Programs for editing style files. Another freelance blog

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That's right, CSS technology allows you to easily change the appearance of an entire website by modifying a single file. CSS editors greatly simplify the process of making changes to CSS files. We present to you 14 such CSS editors that can cut the workload of any designer in half.

1. Stylizer

It is a web browser that generates CSS programs incredibly quickly. Stylizer allows you to execute CSS markup in real time right in the browser, keeping everything under control. This method is much faster and more visual than using external editors like Notepad or Dreamweaver.

2.Xylescope

openly converts pages with markup errors embedded in the source encoding into full-fledged XHTML documents. Auto-formatting of the source encoding guarantees a clear structure of the final version and its good readability, regardless of the quality of the initial text.

3. Style Master

- the main tool for building CSS structures compatible with various platforms. Style Master is much more than just text editor, it supports your work environment, including the following processes:
- creating style sheets based on your HTML codes
- direct CSS editing of sites on PHP based, ASP.NET, Ruby, as well as other dynamic structures
- CSS editing via ftp

4. Rapid CSS Editor

With this tool you can quickly and easily create cascading style sheets of any size and complexity, as well as edit them. You can either do the stylesheet encoding manually or let a program do it for you. Either way, it's easy, thanks to many useful features, including autocompletion, code checking and CSS programs. Results are immediately displayed by the built-in tool preview. Rapid CSS Editor is designed to save your time and make your work easier.

5. CSS Toolbox

- a free piece of software to improve the productivity of web developers specializing in CSS codes. Free CSS Toolbox contains a set of tools to speed up and modernize the process of generating stylesheet codes, e.g. latest css Formatter and CSS Validator.

6. CoffeeCup StyleSheet Maker

allows you to build fully functional cascading style sheets, choose text layout, fonts, background, etc. You only need to change the tag attributes in the CSS file, since every web page will look to this file for guidance own settings. In addition, you can overlay text, create links without underlining, put pictures under tables as backgrounds, and even generate your own tags with functions you assign to them.

7. EngInSite CSS Editor

is a fully integrated Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) tool designed to save you time and expand your creative horizons.

8. CSSEdit

With it, you can see changes made to your style sheet in real time. No saving. No download. No obstacles. For any web application or HTML file.

9. Jellyfish-CSS

- multifunctional style sheet editor. With a full set of options needed to build great style sheets.

10. snap(css)

- a very compact notepad-like application that allows CSS developers to easily edit their code using a familiar environment and quick access to such useful functions like "beautify" and "collapse".

11. Simple CSS

allows you to easily create cascading style sheets (CSS) from scratch and/or modify existing ones in a familiar interface by hovering the cursor and clicking the mouse button.

12. TopStyle

includes functional tools for designing websites taking into account the requirements of standards.
- Provides CSS preview as you code.
- Easily generates expressive color schemes for your website.
- Checker Style Checker ensures that your CSS encoding is syntactically correct across browsers.
- Site Reports feature allows you to immediately detect CSS styles on your site.
- The Style Upgrade function quickly replaces all outdated HTML codes with equivalent CSS combinations.

13. tsWebEditor

- document editor in HTML, PHP, Perl, javascript, CSS and many other programming languages. It displays the source encoding in color (syntax highlighting), suggests codes for performing functions, performs autocompletion (PHP, javascript, ASP, HTML), supports the browser software environment, the operation of the PHP tool for setting up and checking the correctness of syntax, and also help desk, CSS wizard, HTML tag editor, HTML syntax correctness checker and easy-to-use SQL structure constructor.

14.cssed

- a compact editor for building code and checking its correctness, designed to simplify CSS editing. Available as an Open Source project, that is, you can download not only the program itself, but also its source codes.

You can change the design of the site in the active WordPress theme files, namely in a file called style.css. This is a simple text file with CSS extension. CSS is translated as Cascading Style Sheets - cascading style sheets. I agree, the translation doesn't say much. What methods can be edited will be discussed further.

CSS is

With one CSS sides this is an extension text file. On the other hand, CSS is the programming language in which this file is written. On the third side, CSS is a set of rules for specifying the font, site color, relative position of site blocks (left, center, right, padding from top and bottom) and other presentations appearance site pages, which are registered in this file.

Let me just say that CSS files can be intimidatingly large, but there is nothing complicated about them. These are very simple, although varied, rules written in a simple syntax.

I'm not going to teach the basics of CSS; this is done well on specialized sites. We only need HTML reference: http://htmlbook.ru/.

I will also note that it is absolutely not necessary to memorize all the CSS rules by heart. It is enough to understand the writing syntax CSS rules. This is enough to edit the CSS file, and a reference book will always help. The main thing is to know what to edit and how to edit. In addition to the reference book, there are tools in browsers, more about them below, that allow you to edit CSS online.

