Coda Thoughts

Today Panic released Coda, one-window web development. Stevenf described it as “by far our biggest, most ambitious new software launch of all time” and playing with it for only a little while I can see why.

First, a round of applause. This is a really big application and it has Panic polish all over it. Some points of interest:

  • The custom controls in the CSS section are very well thought out and very pretty. Specifically, the segmented selector to define background repeating pattern is spot on.
  • The sites view with its “flying papers” is very snazzy though sadly only half of the imported bookmarks resulted in a pretty piece of paper with the actual site on it. Perhaps I should be allowed to override the URL it gets the picture from?
  • The ability to highlight tags/commands/functions in the editor and bring up inline documentation via the Books is a killer feature. I’ve seen editors that do it for PHP (or Cocoa), but not PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

So with all that said will I use it? Probably not.

This workflow of developing a website is something I stopped using three years ago. Almost every site I work on these days is powered by an open source (or custom built) content system. A core reason for this decision is so that when I do have time to work on the site I want to spend it writing content, not managing files or thinking in HTML. The ability to open up MarsEdit, write a post in a lean markup language like Markdown is my heaven. Sure, whenever you setup a new site that uses a content system there is a period of editing the templates and CSS but I don’t see having a one window environment to be all that of an advantage. To be honest, I’ve never really felt held back doing my development with all my apps open and jumping in-between them. I use Expose a lot and do an option-command click when I really want to hide all but the application I’m clicking in the Dock. For me this works great.

I’m sure Coda will find an audience and be a successful app. I know lots of people who live in this workflow and might enjoy Panic’s “unification” take on the problem. Congratulations guys!

Posted on: April 23, 2007 – 6:12 pm

2 Comments

  1. Erik J. Barzeski wrote:

    Our thoughts are similar. I see the “one-window” thing as a negative. Others will see it as a positive. To each his own.

  2. Jay Workout wrote:

    “one-window” is positive. It is made for simple interface to be used. Explain your position

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