Shawn Blanc examines Panic's Coda

1. The CSS Editor can't even come close to CSSEdit.
2. The text editor is less robust than TextMate.
3. The integrated FTP has less features than Panic's own Transmit.
4. Books are useless
5. I already have a terminal.
6. It can't detect changes made to files outside the app
7. There's no live dedicated preview window (eg. CSS Edit)
8. There's no site-wide find and replace
9. The DOM inspector doesn't highlight code
10. Code coloring is still buggy.

Those ten reasons should keep me away from this app yet I find myself using it daily. Why? Because there's really nothing else like it. DreamWeaver is bloated, GoLive is dead and I don't like Freeway. Everything else on the Mac is either template based (Rapidweaver/iWeb) or more focused on app development. Coda is about the only tool that almost sorta caters to me.

It's far from perfect but it works for me.

I am not a hard core web site programmer - I maintain a dozen or so websites, a few of them rather dynamic. Before I was working with BBedit, Fugu, Terminal and Browser to develop, test etc. my code. Then, I stumbled over Coda, and loved it from the beginning. Sure, there are some real shortcomings on the text editor side - not being able to search in all existing files of a specific folder for a word or so. But, then I still have my copy of BBedit.

But now, almost everything I have to do to develop and maintain my website I can do in one single program. And that's really a big adventure. You change a word in a file - and it's a single click to get it over to the surfer. The whole user interface is really attractive. So, I admit: I love Coda. But, I would add too: I love to see some updates... :-)

Lean Back and Relax - Enjoy some Nature Photography
http://photoblog.la-famille-schwarzer.de

On a semi-related workflow issue, I find whether I use dreamweaver or use a combination of textmate, and CSSEdit, the big bottle neck is still testing for IE.

This being more of a hassle of course being on a mac. How are you guys testing for it? (In my case its testing CSS).

Parallels? VM Ware? What have you found to be the most efficient workflow?

For the past few years, I've been quietly developing some new and exciting web authoring tools. Not available yet, but hopefully soon. Trust me they will blow your socks off. My central reason 4 developing these tools in the first place, and always will, is to provide developers with tools to make websites more accessible and fun to build. Anyway, the do-all-fit-all single app web authoring will be possible someday. It's just not here yet.

Robert
Zoshe Foundation
http://www.zoshe.net

"we don't know what will"

Are you serious? Coda might suffice for guys managing mostly static sites, but it falls painfully short when it comes to building dynamic sites. Its code editor doesn't hold a candle to TextMate, and for those of us who aren't Transmit whipping-boys, the FTP client comes up short, too. One-window is great in theory, but for this coder the result isn't any larger than the sum of its parts.

Isn't Coda made by Panic, not by Coda???