EditPlus - The Greatest Text Editor
April 3, 2006 | 9 Comments
EditPlus is unmatched in a crowded space of desktop text editors.
This is an application which gracefully handles syntax highlighting for any imaginable programming language. Part of the strength here is in the simplicity of defining highlighting rules. They are all defined in easy to understand text files which are a breeze to modify or supplement. Of course all the common ones are built-in (C, C++, Java, Java Script, PHP, Perl, ASP, HTML, CSS, etc) but there are also a ton of user contributed languages (Maya, Quake 2, Ada, QBasic, FoxPro, LaTex, and so many more).
For those who are interested, it also supports auto-completion files in a similar manner.
Another major win is it’s ability to handle remote files through SFTP (or FTP) in such a way that they are no more difficult to work with than a local file. Other text editors try to accomplish and at least succeed at having the feature, but I’ve seen none that are as seamless to work with.
Keyboard shortcuts can be user defined, so any operation you find yourself doing regularly can quickly be mapped to your favorite keystroke. A huge win for developers.
Finally, the regular expression find and replace has made ad-hoc manipulation of text files something I can do without even thinking about it. All the fantastic abilities that surround this functionality add greatly to my comfort level with the product.
Unfortunately, I have on e criticism. There is no Mac version… This is most unfortunate to me, because EditPlus is the last reason I have for using Windows.
If you aren’t already using EditPlus, and you are on a PC, try this text editor for awhile. You won’t be sorry.
Tags: css, edit plus, editor, editplus, ide, php, regular expression, sftp, shortcut, syntax highlighting, text editor
Behaviour, Return of Clean HTML
March 9, 2006 | 1 Comment
As we’ve begun adopting Ajax, JSON, and similar JavaScript heavy technologies a problem quickly arose. Suddenly our clean HTML was being cluttered with tons of script tags, onclicks, and other various event handling functions. Trying to extract this logic back out of the HTML was a definite desire for us.
Enter Behaviour.
Behaviour uses CSS selectors to specify what elements to apply JS handlers to.
Check out these demos. View the source and you’ll see clean markup that is free of logic. This allows us to step back and once again fully separate the presentation layer from the application layer.
Tags: AJAX, behavior, behaviour, css, functions, html, javascript, js, JSON, programming, web, web 2.0, web development, web20, xhtml
Cheat Sheets
August 5, 2005 | 40 Comments
I love cheat sheets or euphemistiically, quick references. I find myself becoming quite familiar with something, then not using it for 6 months. After time away from something like that a cheat sheet is the best way of getting back up to speed quickly. Also, good cheat sheets sometimes show me features or functionality I wasn’t previously familiar with. Consider this Cliff Notes for technology.
JavaScript, MySQL, mod_rewrite, CSS, and PHP(Thanks Casey)
VI (PDF)
Perl Regular expressions (PDF)
Java (PDF) (Not so quick…)
Update 2/20/06:
Prototype JS Library - from BorkWeb.
Still looking for a good one on Oracle and always looking for better ones. Also check this site for some more, though I’m not real excited about most of them.
Tags: cheat sheet, cheat sheets, cheatsheet, cheatsheets, cliff notes, css, development, java, javascript, mod_rewrite, mysql, oracle, perl, php, quick guides, quick reference, regular expressions, vi, web, web development