Filed under: Software, Developer
Take a shot of Espresso 1.0
We first started hearing about MacRabbit's Espresso back in September; six months, a public beta and countless cups of coffee later, Espresso 1.0 is finally ready for sipping!MacRabbit, makers of the award-winning CSSEdit, parlayed the idea of an HTMLEdit companion app into an all around web development app. Right now, Espresso supports HTML, CSS, XML, JavaScript and PHP -- but utilizing plugins (Sugars), Espresso can support more languages and platforms.
Similar to Panic's Coda (another TUAW favorite), you can also directly publish from the app, using FTP, SFTP, FTP/SSL and Amazon S3.
Espresso shares many interface similarities with CSSEdit and the presentation is very, very polished. If you're comfortable with CSSEdit, Espresso will likely fit comfortably into your workflow.
We'll be reviewing Espresso in-depth soon and doing some head-to-head action to see how it stacks up against Coda and TextMate.
Espresso is 59.95€ (about $80 US) and 49.95€ ($68 US) for existing CSSEdit 2 customers. You can try Espresso without limitations for 15 days. Espresso requires OS X 10.5 Leopard or higher.
Thanks Nik!
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Adam said 4:10PM on 3-23-2009
I'm very curious to see how this measures up against Coda.
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balls said 5:57PM on 3-23-2009
Buy Curious?
Jason said 4:19PM on 3-23-2009
The first thing I noticed is that Espresso has a "Save All" feature (for all open/edited files), whereas Coda does not.
Coda devs: please, please!, please! add this critical (yet simple) feature.
Espresso has a very nice look and feel.
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darkermatter said 4:16AM on 3-24-2009
What, you mean like Command-Option-S?
Jason said 11:13AM on 3-24-2009
Yes, ~exactly~ like that very handy tip. That'll save hundreds of keystrokes a day.
But why the eff is it not available in any menu, in the "List of Keyboard Shortcuts", or in any Help doc? Something as important as Save All should be documented and obvious in the UI.
Anyway, thanks for the tip. Major help.
Jash Sayani said 4:28PM on 3-23-2009
I just got a mail from MacRabbit as was checking out the features of Espresso. Its a really nice app but the price is too steep! I guess, Smultron and CSSEdit can replace it....
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bill cant fart said 4:40PM on 3-23-2009
I really like that icon!
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required said 5:46PM on 3-23-2009
Looks like it it wants to be the Java logo.
balls said 5:56PM on 3-23-2009
Hopefully we get this in a macheist bundle. CSS Edit is win.
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Jash Sayani said 12:43PM on 3-24-2009
Yeah, I hope so too!
Caitlin said 8:14PM on 3-23-2009
I would really like to switch to Espresso for the code completion and for the fact that it seems pretty solid.
But until Sugar creation becomes much easier (ideally a direct import of Textmate's bundles), I won't use it.
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Pradador said 8:18PM on 3-23-2009
I just gave it a try and it's a good start. I like the navigator and the code folding which Coda is sorely missing. I also really like the theme they are using by default.
Unfortunately the lack of SVN integration will keep me from exploring or switching to the app any time soon :-o.
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Luigi193 said 8:21PM on 3-23-2009
I was a beta tester for this... then they stopped sending me betas...
The end.
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Russ said 8:25PM on 3-23-2009
not yet ready for production!
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TinyElvis said 8:42PM on 3-23-2009
What is your goal? Basically Jungledisk backs up the Amazon's S3 on a schedule but only backs up changed items once the initial backup is complete. You could set the backup to occur every hour (which is about the same time period as time machine). Or are you looking for an instant solution that once a file is modified or added it is backed up instantly?
Or are you looking for a service that versions items like Time Machine?
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TinyElvis said 8:45PM on 3-23-2009
That is what happens when 1password goes crazy...
I just wanted to say I have been using the product and was hoping 1.0 would add more than 1 feature than the beta. I want this product to be so much better and it could be, but falls way too short. Here's hoping a new version of Coda can pull me away from Dreamweaver.
Nick From Montreal said 8:57PM on 3-23-2009
Give them some time. This kind of "Studio" app takes a long time to finish. Plus, since it's aimed at designers/coders there is *no* way they can please everybody.
- Nick -
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Joey said 8:59PM on 3-23-2009
Espresso is a solid editor but I still think MacRabbit missed out on a great opportunity here by excluding CSSEdit's feature set. That said, here are my editor-specific problems with 1.0:
1. Live preview doesn't work from a local server.
2. Window settings are on a per file basis. Forget arranging the width of the navigator sidebar and the height of publish because you'll have to do it for every single file. Heck even the snippet type (standard/user) is per file.
3. No way to open up CSS files with CSSEdit from within the Espresso. You'll have to use Coda for that feature, I guess.
4. Sometimes tabs are tabs, sometimes they're files in a list. It depends on how you create them (and oddly selecting new tab isn't how you make a new tab.)
Other than that it's a great start. Hopefully it matures quickly into a tool that I can use on a daily basis. Until then I'm sticking with Coda.
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Vijay said 9:39PM on 3-23-2009
Coda is worthless. I haven't actually tried it out for myself, but my friend bought Coda and he said it was a less efficient version of the Terminal, CSSEdit, etc combined. He said he constantly had to use the mouse to change the mode as opposed to just Command-tabbing.
Reaching for your mouse is really irritating..
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Joey said 10:18PM on 3-23-2009
"He said he constantly had to use the mouse to change the mode as opposed to just Command-tabbing."
Sounds like your friend really didn't use Coda either. Command 1 through 6 toggles between all the key features of the program. And while not every single aspect of Coda has a key equivalent, it is fairly keyboard friendly.
Now I'm not going to defend Coda's workflow (Panic is well aware of the issues) but I would suggest that you test Coda for yourself before declaring it worthless. It's certainly not for everyone but passing judgement without using it doesn't help anyone at all. ;-)