Coda 2.5 IDE, what do you think?

$99 is overwhelming.

It's not really an IDE, more of a advanced text editor. It's fine for frontend doing HTML/CSS but PHP, not any better than Sublime Text.

Coming from Coda I found Phpstorm to allow for more code exploration and overall assistance. But that was about two years ago. Plus Phpstorm seemed to hold my hand more through the new world, for me, of Oo and PSR etc.

Been using coda for several years and been pretty happy with it. But dont expect it to be a full blown IDE with full code completion! I think thats its weak point!

Other than that there several things i like abou coda

Much cleaner interface than any other editor/ide.

Being able to save any file and have have your preview refresh automatically is dead useful for both front end and back end development!

Its publishing workflow helps a ton since i can see all my changed files right in the sidebar and simply plublish those changes files! Or push to a remote the changed files if you use git.

Search and replace for example allows you to easily place wild cards with a press of a button whih makes it dead easy and simple to use! Surely you can use regular expression but this is dead simple!

It's the little things really that make a difference with Coda. You need to use it in order to appreciate it!

Give it a go you won't regret it!

Not a fan of Coda at all. It wasn't made for backend developers, and it shows.

Even for front-end exclusive stuff, I'd pick Brackets or Atom at this point.

JW's thought back in '12.

http://code.tutsplus.com/articles/coda-2-reviewed--net-25120

Re brackets - I really like the real time updates for front end stuff.

Same, not a fan. Still have Coda 2, but never use it. Great looking and some wickedly good workflow automation features, but another case of black box functionality designed to help that was a nightmare to debug when I had problems integrating it with MAMP and then with A2 Hosting. At the time google forums had lost people complaining about the same stuff. So I move to Sublime, still like Sublime, then found the love of my life PHPStorm. I dont how I worked without it. I still use sublime for CSS and all too often find myself Command click to see the class details ... lol

Use Vim, Vim, only Vim and again Vim :) And PhpStorm as your backup IDE. Ok it's going to be a long path if you are new to Vim BUT all Vimers will confirm: Use Vim. @JeffreyWay covered a lot on vim (on tuts+) ; even on Laracast ; you'll find tons of videos, tutorials, dotfiles, ... Just for fun: http://derekwyatt.org/vim/tutorials/novice/

I am currently struggling with "adopting" an IDE of choice as well. So far I have used:

• Coda (1.x through 2.5)
• PHPStorm (8 EAP through release)
• SublimeText 3 beta
• Dreamweaver (as an IDE, not WYSIWYG)
• VisualStudio (Windows only)

I loved working in Coda, and still think it has the best interface, but it is lacking in workflow functionality. PHPStorm seems overwhelmingly complex, and runs on Java. I dislike the interface, and it takes a LOT of work to customize it and set it up exactly right. SublimeText 3 is insanely fast and has tons of packages (plugins), but it is lacking in workflow functionality. Dreamweaver is just not worth using anymore on any serious project, and has been remarketed by Adobe (I used it when it was MacroMedia) to appeal to the hobbyist, mostly for static sites. VisualStudio is by far the best IDE ever made. Too bad nothing can hold a candle to it in the Mac world.

Those are my experiences and impressions so far. I know many tout VIM as the IDE to end them all, but I really dislike using it (and that's a personal issue, if the glove fits, and all that). I also played around with Atom a bit right around 0.10.* release ... but it was sluggish and had other bugs (to be expected from an alpha or beta product), but it didn't seem robust enough to be much more than what SublimeText is at the moment.

There are some really nice new tools on the horizon, but these are all geared toward front-end development and design:

• Sparkle
• TweakStyle
• Brackets

So right now I'm left with the top three contenders. Here's what it would take for me to adopt one of them:

• Coda needs to get better support for auto-completion for frameworks. It's gotten A LOT better than since 2, but there's still room to grow. Also, I would like to see advanced IDE functionality, like automatic insertion of USE statements, running gulp commands from the editor, running function and unit test from within the editor, etc. Granted, it has a command line, but all you end up doing is switching back and forth a lot.
• PHPStorm has all the functionality anyone could ever want. I need learn how to customize it and remove all the UI elements and code without those crutches. If I can get past that, it will beat out the competition.
• SublimeText is a little too bare-bones to be considered an IDE. Granted, you can actually add in most of the functionality using plugins. Yet the workflow doesn't feel as smooth as with PHPStorm or even Coda.

I'm a big fan of tools designed like Coda, Kaleidoscope, Tower 2. They all integrate very well with each other and you can get a handle on the workflow fairly easily.

In the coming weeks I will try to figure out PHPStorm better and see if it won't grow on me some more.

@mikebronner : Do you have feedbacks on PHPStorm ? I'm also struggling between a full IDE (PHPStorm) vs a code editor (Coda v2.5) + other tools like the terminal for my Gulp, Tower or SourceTree for GIT, etc...

