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"PHPStorm: A Great IDE"

Every once in a while, something comes along that’s really nice and can really make your life a tad bit easier.  If you’re a developer of any kind, I don’t have to tell you how important it is to be able to find the right tools that can make your job that much easier.  So, when something comes along that makes me say, ‘Say… This is pretty slick!’, then best believe, I’ll share it with you.  Such as the case is the new IDE from JetBrains called PHPStorm (click for page here). 

PHPStorm, is a pretty lightweight IDE that’s pretty easy to use and is quite handy to have in your web development arsenal.  As the name indicates, it’s ready out of the box to be used for PHP code, but I’ve found just using it for HTML/CSS and JavaScript to be quite nice.  Sure, it let’s you change your color schemes and setup addons and libraries really as much you’d like to, but what I’ve found to be the real gem about this IDE is how it feels.

Everything is pretty easy to find, (common-sense learning curve is tested here a tad bit, but once you find something - you understand why they put it where they put it), and since it’s so lightweight, development is pretty fluid and intuitive. 

I’ll be honest and tell you, I haven’t quite done much hard-core web development using this tool yet, but for some of the projects I’ve been working on so far, it’s my IDE of choice for doing even the simplest of things.  I’ve already made it my IDE of choice for making changes to my local Apache server files! It’s that easy and quick to use.

So, I definitely recommend going by JetBrains and giving it a try.  It gives you a 45 day free trial, too - so you have plenty of time to scrap it if it doesn’t work for you. Go give it a whirl!

"Coding Like A Zen Master"

If you’ve ever spent any time at all designing websites, you’ll find, in a few minutes, plugging in HTML and CSS tags can be a chore. Many IDEs and text editors (such as BBEdit and Dreamweaver) have done what they can to help by offering auto-complete features and keyboard shortcuts, but this minimally reduces your typing burden.

But alas! Zen Coding has come to (somewhat) cut out the mundane act of typing (as much).  It’s a powerful abbreviation engine that expands CSS selector-like expressions into HTML code.
For example, assume you need a div with an ID of “content”.  This div contains 3 paragraph tags.  All you would have to type would be:

div#content>p*3

And voila!  You get:


<div id=”content”>

 <p></p>

 <p></p>

 <p></p>

</div>


Is that amazing or what?  OK, want to try something a little more adventurous? Try something like this:

div#page>p.top+ul#nav>li*5>a

and you’ll get something like:


<div id=“page”>

 <p class=“top”></p>

  <ul id=“nav”>

   <li><a href=”“></a></li>

   <li><a href=”“></a></li>

   <li><a href=”“></a></li>

   <li><a href=”“></a></li>

   <li><a href=”“></a></li>

  </ul>

</div>


Can you imagine how quick one could put an HTML page together this way? A quick download and install of an extension from the Zen Coding website and you’re on your way!

Now, I can tell you, most people will just stick with their slow, out-dated way of doing HTML/CSS, not even knowing there’s a quick and simple way to spit HTML code out left and right.  But, as for me, I’ll be one that will master the ways of Zen coding. Now, if you’ll excuse me… I have to go print out my cheat sheets.

"960px Grid Tutorial"

It’s pretty useful yet easy to figure out how to use.  But most of all it eliminates you having to bring up calculator, pen and/or paper to figure out how your columns are going to be set up  

The template has guide for a three column 20px gutter design. They then have layers of light blocked out colors to help establish both column for using the rule of thirds, and additionally it is broken down into six columns of 20px gutters. You can now flesh out your design on top of the shades thus helping you keep a consistent grid and make placement of elements easier.