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Development Tools

thomas howard
thomas howard
17,572 Points
Posted by thomas howard
thomas howard
17,572 Points

What's the best web code editor/simulator?

I'm a little foolhardy. Last year, I decided to become an app developer. But, that question is for another time. I also got into web-development because it was cheaper and seemed like I could pick it up first then branch out.

So I hired an Indian company on Elance, who built me: www.newsmeme.org.

It's having some issues going live and when I inspect its code, I only find various CSS and PHP files. I can't find the HTML. What's up with that?

I want to take the files that I pulled off my host and put them up on a code editor so that I can learn how it works and revise the code so it functions properly. It is currently very slow and the responsive design, as well as the sharing functionality, and the look, are quite a bit less than I had hoped.

What is the best way for me to edit the code and see what I am changing? I've just started coding 2 months ago...it finally dawned on me that if you want to be a developer, you have to be a coder.

Eventually I'd like to use git-hub as my project management service, but that seems so far off considering that I can't even figure out how to edit and test my current code.

I tried to use workspaces, but my code is all in javascript, php and css. I can't find the html index file to start with and it is all broken down into folders.

I'll take all the help I can get. Thanks for helping me learn.

5 Answers

Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points
Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points

When PHP code is used in a project, index.html is often changed to index.php. A file with a .php extension will render html in a browser just like a .html file.

It's probably going to be a long process to get the site to where you want it to be if you're going to be doing it by yourself. If the company recently made this website for you, I recommend telling them what you're unsatisfied with. It's not uncommon in the web development world to have to rework things for a client.

thomas howard
thomas howard
17,572 Points
thomas howard
thomas howard
17,572 Points

Thanks. I do, but they have been working on it for 6 months and said it would be done in one. So about 2 months ago I started learning to code.

So it will be a long process either way. There's tons of things that I could change about it. Still don't know if that will translate into users. That's a huge long process. Maybe people won't want to make internet content into memes and share them. I don't know.

Do you know if I take the index.php file into the workspaces if it will work? Maybe I should wrap up the CSS that I'm on and take the php path. The site is dynamic and in php. If I can figure out how to get in there and start changing up the schemes and the responsiveness, that would keep me busy for months.

Thanks,

tom

Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points
Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points

Not sure if workspaces will allow you to edit a file with a combo of PHP, Javascript, and CSS. I can't check because my account is paused at the moment. You can check by launching a Workspace from a PHP course and putting all three types of code in there.

thomas howard
thomas howard
17,572 Points
thomas howard
thomas howard
17,572 Points

Thanks, Adam,

What stack do you use for development? I'm a mac guy. and I'm a newbie.

The workspaces here are kinda cute, but if you want to create and manage your websites, you need more.

Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points
Adam N
Adam N
70,280 Points

Yep, developing on your local machine is better way than using Workspaces. Makes it easier to update the files on your server since you can just FTP the files up, rather than having to download them off Workspaces each time. Plus, if you pause your account here, you get locked out of your Workspaces until you unpause.

For local PHP development you at least need something like XAMPP (pretty sure Treehouse recommends MAMP for mac). This will install a local server on your computer. Check out the "Build a Simple PHP Application" course here at Treehouse for more info.