Where is the WordPress style.css file located?

A few simple truths:

Each WordPress theme has its own file that determines its appearance.
Editing the style.css file of one theme does not affect other themes installed on the site;
Before editing any active theme files, do backup copy site, in case of fatal editing errors and returning the site to working condition.

And the WordPress style.css file is in the folder with the WP theme (template). The full address is the same for all topics: wp-content/themes/theme_name/style.css.

Three ways

I will offer three options for editing the style.css file.

Editing from the admin panel

You probably know that WordPress system has an internal file editor installed themes. You can enter it from the site console through the tab: Appearance→Editor.

On the right you see a list of theme files; the contents of the files open in the editor field. If you have multiple themes installed, pay attention to the one on the right top corner. There is a topic selection field. By default, the active theme will open, but you can edit any established theme without activating it.

Advice: Errors in editing style.css cannot crash the site, you can only disfigure the appearance. Therefore, before direct editing from the console, you can do without it, just make a copy of the style.css file itself and, in case of unsuccessful editing, return the file to its previous form.

Editing the style.css file via FTP

They say that there are hosting sites that do not support editing theme files from the site's administrative panel. No problem. It is possible, and in fact correct, to edit the style.css file via FTP. That's right, because it's safe and you always have an original copy of the file.

Log in to the site directory via FTP;
Getting to wp-content/themes/theme_name/style.css and copy it to your computer;
Next, edit it in a text editor like Notepad++, save, leaving original copy, and upload it back to the catalog. I agree, a little longer, but safer and more convenient. You can calmly read the file and slowly understand its syntax.

Both editing methods refer to direct editing of the live theme file. U direct editing there is a big drawback: When you update the theme, all your changes will be lost and the theme will return to its original appearance. To avoid this, use the method child theme.

WordPress Child Theme

The third method of editing styles is based on this principle.

Editing the style.css file using plugins

There are several plugins to improve the theme file editor. For editing styles, I like the Jetpack plugin. I wrote a detailed article about the plugin: . The plugin is very large and to edit theme styles you need to activate the Custom CSS module.

After activating it, the “Edit CSS” tab appears in the console menu in the Appearance item.

edit CSS of WordPress site

Now you don’t need to edit style.css directly, just enter a piece css code in the editor field and the changes will appear on the site. Moreover, when updating the theme, they will not be lost.

How to understand what needs to be edited

If you don't read CSS fluently you need to use online tools, to read the CSS and understand what needs to be edited.

The simplest tool is a tool in any browser: “View Element Code” in Chrom. The name is similar in other browsers. Access the tool via right button mouse or short keys (Ctrl+Shift+I).

I show you how to use it:

For example, we want to change the title of the site.

Point the mouse at it and use the right button to open “Element Code”;

start editing WordPress website CSS

We see the HTML code in the right margin and the CSS code in the left margin;

You can play with the CSS code live and immediately see how it looks;
To open CSS in the main field, click on the name of the CSS file (number 2 in the photo).

edit CSS of WordPress site

For example, I changed online size title font.

But that is not all.

Found the right piece css code;
Let's copy it;
Transfer to a text editor;
Edit and move a piece of code into the style.css of the child theme or into the editor field.
Thus, we change any styles of the active theme.

useful links

W3C CSS Validation Service (CSS3 format): http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
CSS file compression service: .

Editor's choice for us developers source code is not something insignificant. This is the environment in which we spend most of our time. Our productivity depends on the code editor.

No two developers are alike, so there is an abundance of code editors from which you can choose the best one for yourself. To understand which one is the best, we will evaluate different criteria on a 5-point scale. We will pay attention to:

Ease of use- how simple the editor is for beginners, how intuitive it is when we open it for the first time.
Power- a criterion for all innovations, code editing capabilities, autocompletion, editing modes, etc.
Extensibility- Does the editor support plugins and additional libraries?
Aesthetics- we love the beauty in our work, how pleasant the environment is to look at, how neat the code looks in it.
Speed- how quickly the editor starts, how quickly it opens large files.
Cross platform- Is the editor available for multiple operating systems?
Price- the cheapest price gets the highest mark.

Code editors are provided in groups that cater to specific types of developers.

For the Guru

You ask, who are gurus? Basically, these are people who used editors program code even before you were born. The instruments of this group are heavy and wide. They can be launched from a terminal window and, in UNIX tradition, all their settings are defined in a configuration file.

Vim

Released in 1991. The versatile and powerful editor has gained many fans around the world. What makes it special among others is the technology command line. Instead of simple writing code, you select an input mode for text, run a search, and use even more guidance. This editor is imported to all known operating systems. Vim can also be extended with scripts and plugins. This is free software that is already installed on many Linux systems.

