Espresso: One-Window Web Developing
OS X gives you all the tools you need to make a Web site. However, using Apple’s TextEdit, all you see is the text, no syntax highlighting, organization of anything else. Then, a while ago, Coda was released, and gave us a great interface and IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the Internet. Now, there is a new kid on the block that directly competes with Coda. It is Espresso by MacRabbit.
Espresso is a one-window app. Everything that can be done is done in its main window. There are three sections to this window: Workspace, Project and Publish. There are also project settings which can be found in the toolbar.
The Workspace section is…well your workspace. This is where you want to put the files you want to work on, or previews of different pages. Instead of having to go through a file structure on the sidebar, you just drag-and-drop important files here, and they’ll stay here. This is also where all previews you generate will go. You can also add a new item to your workspace by going to File>New Tab. If you have a file selected (in the Project section), it will put that file into your workspace. If no file is selected, it will add a blank file to your workspace. To go through items in your workspace, just hit Command-} (Select the next item) and Command-{ (Select the previous tab). To remove an item from this list, just put your moue over it, and then click the (x) that appears. You can also rearrange this list just by dragging. The Workspace is really helpful if you are dealing with many files and many previews, because it provides easy access to the ones you want to access.
The Project section contains all files for your current project. If you click the magnifying glass icon, a text field will appear that allows you to search for files. If you click the wheel icon, you can choose to reveal the current file in finder, delete it, duplicate it, etc. If you use Espresso as it really should be used, you usually won’t need to do much work from the Project section, you will just access files, add files, etc. For small projects, the list of files is very helpful, but for larger ones with complex hierarchies and structures, the Project search makes it extremely easy to find files.
The last section in Espresso is the Publish section. This allows you to easily upload files to an FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3 or FTP with SSL server. To set one up, click the Settings toolbar button and then click Add Server. You can then enter the relevant information for your server. Once you have finishes, just click the Save button, and the server will be saved. Your server will then appear in the Publish section of Espresso. When you click on server, there are a couple things you can do. You can just browse and see what files are on the server (just click the Browse toolbar item). You can also do an Update. An Update just updates the copy of the files on the server. Everything on your computer stays the same. You can also do a Merge. A Merge syncs the files on your computer with the ones on your server so the most-up-to dat version of each file is kept. Before you click Publish (which will sync them), you can see what will happen to each file in the Action column. A Mirror is very similar to an Update, except it creates an exact mirror of the files on your computer on the server. The descriptions at the top of the page can get you really confused about the difference between Mirror and Update if you think too much into it. So, just use the names as guides. Mirror and Update are two different things. Based on what you want to do, choose one. It is nice that Espresso has built-in publishing with many SVN-like (Subversion) commands.
Espresso includes support for things called Sugars. These extend Espresso’s CodeSense (they add extra languages). So, Espresso is not confined to XHTML, CSS and JavaScript, it can include any language that has an available Sugar. But, Sugars aren’t just developed by a few people that have the experience, they can be developed by anyone who knows a little XML. But, of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to make your own. You can find an aggregated list at Coffee House. Sugars are great because they allow Espresso to support an infinite amount of languages (you could make your own pointless one even!), but Coda also has a form of them, so this does not lead it too far ahead of the pack.
Along with Sugars, Espresso includes Themes. These can also be downloaded from Coffee House. Themes allow for different syntax highlighting colors. They are similar to those of TextMate or Xcode. Except for the installing part. You have to click Reveal in Finder in the Colors tab of Espresso>Preferences… and then drag the .css file in there. Then, you have to restart Espresso, go back to the preferences and choose it from the list. This isn’t that bad, but it would be nicer if you could just click Instal Theme. Like Sugars, anyone with a knowledge of CSS can easily make an Espresso theme.
MacRabbit’s Espresso retails for about $80 and you can download a trial from the Web site. It’s Sugars and Themes add a nice configurability option and community part to it. It is $20 less than the other popular IDE on the mac for web development. Of course, you can use a text editor and the Terminal for most features it contains, but it provides a beautiful interface with a very nice and clean environment for developing.
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