I’m sure that Coda has some amazing power-user features. But it has some incredible training wheels built in as well. Here are some things about Coda that I really like because they have allowed me to soft-land into the hard world of code-slinging.
##Auto Complete
Freeway was good for making sure that I followed syntax rules. For the person learning code, auto-complete goes even further with helping you to “remember” all sorts of CSS properties and values. All I have to do is get the first two or three letters right and Coda will show a list of possible options to choose from. For some values that people have trouble remembering the syntax for, like padding, margins, colors… there is an interface that writes the value for you.
When I create an html element, I simply press the menu shortcut and get a new <div></div> pair… but if I wanted some other enclosing tag, I just start typing and Coda will change it to whatever based on my selection of possibilities. Even better, I often paste my text content into the body and use the same commands to wrap the content in the proper tags-- building the structure around the content.
For me, the best thing about auto-complete was using it as a learning tool… seeing what values a property can have, then trying them, is a brilliant way to push your way out of the box.
##Snippets
Snippets are shortcuts to insert custom code that you use a lot. It can little bits of code or a lot of it. I start with a basic head/body framework that I snagged from one of my Freeway templates. Simple, I just drag it into the code-space and activate Coda’s live preview. Then I have smaller snippets that I can add to further customize that page. If I need to, I can also make new snippets so that I don’t need to type everything from memory or dig it up from another source.
Snippets can also be customized in advanced ways that make production easier. For example, I recently needed to make a quick gallery of images… what I did was copy the list of image files from the finder, pasted them into my container in Coda, then wrote a figure/figcaption container for the first image. When I made it into a snippet, I placed special tags that would insert the clipboard contents where the filename was required and place the cursor where the fig caption content would go. Then all I had to do was go back to the codespace and “cut” the finder filename from the list, then insert the snippet at the right location and shazaam! the code is inserted with the cut filename in the right places and the cursor waiting for me to insert a caption. So, darn, easy.
##So…
As a code editor, I have been very happy with Coda. Someday, when I am a power-coder, I’m sure there will be many other features for me to admire, but as someone learning how all that works, these features have sure made the transition a whole lot smoother than it might have been.
Make it easy, learn something in the process. That’s my recommendation.
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