Review: CSSEdit 2 - Incredibly Easy CSS Editing

If you create your own website(s) using a lot of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), then you will need this application. If you are trying to learn CSS and want to mess around with the code, then you'll love this application. If you work on large websites with a lot of CSS code, then you'll appreciate this application. If you don't have a Mac, you'll have one more reason to be jealous because of CSSEdit 2 by MacRabbit.

I won't go into the features of CSSEdit 2. Instead I'll suggest you head over to the product site and take a look at it yourself since they've done a terrific job detailing the features with a very attractive website (as any website should be from a company that makes a web development tool). Plus, its free to try.

The Good Stuff:

Basically, the strength of CSSEdit 2 is visual editing and instant feedback of your website. It takes the guess work out of CSS tags and lets you edit your code with a helpful side bar to set parameters, settings and styles in your code, which saves a ton of typing and Googling for those obscure tags. With the preview mode you can apply different style sheets to your website. If you want to mess around and learn how CSS works, you can even apply your style to other's websites as well or take their style sheets and see how they did what they did.

The most unique feature in CSSEdit 2 is in their preview mode with the X-Ray feature. This is helpful if you're learning CSS or trying to debug your code. Clicking on an item in your website, such as an image, a link or a paragraph will identify the hierarchy of CSS tags that affect that item with a series of tabs. We only wish that you could jump to that part of your CSS code if you clicked on the tag. It's not a drawback of the application, just something that would be a nice addition in the next version.

Room For Improvement

Functionally, CSSEdit 2 does everything it says it does. My only problem with it is some usability issues. While the interface is easy to learn, is laid out really well, and is everything one expects from a modern Mac application, it could use some slight polishing in certain areas and there is plenty of room for this app to grow into an end all be all for CSS editing.

The side bar that allows you to visually edit your CSS tags should allow you to detach it into a floating "inspector" like window as well as allow you to keep more than one category expanded, which seems to be a consequence of keeping it contained within the restraints of the window.

Another set back we see is that CSSEdit 2 works on a file by file basis. There is no site level editing, so it you have multiple CSS files open, you will have to have multiple CSSEdit 2 windows open. I use XCode a lot and it would be nice to be able to easily switch between CSS files easily. Having a window for each open file gets cumbersome if you're working on a large site.

Summary

pros: 

Great visual feedback and testing.

Makes learning CSS fun and intuitive.

X-Ray feature makes debugging code kind of fun.

cons: 

Doesn't scale well for multiple CSS files.

Minor workflow issues.

thinkmac.net rating: 

4.75 out of 5

company: 

MacRabbit

product: 

CSS Edit 2

price: 

$29.95 USD

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