I have discovered an ideal CSS Editor, and it is available only for Mac OS X: CSSEdit 2.
I’m currently enthralled with the simplest of features: code highlighting, the “intelligent CodeSense” (intellisense) of my dreams, and a little IDE sidebar so I can select that property that I rarely use, or order my background properties properly without googling. In addition, it will combine multiple properties into one (for example, combine background-color and background-image to the background shorthand equivalent). This cuts down on the size of your CSS file, and saves your fingers from typing excessively.
I just completed my July CSS Off! competition entry (article to follow) and I kid you not, I easily wrote three times faster thanks to CSSEdit. I started tonight with the shareware 2500 character limited edition, but once my file grew over 2500 characters, I could not stand to lose the productivity in switching to Smultron (my other free editor of choice, sadly lacking codesense). I thus shelled out the $30 to support this fabulous application.
CSSEdit offers a milestones feature which allows you to “bookmark” a section of your stylesheet. I think we’ve all been in that place where, in trying to solve one problem, we have mangled our stylesheet beyond recognition. Nevermore! Milestones are your solution. CSSEdit also offers selector organization, preview, and validation.
Most importantly, CSSEdit adds a layer of WebKit/Safari debugging that I have long sought after in the “X-ray” feature. X-ray equates to a DOM inspector/”View Style Information” from the Firefox dev bar. This is fantastic as Safari lacks any decent debugging tool as of this writing.
I rarely purchase shareware unless it proves itself indispensable. CSSEdit has proven itself an invaluable asset in my web dev arsenal.
