Sublime Text WordPress Snippets and Auto-completions

I have become a huge fan of Sublime Text 2 as of late. It’s a simple, yet behemoth-featured editor that allows you to craft your own unique editing experiences. This post is not touting all the wonderful features about Sublime, but if you’re not using it you should be. It’s available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

I primarily develop websites based on WordPress, and I find myself frequenting the Codex on a daily basis to look up parameters that I haven’t memorized. Over time this can amount to a lot of time wasted. Fortunately for me and you, there is a Sublime WordPress package ready for you to install in mere seconds. This gives us a lot of WordPress goodness at our fingertips right in the editor.

To install through Package Manager, type CMD-SHFT-P (Macs) and ‘Type Package Control: Install Package’. Wait for the package search dialogue to appear then type ‘WordPress’ and hit enter. Boom. Done.

To take advantage of all the new WordPress goodness, simply type a WP-specific function and hit tab to auto-complete. Repeatedly hitting tab will move through the function parameters. There is also snippet goodness as well. You can take a look at all of the snippets and auto-completions here.

For instance if you would like to insert a plugin header, make sure you are in PHP syntax mode and type ‘plugin_head’ and then hit tab. In the CSS syntax mode, you can type ‘theme_head’ and move through all of the definitions with the tab key.

This is not even the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg with Sublime. Here’s a great course on what Sublime can do for you and your workflow.

If you would like to install the WordPress Sublime package manually, go to: https://github.com/purplefish32/sublime-text-2-wordpress and clone the repo to your package library.

FileMerge Fail – Changes App Awesome

So, I’ve been using the de facto FileMerge religiously for the past couple of years. With the latest OS iteration, FileMerge has failed miserably using 10.8.1. Basically, FileMerge would not allow you to save a file after an hour of intricate merging. This is an equation for higher blood pressure. Apparently OS 10.8.2 fixes this issue now, but it was not available during my period of serious frustration, so I began to look elsewhere.

I tried the Kaleidoscope app, but was disappointed as it only compares files, but has no merge capabilities. Albeit, a beautiful application, but useless to me nonetheless without merging. It’s price is $39.00 which is pretty steep for just comparing files.

After a bit of searching, I stumbled upon the Changes app. It’s certainly not as fancy as the previously mentioned app, but it does everything I need it to do. The feature I’ve found most useful is the “Copy To Left” and “Copy To Right” feature. This does inline merging. That means no waiting for post processing an entire file, your changes are saved instantaneously.

It’s a bit of an investment at $40.00 USD ($1 more than Kaleidoscope – spend the extra dollar), but it’s well worth the time and frustration saved. There are many other features that I don’t even use that might be useful to you as well.

Bodacious File & Directory Utility for Web Projects

I found this great little app called Structurer Pro on Code Canyon and I use it all the time. It helps me quickly create deep file structures in batches. I can also save these batches as templates for use with other projects. It’s not rocket science, and it’s certainly not complex, but it’s powerfully useful.

For a small investment of $7.00 you can increase your productivity ten-fold when building the architecture of your next project.

Get your own copy of Structurer Pro

If you’re using a PC, check out this product – Blueprinter