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Development Tools

Todd Eccles
Todd Eccles
1,615 Points

Text editors?

So, I'm trying to apply what I've learned, and work with a real text editor other than workspace. I downloaded Atom and it's completely different. I don't even know where to start...

Where do I type what kind of file it is? Nothing seems to be the same as workspaces.

3 Answers

Zachary Kaufman
Zachary Kaufman
1,463 Points

I use Atom, I really like it. It's not a whole lot different from workspaces, just two main things. A) The extensions, there's probably not tutorial on extensions because they are community made so they change often. Basically just go to atom settings (File > Settings or ctrl comman) and then packages and then find any packages you want to add to Atom. Although if you are just browsing through packages I suggest you go to the atom website and browse there (https://atom.io/packages) and the second main difference from Workspaces is that workspaces has a console, and for Atom doesn't (although I am sure theres a package for that) and to help with that I suggest you go to Console Basics in Development Tools to learn about what console to use. I hope this helps!

Todd Eccles
Todd Eccles
1,615 Points

Thank you, I appreciate it!

Zachary Kaufman
Zachary Kaufman
1,463 Points

No problems if you have any more questions about Atom I will always try to help! Just let me know.

There are plenty of videos on YouTube but I recommend you subscribe to user DevTips He always has great videos and is a great resource for learning web development tools and web design in general.

Todd Eccles
Todd Eccles
1,615 Points

Thank you for the resource, but after he downloads Atom he pulls up some files he already has saved. I don't know anything about that. I'm a complete newb and just wanted to try messing around with some of the things I've been taught in an actual text editor. Unfortunately, everything he's talking about is going way over my head.

Where do I define what type of file it is in Atom? Do I have to save files somehow in my documents?

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

All the text editors are about the same, to set a text file, you simply just save a new file with the correct extension. So wether it's main.html, style.css, index.php, or my-custom-filename.rb, the that will make that file, that type.

Todd Eccles
Todd Eccles
1,615 Points

But, how do I do that? I only started the "Front End Developer" track and have gotten through "How to Make a Website" and "CSS Basics. Neither one tells me about extensions or anything, but they keep telling me to practice?

This is pretty frustrating.

Kevin Korte
Kevin Korte
28,149 Points

You would just create a new file, usually File > New File and than you just type the file name with extension, like index.php. It's kinda how the treehouse text editors work too