Emacs

Development of Emacs began in the distant 1970s and continues to this day. This editor is known for its extensibility. It is one of the first editors to support code highlighting, automatic code alignment, and support for many programming languages. Like Vim, it is also cross-platform and can be used through a terminal window or GUI. Emacs is a free and open resource.

For professionals

Code editors in this category are fully equipped with development tools. They are easy to use and have powerful tools. Developers can write, compile, test and run in one application.

Eclipse

Eclipse is most often used for Java development applications. This software supports plugins that make it possible to support additional programming languages. There are plugins for C/C++, Ruby, PHP and others. Eclips offers powerful code hinting built on documentation and real-time syntax checking. Large companies, such as Google, provide their development tools for this platform. You can easily create applications for Android and App Engine. Eclipse is free and open source.

Aptana Studio

Aptana is a development environment designed for heavy AJAX applications. This environment supports most popular web languages: PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Ruby, Python and others using plugins. There is also Git integration, the ability to test the application on local server, and many useful code snippets for each programming language. Like Eclipse, Aptana is free and open source.

Netbeans

Another environment for Java, but like Eclipse, can be extended for additional languages: PHP, Python, C/C++ and others. The application runs on Linux, Windows and OSX. Netbeans can speed up desktop application development with Drag and Drop constructor. Negative side is performance - Netbeans may slow down large projects. This code editor is free and open source.

Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is part Adobe applications Suite designed for web designers. It supports only the most popular web programming languages - PHP, ASP.NET, JavaScript, HTML, CSS. Very beginner friendly, with support for WISIWYG editing, live viewing, testing remote server and application development with using jQuery mobile and Phonegap. Dreamweaver is available on OSX and Windows. If you buy the entire package of applications for $399, there is no point in using it. But if you buy it separately, there might be something to it. It will be even easier.

Visual Studio

Visual Studio is an all-in-one development environment for Windows. This editor supports a large number of languages: C/C++, C#, VB.NET and F# which are built into the environment. It has powerful tools for code completion, line-by-line documentation, error checking, debugging, form design, creating database schemas and much more. The price starts at $500, but the express version of the program is available for free.

Xcode

Xcode is Apple's solution for OSX development and iOS applications. Supports C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++, Java, AppleScript, Python and Ruby. With Xcode, you can write, debug, and test applications. Has an interface designer and emulator mobile devices, For iOS testing applications. Xcode was used as a paid editor, but now they offer it for free.

Coda 2

Coda is an all-in-one editor for web developers. Supports file transfer via FTP protocol, code navigation and file structure, sites and site groups, MySQL management and much more. With the new Coda 2, you can use your iPad to browse. The stable price is $99, but you can get it at a discount for $75.

For aesthetes

These code editors are beautiful, lightweight, easy to use, and extensible. There is a lot of talk about them, many provide plugins, write articles, and offer solutions on how to make this or that editor better.

TextMate

TextMate is basically a graphical text editor for OSX. Supports macros, code storage, snippets, shell integration, project management. Text Mate 2 will presumably come with everything you can get. The editor costs about $50.

Sublime Text 2

Sublime is a beautiful cross-platform editor. It is fast and rich in functionality for almost every programming language. Supports multiple selections, code folding, macros, projects and more. Full-screen editing is also possible, which looks great on large monitors. Runs on Linux, Windows and OSX. This editor comes with an unlimited trial period, but you need to buy a $59 license that can be used on every computer.

For pragmatists

Notepad++

This powerful and lightweight editor is a must-have for every Windows developer. Although the name suggests an advanced notepad, it is a powerful tool. It's easy for beginners, but it's also suitable for professionals. Notepad++ supports every popular programming language. Supports partitioning working environment two editing windows, FTP browser, macros and powerful features text editing. Notepad++ is absolutely free. It's possible.

TextWrangler

TextWrangler is a free and lightweight editor for OSX. Supports all programming languages. Offers powerful search and replace functionality, text manipulation, file comparison, FTP support and much more.

CodeLobster

CodeLobster has simple and powerful functionality for web programmers. Suitable for all versions of Windows OS: 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2003, 2000, ME, Server. Flexible configuration of the working environment, tooltips for functions, debugging, and a todo list. This editor is recommended specifically for web developers; it can easily be extended to work with various frameworks: CakePHP, CI, Drupal, JQuery, Yii, Smarty, Symfony, WP, Facebook. A lightweight version of the editor is available for free. With a set of tools $40, per full set plugins and extensions over $100.

The best code editor is...

Couldn't find your editor on this list? Tell us what your favorite editor is in the comments below!

Attention! Service technical support does not provide advice on working with CSS.

