Used Coda 2 for too long, now i'm lost on windows

[Pstrnil]

Hello,

I’ve been using macs for the past 4 years and i got into web design/programming about a year ago.
Working on a mac i decided to try Coda 2 and it was glorious from day one.
The program had everything i needed, good UI, smart autofill, ease of use, and the well known Emmett plugin that made everything even better.

Up until now i learned by myself from internet, but now i’m in a nice school as a web designer (great if you ask me) and we use windows pcs.

As you probably know Coda is mac only, and now i tried some alternatives, the best one being Sublime Text 2, but even that is not like Coda workflow-wise, i mainly miss the great autofill.

Now, i’m here to ask you guys some suggestions, which editor do you think comes closer to Coda? I would like to expand Sublime Text 2 but i don’t know what packages to look for.

For example i remember having HTML, CSS, JS and PHP all in one document in Coda, and the autofill worked fine. In Sublime Text 2 there is the possibility to choose the syntax you want but it only takes one language at the time as far as i know…

Thanks for the help, sorry for the long read, wasn’t expecting to write all this for such a simple question :P

[nixnerd]

I don’t think too many people here work in a Windows environment. I’m really sorry more people can’t help. As for me, I’ve never even used Coda… so I don’t know how my workflow compares.

[chrisburton]

Sublime has a plugin for SFTP that you can add. Anything you save gets uploaded to the server or wherever you specify. There are also auto-complete plugins, you just have to search for them.

[Senff]

Don’t know about Coda (never used it during my year of using a Mac), and so I can’t really give you any alternative that is like it. But, I can say is that Sublime is (probably) the best one around for Windows.

Not sure why @chrisburton suggested an SFTP plugin as that isn’t directly related to autofill, but having said that, the plugin is a little dodgy I think (you have to have a 1-on-1 copy of your entire site on your local machine, which is kind of like a mirror of what’s on your FTP server, and then when you save the local version, it gets uploaded every time).

TL;DR — can’t help with a Coda alternative, but Sublime Text is probably the best Windows text editor you’ll find.

[__]

Check out Komodo Edit. It’s free (as in speech and beer) and cross-platform (linux, mac, win).

[chrisburton]

Not sure why @chrisburton suggested an SFTP plugin as that isn’t directly related to autofill

Correct but as the OP asked for a similar program to Coda (which has built-in SFTP, SSH, etc), I suggested an SFTP plugin for Sublime.

A few listed packages for Sublime that I use: http://wasil.org/sublime-text-2-perfect-php-development-set-up

[nixnerd]

I hear you guys talk about Coda… I’m assuming it’s an IDE?

[Josh]

Kind of. I personally wouldn’t call it an IDE though, but that might be splitting hairs. It’s very lightweight like sublime but with a really great “commando coding” FTP/SSH GUI.

The one thing that I really do like about it (I use it at work) is that it integrates directly with Git with an interface that lends itself well to understanding and utilizing version control without scaring someone away.

[karan]

Notepad++ has autofill, emmet support, ftp support…and many other plugins.

[Josh]

Oh and I didnt answer the OPs question – really, if you love Coda, you’re out of luck. The best alternative is to make due with Sublime and install the SFTP plugin Chris mentioned along with whatever highlight/autocomplete packages make sense to you. Some people prefer it, but I personally like Coda better all around.

[Pstrnil]

Thanks everyone for the answers!

I tried Komodo and it seemed good at the beginning, but it was still missing some features that i would like to have and i found it a bit inferior compared to Sublime.

I also tried some other things in Sublime and while i think it would be a great editor (i found some really cool features like Color Highlighter) i just can’t get into it as much as i did with Coda.

I will still try some things in Sublime and see if i can get it to a point where i find myself comfortable, if not, i think i will just install an OSX virtual machine and put coda there, and end this story once for all.

I know i’m being very picky, but… I really do miss coda and my mac for these things :'(

[karan]

Habit of using editors can’t change easily. We always search for alternative of something, but in the end either our mind start fighting or time come up for night sleep.

[Ilan Firsov]

I mainly work on Windows and have a bunch of editors handy for everything I need

PHP Designer – was my main IDE a while ago. Still use it sometimes for quick and dirty ‘commando’ edits. It’s one of the few IDEs with built in FTP/SFTP support that I have seen (which works directly on the server)
PHP Storm – quite better than PHP Designer once you get through the project setup. Has built in FTP/SFTP (syncs with a folder on your computer) SSH terminal and version control and a bunch of other features
Can’t really call neither of these lightweight though…

Currently I mainly use SublimeText, though the FTP plugin requires you to sync it to a folder on yout computer and it keeps your password in clear text (don’t know if the SFTP plugin is the same)

Also sometimes I use Brackets and Notepad++

[__]

I tried Komodo and it seemed good at the beginning, but it was still missing some features that i would like to have

Out of curiosity, what were you looking for?

[Josh]

Also, out of curiosity, why would you intentionally work in 4-5 editors that all do the same thing on a regular basis?

[Author]

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