Downshift

Our Toolbox: Coda

We spent some time this afternoon cleaning up some things on the Second Gear Web site, and I thought I could take some time to share how I keep the site up and running.

Many companies use content-management systems like Wordpress and ExpressionEngine to keep track of their content, but I've found that for the main Second Gear site managing everything using just PHP and Panic's Coda is a much better solution for me.

Coda is an integrated Web development environment that combines the functionality of four apps I used previously into one. I previously kept CSSedit, BBEdit, Transmit and Terminal open all at once when I was working on a site. With Coda, I just have the single Coda window up and it has the same functionality of those four apps integrated.

The biggest drawback for many with Coda is the lack of visual page creation. Coda is very much designed for someone that hand codes Web sites. If you want to have a visual editing environment, check out Sandvox from our friends at Karelia.

Coda is $79 for a license. Give it a try.