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What are some CSS editors and development tools available for the Linux operating system?

I'm using vim for everything. Are there some things you would recommend to do rather in another editor because vim does not support them or it's unproductive? Or is vim absolutely suitable for editing CSS, you use it and know some good plugins or features?

thank you

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4 Answers

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You could use Firefox (Iceweasel if you use Debian Linux) with Web Developer Toolbar, it has a CSS editor and you can apply and see your changes in real time inside the browser. It is under CSS -> Edit CSS, the browser will open a panel containing all loaded CSS files for the page you are browsing, edit your css rules see your changes, you can save it to a file or better select all your css file (the one you'd edited), copy and paste into your original CSS file. Be careful after editing your CSS, if you have multiple tabs and you change your tab all your rules will be gone, because it will load the CSS files related to the new tab. To prevent this massive loss, you must tell CSS Editor to "stick" with the files you'd edited, you can do that clicking on the pin icon, it's the one before the textbox for search.

There is a very handy web development tool, it's an IDE, Quanta Plus, it's for linux, it's a very useful tool for editing your files (CSS, HTML, PHP, etc), it has sintax highlight, you can manage projects, etc, and you can open your files there for easy copy-paste from Firefox. If you are interested in Quanta Plus you can read its features.

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Thank you for answer. I will be a little more specific in the question (I hope it's not against the rules, if so tell me). – xralf Apr 15 '11 at 18:13
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The code completion in the Netbeans IDE is pretty cool because it pop's up on-screen documentation. It's also pretty smart and can often complete id and class names declared in other project files.

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Thank you for answer. I will be a little more specific in the question (I hape it's not against the rules, if so tell me). – xralf Apr 15 '11 at 18:14
I've modified the answer in response. – Ewan Heming Apr 15 '11 at 18:35
Vim supports it too. – xralf Apr 15 '11 at 18:46
But it doesn't complete CCS ids and It's not automatic (I have to press a keyboard shortcut). – xralf Apr 15 '11 at 18:55
OK, cool, that's useful to know. I've notice that many of the simple looking linux editors that look basic actually have many quite advance features when I look more closely. Does VIM have any pretty-printing support? – Ewan Heming Apr 15 '11 at 19:00
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For developing web sites, my most cherished process is hand-coding in Aptana or Coda and then testing on Firefox. This gives me my 'baseline' for my page. Once I'm done with the page, I'll then test it in multiple browsers on different platforms and fix problems accordingly.

Aptana is an awesome IDE for multiple languages and markup. Best of all, it's free! You may be a bit intimidated coming from vi because the UI very robust but aside from that, there are many features that help you get the job done in an efficient manner. Good luck!

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VIM is a great editor, but for some uses only.

I used Quanta Plus for a long time (it is almost cool as netbeans or eclipse, and has 1/5 of their weight), but its lack of support and outdating face HTML5 and CSS3 made me thing twice.

I vote for:

  • Firefox + Firebug + WebDeveloper + Palette Grabber
  • Quanta Plus
  • Netbeans IDE + PHP + web
  • Eclipse + Aptana
  • Opera 10+ (yeah, Dragonfly is cool as Firebug)
  • Chrome 5+ (same thing for webkit developer tools)
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Thank you for answer. I'm using firebug too but I haven't found the possibility to save my edits, is it even possible? – xralf Apr 16 '11 at 12:32
not with firebug. This is a long time wishist item. Web Developer extension allows you to do that though. And with firebug, the way you can do it is: edit not with explorer tab, but within CSS tab (not too powerful, but editing works). Then copy, paste and save in any text editor. – Dave Apr 20 '11 at 1:37
Thank you a lot – xralf Apr 20 '11 at 8:55

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