Feature-wise PHPStorm currently can't be beat. I think it can handle anything you could ever want to do in an IDE. I am still struggling with getting it set up just right, but have gone through @JeffreyWay's lessons on getting it set up:

https://laracasts.com/search?q=phpstorm

Use Vim, Vim, only Vim and again Vim :)

-- @jrean

I've been using Vim for about 2 years now, mostly because I can't figure out how to exit it.

I'd recommend PHPStorm, Sublime, or Vim. And this comes from someone who tries out every editor.

@mikebronner yet phpStorm does not do well at all the 2 main things I love about Coda!

a) Publishing sidebar showing me just my changed files so i can quickly deploy my changes via sftp! or git if you are into that!

b) Live Preview works so well in Coda! you just open a preview in a new window and save ANY file, either css or twig/blade or php or anythign and the preview window will refresh to show your changes.

The biggest problem I see in PHPStorm is that it basically has a zillion features! Although its GUI if extremely customizable it does not do anything to get you on a clean and usable ui not for your overall workflow! Its a zillion panels here and there with small icons for other zillion thing that you get lost into!

The biggest problem of Coda on the other hand is that it does not do Code Completion well! Although in 2.5 it supports site wide code copletion it really a joke to what phpStorm offers.

Interestingly what i love about Coda is not there in phpStorm and that i love about PhpStorm is not there in Coda! My daily workflow when doing bug fixes on client sites or adding a new feature i use Coda! when i am doing heavy php coding thought i am probably using phpStorm

@unitedworx very well said, sums up my feelings on the matter as well.

Although its GUI if extremely customizable it does not do anything to get you on a clean and usable ui not for your overall workflow! Its a zillion panels here and there with small icons for other zillion thing that you get lost into!

But why is this an issue, if you can take five minutes and remove all of the clutter that you don't like?

After trying PHPStorm (quickly I must say) I can see why it's so loved, like you guys said, we can do anything with it. A big issue for me in PHPStorm is that there is no decent project manager window (only the last opens). It's a so simple feature that would be so great IMO. And finaly I'm quite puzzled by the autosave system. I don't know why but I'm not confortable with it. Finaly, and that's just my opition, I prefer to use different apps than having everything in one, like still using the Terminal for Gulp, Sequel Pro for managing the DB, maybe SourceTree for the Git repos... But yes, I'll have to switch for PHPStorm or Coda 2.5... and accept the flaws of the chosen one ^^

I prefer to use different apps than having everything in one, like still using the Terminal for Gulp, Sequel Pro for managing the DB...

So do I. Just ignore the pieces in PHPStorm that you don't want to use.

Sublime Text & PhpStorm are by far the best editors i have used and like @JeffreyWay, have tried more than i care to imagine. Here is my roundup of the editors, i feel have stood out from the crowd in some way or another.

• PhpStorm - The best on the market where almost everything can be tweaked, plenty of plugins and strong completion but built on Java (yuck).
• Sublime Text - One of the fastest editors out there with a vibrant and active community.
• Komodo IDE - A strong competitor with completion built in.
• EverEdit - As fast as sublime, cheaper but relatively new and only available on Windows.

I worked with Netbeans and Eclipse, but since I converted to PHPstorm and working on Laravel projects, it is only suggested to go that way. Netbeans and Eclipse are FREE, but it is worthy to have PHPstorm.

To the people that are using Sublime Text : I don't understand one point, there is no built-in FTP in my memory in Sublime Text, the same for Atom, so how do you deploy your modifications from your local to your remote server ? Only with Git ?

Coda isn't even in the PHP/backend category. It shouldn't be used for that.

Atom is probably the worst I've used, complete copy of ST and doesn't work as well (at least on Mac with touchpad, scrolling is dodgy as well)

@Mushr00m haven't used FTP in years. Git for life, lol!

I'm "stuck" with ST for now... PHPStorm feels slow compared to ST. :(

@mantasmo : It's a little of topic, but can you explain how do you manage using only GIT for deploying ? You work on local, then commit and push, then you log via SSH on your remote server and deploy ? Because In my case some of my sharedhost don't allow ssh and git commands on the server...

Answer to that is, get off shared hosting or find one that's good and allows SSH login. If they don't, they aren't good or modern.

@Mushr00m at the moment there's really no reason not to use something like Digital Ocean + forge. I started using DO/Linode back when you had to set up your own git auto deployment and all that good stuff... Now that Laravel/Forge has made all that stuff super-simple I see no reason for anyone to use traditional shared hosting. You can get DO "droplets" for $5/mo.

I tried to use PhpStorm instead of Sublime Text, but it didn't feel right. So i stick with Sublime for a while.

With Sublime extensions and macros it almost feels like IDE.

@Mushr00m if i can't use my git, i just overwrite the "Acme" folder. Thankfully there are not many projects that run on service which does not support git!

@Mushr00m There is a project management window. Not exactly the same as in Coda, but at the start you are greeted with a window to set up sites, open sites, etc. There you can set up multiple projects, and once set up they are listed there as well.

https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/webhelp/new-project-from-existing-files-wizard.html https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/documentation/phpstorm-video-tutorials.jsp

Is that new from the V8 ? Because in the V7, there was just in the home window, a list of the last opened projects but not a full list of them.