Both Safari (Mac OS X) and Firefox (Mac OS X and Windows) have extensions that allow you to right click (or ctrl-click) in a text box and edit your template using an external text editor. I find this approach useful as when I’m traveling I can make quick changes to a template from anywhere that I have access to a Web browser and in my office or at home I can use my text editor of choice, which in my case happens to be TextMate on Mac OS X (http://macromates.com/).

Mac OS X: Saft for Safari: http://haoli.dnsalias.com/Saft/index.html

Mac OS X or Windows: It’s All Text! for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4125

In order to use It’s All Text! with Firefox on Mac OS X using BBEdit as your external editor read this: http://indiamos.wordpress.com/2007/02/24/itsalltext/

In order to use It’s All Text! with Firefox on Mac OS X using TextMate as your external editor (and you really should be):

- launch TextMate
- in the menu bar select Help/Terminal Useage…
- click Create Link
- launch Firefox
- right click or ctrl-click in a text box and select It’s All Text!/Preferences…
- in the “Editor” field type (or cut and paste) /usr/bin/mate

Now It’s All Text! will work with Firefox on Mac OS X.

Before we discovered TextMate we were using jEdit as our text editor of choice. In a comparison with jEdit, the only important feature that is missing in TextMate (in fact it’s there, but not obvious) is code bracket matching being displayed in the gutter. That is our favorite feature in jEdit. There is an equivalent feature in TextMate, but you have to use the menu or a key combination to invoke it every time you want brackets matched, whereas it’s always just there in jEdit. Well, only one small gripe - not bad at all.

For TextMate users developing a site using ExpressionEngine you should try out the TextMate ExpressionEngine bundle developed by Chris Ruzin. It’s very well done and Chris keeps it up to date.

Note: TextMate only runs on Mac OS X. jEdit is a Java application and therefore runs on Mac OS X, Windows (if you have Java installed) and Linux.

We have tried Style Master (Mac and PC) and CSSedit (Mac only) and we highly recommend Style Master for both CSS novices and gurus alike.

We won't go into a review of Style Master here as a pretty good review can be found here on the Macworld Web site. We will say however that Style Master is worth the money and can dramatically reduce the frustration of learning CSS for those of you out there who want a great looking ExpressionEngine site but either aren't technically blessed or don't want to be.

Style Master info can be found on the Western Civilization Web site and CSSedit info can be found on the MacRabbit Web site.