Using Coda With WordPress

Coda, a Panic product, is a one-window Web development application for Macs. Coda is packed with all kinds of built-in goodies like ‘Sites’ (an organizer for all your sites), Transmit 3 (an amazingly fast FTP program) a terminal, and virtual books. Despite its price tag of $79 ($69 if you already have Transmit 3), Coda is a one-hell-of an app. I used use Adobe Dreamweaver, but when I came across Coda, I couldn’t begin to compare the two. Coda was just the app I was looking for.

So you’re probably wondering how Coda can be used with WordPress. Well, besides the fact that Coda’s amazing CSS and text editor, built-in FTP, and terminal, can be used for working on your WordPress files, Coda has this little feature called Clips. “Clips is a friendly floating window allows you to insert your frequently used text snippets just by clicking, dragging, or tab-triggering”, says Panic on their site. Clips is perfect for inserting WordPress tags, snippets, and other codes/text used for WordPress. Of course, Clips isn’t only limited to WordPress stuff, so you can use it for pretty much anything else. The image on the right is a screenshot of the Clips interface and some clips I have.

Coda’s ‘Sites’ is also another one of its sweet feautres. With ‘Sites’ you can organize and manage all your Web sites in a one area. “Think of them as uber-favorites on cute little pieces of paper. When you’re ready to start work, just double click a site — Coda will instantly restore itself exactly as you left it, connecting to your server, restoring any splits and tabs, and allowing you to code, pronto”, says Panic.

After using Coda for the last few months, I don’t think I’d ever go back to Dreamweaver. It’s gotta be one of my favorite Mac apps.

Quick links:

Michael Castilla January 2nd, 2008 Articles, Tutorials

25 Responses to “Using Coda With WordPress”

Jimmy G
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 8:14 am

Coda rocks.

Panic deserve all the praise they’re getting for this awesome app.

All I want now is Subversion integration and it’ll be perfect!

Michael Castilla
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 9:48 am

Definitely man.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could import and export Clips?

Brent
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 10:55 am

Yeh totally ! coda ftw!

hellyeahdude.com
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm

i love coda, anyone got a serial that they can post on here… haha JOKING!

Ronny-André Bendiksen
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 6:41 pm

I’ve been using Coda quite a while now for my website, and I absolutely love it. That is 80 bucks WELL spent!

Michael Castilla
Posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 7:18 pm

@Ronny-André: Yeah I don’t think I could work without it!

Sydney
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 2:23 am

Definitely couldn’t go back to anything else now that Coda has spoiled me. I don’t use the clips feature, but I’m in love with the built-in ftp and sites feature.

Tom
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 3:27 am

I have tried Coda and it is definitely useful. I’m planning to buy it soon, and abandon Dreamweaver.

tom
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm

is there any tool similar with coda for windows user? for my work and use dreamweaver is enough - but coda is something i was looking for soo long!

Michael Castilla
Posted on January 3rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm

@tom: There’s a plugin for Dreamweaver called TAGStention. We’ve blogged about it here on WPCandy.

tom
Posted on January 4th, 2008 at 4:49 am

thx michael, i know this plugin and bas - the coder aswell. but coda seems to be the solution for designers and coders aswell.
sure with this tagstention dreamweaver received a huge update and for wordpress designer/coder it could be a solution, it could not, it IS a solution!
it makes wordpress and designing easier

Hafiz Rahman
Posted on January 4th, 2008 at 7:02 am

It’s a shame that no app of this quality has yet to emerge for the Windows platform. I’ve been salivating over Coda, but I don’t use a Mac (yet). It’s high on the list when I’m finally there, though. Nice review :)

Tao
Posted on January 4th, 2008 at 11:04 am

Coda is “wooty-bad”!

(meaning good)

I was not able to do a “live CSS” edit on my site though whilst using MAMP to edit a theme.

Christopher Anderton
Posted on January 6th, 2008 at 7:57 pm

An other good solution is the combo of CSSEdit and Transmit.

ted
Posted on January 21st, 2008 at 8:22 pm

I love Coda, and think it is an awesome 1.x app. There are still some glaring ommissions that prevent me from using it as my primary tool (TextMate takes that crown, for now). One of them is the way it stores Clips. Clips are stored inside Coda’s preference file (in ~/Library/Preferences). They can’t be exported out or imported in easily. And if your preferences file gets corrupted, all of your clips are hosed. Huge design flaw.

That, and the missing SVN integration and the inability to search sitewide means that I use Coda for less projects than I’d like to.

Michael Castilla
Posted on January 21st, 2008 at 8:28 pm

@Ted: Definitely. I feel the same way you do about the Clips. As for SVN integration, I think they’re working on that for the next release.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a nice day!

mary
Posted on January 24th, 2008 at 11:43 pm

How do you actually set up Coda to work with Wordpress templates? Right now all I want to do is change some code around from a free template I’ve downloaded, also change its style. But I can’t seem to figure out how to pair Coda to the template I want to mod.

I’ve set up the settings the way they’re supposed to be, but I can’t seem to find any other documentation to help me if I have problems connecting.

Did I just waste my $$?

Michael Castilla
Posted on January 24th, 2008 at 11:47 pm

@mary: I’m not clear on what you’re asking.

To modify a theme, you just open up the files in Coda. You don’t really “pair” Coda to the template.

emily
Posted on March 22nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm

I’m trying to, too, setup a Wordpress blog with Coda.

Is there a help template that shows exactly how I can do that?

I believe I’ve set up everything as it should be, but when I open a file -say index.php- and try to view it live so that I can edit the CSS, nothing happens.

Also, I’ve created other pages in my wordpress blog and I keep getting “Nothing found for photos php”

Thank you in advance. :)

Michael Castilla
Posted on March 23rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm

@emily - I’m not sure there is a template for what you’re trying to do and I’m not sure why you’re getting those errors either.

Are you sure all your FTP info is correct? And those files are editable?

Steve
Posted on June 25th, 2008 at 8:55 am

ThemeDreamer version .2 was released today. It features offline, WYSIWYG approximations for WordPress theme files. You can open a native WordPress theme file and navigate it in Design View without have to mess with parsing include files. It also has support for code hints and links to WordPress online documentation for those of us who haven’t memorized the template tag library. The WYSIWIG allows you to drag and drop WordPress template tags in real-time to rearrange a page layout as well as view simple template tag effects (like descending or ascending bookmarks, category children, etc.). All without having to configure or wait for a server! Kiss goodbye to the trial-n-error approach of making a CSS change, or even the most simple font color change by uploading/hitting refreshing/view code, etc. All those minutes add up! As far as I know, its the only WYSIWYG editor for WordPress. Without it, Dreamweaver users are only getting half the picture…

http://www.themedreamer.com/video

see before/after shots at

http://www.themedreamer.com/demos

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