But it also means it's relatively easy to customise, and there are already a host of add-ons to extend Brackets even further. This makes the program interesting in itself, just as a practical example of how to build a JavaScript text editor. What's really surprising, though, is that Brackets is itself largely written in JavaScript, CSS and HTML. Hover your mouse over an image, colour or gradient, and a preview appears -sourced documentation is available on CSS properties and values, as required there are 'Find', 'Find in files' and 'Replace' tools, all with regular expression support. There are plenty of other worthwhile features. It's all very smooth, no messy screen refreshes required, and great for providing immediate feedback on your ideas. Chrome pops up (as long as you've installed it, of course) to render the current page, and this preview display is then updated in real time, as you edit your HTML and CSS. You get to see and tweak CSS code as required, without having to manually switch between files.Ĭlick the Live Preview button on the sidebar and life gets even easier. Click in an HTML tag name, a class or ID attribute, choose the Quick Edit option, and any relevant rules appear in an inline editor. This even works with your own functions: type the name and it'll (usually) remind you of the names and types of whatever arguments you need.Īs your code gets more lengthy, so Brackets helps to ease navigation. Just type and Brackets displays matching HTML, CSS or JavaScript, helping you enter code quickly and without mistakes. There's plenty of code hinting-type power. Start work, though, and extra features quickly appear.

A left-hand bar lists your current working files (HTML, images, CSS), an unnecessary sidebar contains only two lonely-looking icons, there's a menu bar, the document you're editing, and that's about it. Launched by Adobe in 2012, Brackets is now an open-source code editor for web developers.Īt first glance, the program looks rather basic.

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