit great in my opinion is are two big features. Override and Extract.

Override gives you the ability to go to any webpage and start playing around with the CSS right on that site and see the effects. This can be useful on your own sites to do some tweaking and figure out ways to make your site look better, or be used on other people sites to understand their ways and make adjustments.

Override is also particularly powerful because it allows you do make edits and changes to CSS that affects dynamic content without having to 'go commando'. Extract is similar, it allows you to literally yank the CSS right out of any page on the internet. You can then save it out, and use it however you wish. It's kind of funny to think about. It kind of feels like it could be a copyright violation, but I don't think it is as long as you aren't stealing images along with it. This is a fantastic way to pick apart other peoples techniques and apply then to your own sites. No other software out there makes 'extracting' CSS so easy.

The biggest weakness of CSS Edit is that is a full-blown feature-rich CSS editing powerhouse. If you already know what you are doing, sometimes a big heavy application isn't what you want. Personally, CSS Edit is too much for me, and I only really use it for extractions, getting to know really foreign CSS, and sometimes just for fun =).

Available for, by Joe Hewitt. Firebug is a Firefox extension, not independent software. It installs a little icon in the bottom bar of your browser window that is basically in one of two states. A little green checkmark if the page you are viewing is in good shape, or a red X if there are problems with the site. Clicking the icon opens up the editor area. For being 'just a Firefox extension' Firebug is extremely powerful. Much like either of the previous programs, you can go into 'inspect' mode which enables you to mouse over page elements and view their HTML and CSS.

You can edit EITHER the CSS or the HTML on-the-fly and see the effect on the page. You can view the code in either a drill-down format with little arrows to open and close sections or as-is. You can even view the CSS in 'layout' mode so you can see the offset, margin, border, padding and size of any element. I find Firebug amazingly powerful as well as convenient, since you never even have to leave your web browser. Firebug shares some of the weakness of Xyle Scope.

It is limited in it's preview capacity, since it only runs in Firefox. You can't save out your modifications. Because of these things, Firebug is much more of a troubleshooting tool than an actual editor. However, because of Firebug's extra features like DOM analysis, javascript errors and validation Firebug is my troubleshooting tool of choice. Coda is available from for $79. Coda is the new kid on the block and the big-daddy of web development in my opinion. Coda has a built-in CSS editor much like CSS Edit with the selector area and the click-buttons-to-edit area.

There is no split-view for looking at the code at the same time, but it is very easy to pop back and forth between the CSS view and the Edit view. Coda has nice code-highlighting like the Mac-favorite text editor TextMate. It also sports a built-in preview area for seeing the results of your changes right away.

This suites me very well because my preferred CSS editing technique is to look at and edit code in a regular text editor, save it, and see the changes. What really makes Coda shine though is everything else that it does.

It is an amazing FTP client with the ability to save your sites in a very visually appealing way. The split-view FTP/Edit Window was a stroke of genius and is the future of web development. It has a terminal program built right in for shell access to your severs. Last but not least, it has reference manuals for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP built right in for quick lookups. Coda is beautifully designed an incredibly adaptable and adjustable. For all these reasons Coda is where I spend 90% of my coding time. Cheers to Panic for this home-run product.

Thanks for the “review” I was just about to ask for your openion on which was best when i remembered what the penny-arcade and hotspot(gamespot podcast) say about reviewers a score is not the most helpfull. So Thanks for giving me what i need to make a buying decision. I only recently got a gig with an ftp server. Does coda do smb?

Source Code Editor Free

I am trying to get the hang of css and im wondering if coda is what i want or should i just get cssedit and contenue using vim/textWrangler. (or as i call it BBEdit light) I don’t have ssh access to the server im working with, would that make coda’s terminal moot? @Michael Looking for a good css editor for the pc. Does anyone know of any? Before switching to Mac full time, when I was on the PC, I was using TopStyle for Windows. To be perfectly honest, I wish they’d make a Mac version of it one of these days, but hands down it’s the best XHTML/CSS editor on the PC simply because of it’s simplicity, live previews, and panel previews (seeing both IE and Firefox at the same time).

Source Code Edit Software For Mac

I think the Lite version is free and just a simple CSS editor, so it might be worth checking out.