Brackets: a free editor/environment for web development

There are a lot of options, and VS Code is one of the top contenders.

I am a VS Code fan, but if you are looking for an alternative, Brackets is another option that I find appealing. It was built for web development, using HTML/CSS/Javascript. I think it is especially helpful for people who just start learning HTML/CSS (and maybe Javascript).

http://brackets.io/

Brackets has some built-in features that are pretty convenient.

1. auto-complete for CSS property and value.

2. Live preview the webpage to reflect the changes being made. You can make changes in code and see the result instantly.

3. In-place editing of CSS rules (you can select an element/class name in HTML and press the short keys to edit the corresponding CSS rules directly).

4. Code to browser mapping: you can select/edit an element in HTML or a rule in CSS, and the corresponding user interface elements or those that will be affected by the CSS rule will be highlighted in the browser.

See this video for an overview. The video was produced several years ago, but it highlights the most critical and useful features.

[Note] You can probably get all these in VS Code (or another environment) by installing extensions. I now do all my web development in VS Code, but I sometimes switch to Brackets just to fine-tune the styles.

Comments

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