skelephant

Note: I’ve had this post sitting in my drafts folder for about a year and finally felt like I have a good enough perspective to fully write about this piece of software.

For the past year I have been using MacRabbit’s Espresso as my main web developing application after switching from my main text editor, BBEdit. Not that I have anything against BBEdit. BBedit is a wonderful application that I would recommend whole heartedly to anyone looking for a great text editor. I switched because I wanted something that was more all-in-one and that was easy to set up and use. I had tried Coda and was starting to get used to developing with it when I stumbled on Espresso.

I had first heard of Espresso after they announced that they would be looking for beta testers to help them with the release of it. I jumped at the opportunity to work with a new Application and introduced Espresso to my workflow. Since I was experimenting with Coda at the time Espresso was familiar from the get go. The key difference and selling point to me was how it works.

While lightweight text editors like BBEdit orTextMate are incredibly powerful, they also sport rather bland interfaces. Espresso’s interface—Similar to Coda’s, is clean well organized and intuitive. It feels the way a Mac Application should feel. Everything about Espressos interface is made to look good. From it’s hierarchical-based navigator, default code coloring scheme and all the way up to the applications icon, the folks at MacRabbit really polished this application the whole way around.

The real power of the program itself is its vast array of features, from it’s built in version tracking, synchronization tools and to it’s ability to create project files for quick and easy grouping of files, this program has everything that a developer can need in all one convenient place. The code navigator, syntax highlighting, built in FTP client and preview pane are just a couple of the main selling points of this application because you don’t need to have separate Applications running to do different developing tasks. Everything is a couple of mouse clicks away.

The last great feature of this application is ability to extend. Espresso has a plug-in feature that makes it a breeze to add new languages. Users can develop “Sugars” for say auto-completing PHP code simply by creating files written entirely in XML.

I have never used a program that fit so well into my workflow and looks so great. If you’re trying to get your workflow figured out and need a central place where you can edit, upload and version check your files, I suggest you look into playing with Espresso. It might not for text-editor purists, but it’s definitely for those that are looking for something new.