- A text editor is a piece of software that you download and install on your computer, or you access online through your web browser, that allows you to write and manage text, especially the text that you write to build a web site. The text editor has to be one of the most important tools you can use as an aspiring web developer
- I would say some of the most important features are:
- code completion 2.syntax highlighting
- a nice variety of themes (to reduce eye strain andfatigue) and
- the ability to choose from a healthy selection of extensions available when you need them.
- You might find some other features that are must-have’s, but I think these features are a good start.
Comes With Your Computer
- While you certainly can use Notepad and Text Edit to make websites, there are other text editors available that might help you code more efficiently. I invite you to judge for yourself and form your own opinions.
- Ok, what about third-party options? Let’s talk about software like: Notepad++, Text Wrangler, BB Edit, Visual Studio Code, Atom, Brackets, and Sublime Text. These text editors can all be downloaded and installed to your computer from their respective websites. Each of these titles do have some if not all of the features that we talked about earlier, and most of this software is absolutely free! They are widely used in web development today.
- A text editor kind of gives away what it does in the title—it edits text. It also manages text, and manages files. I love that name “text wrangler” because in a way that’s what really a text editor does. It wrangles your text together into something meaningful.
- An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is really a suite of different software all coming together. An IDE is a text editor, a file manager, a compiler, and a debugger all in one software package.