The CSS Style Editor plugin allows you to include your own styles file, replacing or supplementing theme styles. The plugin is recommended for users with experience with CSS.

To edit CSS styles, go to the console section Appearance - CSS Editor.

If this is your first visit to the CSS Style Editor (or you haven't added any custom CSS code yet), then you'll see a message in the edit window (enclosed in /* and */). Please check out this post as it contains some important information about working with CSS styles.

To the right of the style editor there is additional settings and the ability to view and restore CSS style revisions.

In the settings in the field Dynamic CSS You can enable one of the types of dynamic CSS: LESS or SASS (SCSS Syntax). Only use dynamic CSS if you know what it is.

In field Mode select the mode for editing CSS styles: adding to existing styles or replacing theme styles with your own (replaces only the styles that you write, recommended for advanced users).

The Content Width field allows you to set a pixel width limit for videos, full-width images, and other content. This may be necessary if you have changed the column width for the content.

Please note that this will not affect the size of images and videos added before changing the content width settings. You may have to reinsert some images or videos after changing the settings.

In the block CSS revisions Only revisions for the activated theme are displayed. The server stores the last two editions; if there are more editions, the oldest ones are automatically deleted.

To go to view the revision, click on the revision date in the list of revisions.

A window will appear comparing the current and selected editions. The old edition can be restored by clicking on the “Restore this edition” button.

Preview

When editing CSS styles, it is very important that you can always preview your changes before saving them. To see what happened after making changes to CSS styles click the button View.

A new browser window/tab will open where you can view your site from changes made. When viewing, a message will be displayed under the admin panel: “Preview: changes must be saved, otherwise they will be lost.”

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A-priory CSS- These are cascading style sheets, they are mainly used to design the appearance of web pages. Before creation CSS, to set, for example, a certain page background in HTML, you used tags, but if your site has, for example, 100 pages, then you need to change the attribute on 100 pages, you must admit this is very inconvenient. But when the tongue came CSS, we were able to create specific file, in which we can indicate the properties of certain elements, even if there are 100 of them. Now there is a very positive trend on the Internet that HTML is only responsible for providing information, and CSS for registration.

1 place. Stylizer

The main representative of CSS editors working on Windows. This utility greatly simplifies the process of writing and editing code. This is done through clarity; the program can help you mark up CSS styles directly in the browser; this method is much more convenient than using external editors. You simply enter the site address in the built-in browser and in the first block of the program you can directly edit styles.

2nd place. Style Master

The program is rightfully considered one of the main tools for creating CSS structures. This editor allows you to edit multiple files at once, can create style sheets using your HTML code, also directly edit CSS and supports editing via FTP.

3rd place. CSS Toolbox

Simple, convenient and free editor CSS, thanks to it, writing is greatly simplified CSS tables. Contains many new tools for generating style sheets. Also has a number distinctive features: code highlighting, code autocompletion, tag substitution, automatic check CSS code, compression CSS file and much more.

4th place. CoffeeCup StyleSheet Maker

The special features of this program include the fact that it optimizes styles for Internet browsers Explorer, Netscape and several others. The program was created by the CoffeeCup organization. With this program you can create simple and elegant websites using a combination of HTML and CSS.

5th place. CSSEdit

When working with this program, you can observe the changes that are made to the style sheet as you work visually. Working with the program is very intuitive and clear, with new versions some glitches have been fixed and new features have been added. Visual editor code really helps a lot when developing websites.

6th place. Jellyfish-CSS

When working with Jellyfish-CSS, you are amazed at the ease with which the program can work. It also has support for various libraries that have various functions, for example, help to avoid mistakes when writing a table, and many others. The only downside is that the program is paid; on the Internet, of course, you can easily find both cracked versions and trial ones.

7th place. Snap CSS

Working with this editor is similar to working with notepad. The developers of this program have worked hard to make working with it simple and straightforward. The editor has excellent optimization features for the readability of style sheets. This program makes life much easier for programmers by saving effort and file size.

8th place. Simple CSS

Small, but powerful tool for working with CSS, allows you to program without editing a single line of code, which means you can create a style sheet without having any programming skills. The program functionality includes CSS compression file, support for multiple types of formats and the ability to manage multiple projects.

9th place. TopStyle

Using this program, you can preview the table while you edit it, there is support for multiple browsers, in which each table is displayed differently. The program supports Unicode, online check spelling, combining styles into groups, intuitive editing, etc.

10th place. tsWebEditor

This editor is multilingual, supporting many languages such as HTML, PHP, Perl, javascript, CSS and many more. It has auto-completion functions, code highlighting, syntax checking, supports functional hints, Unicode, and has a large number of code templates, which greatly helps WEB masters.