As I’ve previously mentioned, I use Coda as my IDE for WordPress development. Honestly, it lacks a lot features that I miss about IDE’s like Visual Studio, but I’m a fan of the user interface and have found a number of Coda Plugins for WordPress that make it more a pleasant experience.
To that end, there are a number of plugins that I’ve added to Coda that enhance the overall development experience for WordPress and that I’ve found make it much easier to resolve some of the common problems that arise when writing WordPress-based code while trying to stay true to the coding standards.
Coda Plugins For WordPress
1. WordPress Mode For Coda 2
WordPress Mode For Coda 2
Matthew Woodard has released a solid plugin that adds the equivalent of WordPress autocomplete within the context of the Coda editor. As you can see from the screen shot, it will display wp prefixed functions that are available whenever you begin typing them.
Additionally, depending on your color scheme, supported functions will be colored differently than those functions that are not supported or defined so it’s really asy to recognize whether or not you’re using a supported function.
2. DocBlock
DocBlock Generator For Coda
I’m a big fan of code comments – both in the form of DocBlocks and in the form of single line comments – because no matter how clear you think your code is, it’s still code, you know?
That means it can be difficult for someone else to read (let alone yourself six months from now :)).
As such, I’m a fan of explaining classes, methods, and more. Justin Hileman’s DocBlock generator plug-in for Coda is great for helping to provide the stubs necessary to fill out documentation for your code for tools such as phpDocumentor to generate the documentation.
3. White Out
White Out is great for trimming white space at the end of each line.
White Out is a plugin by Erik Hinterbichler which removes any trailing whitespace for each line in your source code whenever your work. I’ve tried a number of plugins that offer to do this and this has been the one that I’ve liked the most.
This is especially useful if you’re working to strictly adhere to the WordPress Coding Standards such that you’re removing trailing whitespace, using tabs, and appropriately spaces in the mid-line (a hard habit that I’ve had to break!).
It’s Not Perfect
These three plugins definitely enhance the Coda WordPress development experience, but the one thing I’m still waiting for is a debugger up to the quality of what Visual Studio offers.
Sure, MacGDBP is a fair debugger, but it’s not the same as having everything setup in the same window for breakpoints, step throughs, step overs, and so on.
But then again, this is a post about Coda plugins for WordPress. Not my wish list :).
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