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My name is Rob Cherny and I'm a professional Web Developer with 16 years of experience creating Web sites and Web-based applications. This site is where I write about my work, and random other things...

Web Development

Nick Bradbury working on the TopStyle CSS XHTML Editor Again (updated 7/4)

Editing Code for User Interface Development

When I’m building UI code, I’ve all but converted from the TopStyle editor to Aptana, but this news gave me pause: Nick Bradbury is working on TopStyle again.

Whoah.

1. Nick Posts on starting work again
2. Extended Find and Replace in TopStyle
3. Nick Asks What Annoys you About TopStyle
4. Nick Demos a new Firebug like Feature
5. NewsGator’s CEO Posts About TopStyle’s Future
6. NewsGator is Still Looking to Hire A Delphi Programmer

So #2 and #4 above really got me going, since I’d been a HomeSite user for years going back, and well, I confess I still crack open HomeSite for Extended Search and Replace. That, despite all the other code and text editors I’ve used and continue to use, has been the one thing really that’s kept me installing and using HomeSite. Seriously. So, to see that feature opened up and used built into TopStyle, I couldn’t be happier.

My use of TopStyle moving forward is still in question, but I’ll probably install the upgrade, and if 3.5 ends up being a small upgrade price for 3.x users (which I hope it’s not) I’ll probably even pay for it considering it looks to get me off the ancient HomeSite which I’m really never excited to open and use anymore.

So #4 looks very cool too, since I love and exploit the similar feature in Firebug and it’s almost fundamentally changed the way I code UI’s and debug them. Alas, it’s never worked for IE, and well, this looks like it might. Sweet.

I’m profoundly excited that the 3.5 release will include several new and exciting features, and not just Vista support and bug fixes.

TopStyle Is Highly Recommended

Seriously though, if you’re a CSS developer at all, TopStyle is a great editor with some awesome text editing features. A highly recommended tool. And I’m a self-confessed text-editor junkie. Seriously, I can’t even explain how many trials I’ve tried, and moved from editor to editor in rapid cycles and seriously, have only stuck with a handful. I wish I could code a text editor, since I have a handful of features I need and few do it for me. So what does that say about text editors in general? I don’t know. But TopStyle is great.

On the PC. Yeah, it’s Delphi, so there’s no Mac OSX version, so it’s probably Parallels to the rescue. Or, there’s a few other editors I’ve got my eye on, but time will tell.

update: 7/4 So Nick has posted yet another feature: Preview with External URL featuring more Firebug like action. Sweet, I’m anxious to play…

Jul 4, 12:02 PM in Web Development (filed under Web101, Elsewhere)

1. hooney    Jul 3, 12:25 AM    #

   Thanks your announcement.

   I hope topstyle support unicode encoding.

2. rob    Jul 4, 11:45 AM    #

   Hey “hooney”, I recall at one point in time, Nick Bradbury saying that v4 would support Unicode. I think the issue was the editor component used in the current version of TopStyle didn’t support it, so they had to add a new one or something to that effect.

   I’m sure if you went over to the the NewsGator forums you would be able to find some information on that.

3. hooney    Jul 5, 07:11 AM    #

   Thanks rob~
   You are a man of discretion!

4. Nick Bradbury    Jul 5, 01:28 PM    #

   Thanks for kind words about TopStyle, Rob! I haven’t announced it yet, but you can already get the first beta of TopStyle 3.5 – just stop by:

   [link removed -:rob heh thanks Nick!]

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