Developing with EE and Espresso
Well, sure, most of us sip on our favorite caffeinated beverage while coding up an ExpressionEngine website. But that’s not what I’m talking about here.
There’s a new text editor in town for Mac OS X and it’s called Espresso. From the creators of CSS Edit, Espresso is aimed at web developers (like you!) and features a clean look, publication and synchronization tools.
Recently a public beta has been made available, so everyone is able to download Espresso and try it out for themselves. And I’ve been doing just that.
I’ve temporarily replaced my usual text editor, TextMate, with Espresso so I could I run it through its paces. I’ve been impressed with the app, but I’m not sure I’d switch just yet.
As a long-time user of TextMate, Espresso is hard to get used to and I find it lacks in shortcuts and keystrokes like I have in TextMate. But, text editors are a very individual choice, so my experience may not be yours.
If you do try out Espresso, you should also download the ExpressionEngine Sugar, which will do code highlighting and code snippets (just like there is in TextMate and Coda).
Anyone else trying out Espresso? What are your experiences?
Posted on Jan 03, 2009 by Ryan Irelan
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luxuryluke — 20:56 on 01.03.2009
They’ve got a great forum for feedback and feature requests and development is still a heavy road ahead for this two-student team that developed the “Don’t-That-Just-Beat-All” CSS editor a few years back and that is still king (in my book).
Panic’s Coda had some mixed reviews and some rave reviews when it came out and from what I gathered, there was probably some discussion between Jan and Cabel about integrating the CSS engine into Coda, which fell through. I could be mistaken as it’s been awhile since that went down. It is good that there is competition in the market, too.
As for the ExpressionEngine sugar for Espresso, it seems to work quite well, and it’s great to see that both Coda and Espresso have sprouted the idea of plugins to provide the major feature sets for each. I think it’s a great way to get app developers involved in the success of the app.
Let’s hope MacRabbit sprouts a massive carrot with Espresso. I’m anxious to see it give Coda a run for it’s money. But it’s still way too early to tell.
Jonathan Longnecker — 07:57 on 01.05.2009
I tried it out for a few minutes…since Espresso doesn’t seem to be able to edit files on the server right now it’s of limited use isn’t it? Am I missing something?
Ryan Irelan — 11:44 on 01.05.2009
That was my experience, too, Jonathan.
I think it would be very helpful if there was at least _some_ documentation, so we could figure out what (if anything) we’re missing while giving the app a test drive.
Jim — 15:16 on 01.05.2009
I’m a huge fan of TextMate as well, but also a GIANT fan of CSSEdit, so I think I’m in the same boat as you.
If they make it as wonderful as CSSEdit is to use then I’ll definitely switch
Sean — 02:29 on 01.06.2009
Just noticed your “post to twitter” button - how’d you do that?
Angie — 09:54 on 01.06.2009
I’ve come to realize that I’m a die-hard Textmate fan. But I also know its got its shortcomings (mainly UI issues for me personally). So I tried Espresso temporarily and I just couldn’t get the hang of it. The keyboard shortcuts (as you mention) in TM (and the fact that they’ve become 2nd nature to me) are priceless. I did give it a good go though.
Anthony Short — 00:12 on 01.07.2009
Thanks for mentioning the ExpressionEngine sugar. It’s still got a fair way to go and theres plenty of kinks to work out, but its definitely got the best autocomplete for EE out of all the text editors.
You can keep up to date with the latest version on the Coffee House: http://fileability.net/coffee/ It’s going to change a fair bit on the way to Espresso 1.0.
I’m yet to receive any feedback from real EE users yet
B1G — 09:34 on 10.23.2009
I’m an EE user (and BIG fan!) with the gorgeous TextMate and testing Espresso.
The only thing that bothers me is the shortcut/keystroke for switching through tabs/files. In TextMate it’s a very easy keycombo, though in Espresso it’s not that swift at all.