If you’re just starting your foray into the world of web development, you’re probably wondering what kind of code editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE) to use. In most other branches of coding, like application or games development, you’re probably only going to deal with 1 or 2 programming languages concurrently. In web development, however, you’re almost always going to be dealing with at least 3 languages concurrently, so it’s going to feel very different from almost any other branch of coding.
Especially if you’re new to web development, having to deal with so many languages in one go (and having to be familiar with the native libraries of each of the languages) can be rather overwhelming, and the developers of CodeLobster IDE seem to understand this very well.
What is CodeLobster IDE?
CodeLobster IDE is a free-to-use code editor that is specifically designed to support the concurrent editing of PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and TypeScript files. Like most other code editors, it highlights the syntax and gives hints (auto-completion) for HTML tags, CSS selectors, and Javascript / PHP functions (alongside their parameters).
What sets CodeLobster apart from other IDEs and code editors, in my opinion, are 2 things:
- Its interface is specifically designed to make it easy to search for function and tag references for the languages it supports. This makes it very convenient for newer developers, as it means you won’t have to search for these function references online.
- It is capable of dealing with files that contain mixed content — an absolute necessity in web development, as you’ll often be dealing with files that concurrently contain HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and even MySQL.
The professional version
On top of having a function (or, in the case of HTML or CSS, tag or style) reference for the vanilla web development languages, CodeLobster also features support additional frameworks and libraries that go on top of vanilla CSS, Javascript and PHP. It boasts:
- Fully-implemented support for JavaScript (and TypeScript) libraries, such as: jQuery, Node.js, AngularJS, AngularTS, BackboneJS, EmberJS, VueJS and MeteorJS.
- A set of extensions for PHP frameworks, such as: CakePHP, CodeIgniter, Laravel, Phalcon, Smarty, Symfony, Twig and Yii plug-ins.
- Plugins for working with the most popular Content Management Systems (CMS) — Drupal, Joomla, Magento and WordPress, and finally;
- A special plug-in for Bootstrap.
The robust support it has for all these different frameworks make it an IDE that can grow with you as a web developer. As you become a more proficient web developer, one of the things you will find yourself using more and more are the different web development CMS and frameworks, as they are capable of speeding up your development process many times; and with CodeLobster’s support of these APIs, you won’t have to find a new IDE to serve your needs as you level up in your web development journey.
The professional version also comes with a built-in FTP client, which allows you to work on files on a remote server. The FTP client allows you to edit files on the server, preview the results, and then upload the changes if you are happy with them.
The drawback, of course, is that the professional version is a paid product, so you’ll need to part with some greens to get your hands on the additional framework support.
Other features and functionalities
Below are some other noteworthy features that you’ll find in CodeLobster:
- Pairs of parentheses and tags will automatically be tracked and highlighted for you, so you won’t have to count parentheses, tags or quotation marks — the editor will take care of it.
- Standard IDE features, such as:
- Highlighting of blocks;
- Selection and collapsing of code snippets;
- Bookmarks to facilitate navigation on the edited file, and;
- Recognition and building of the complete structure of PHP projects,
- The user interface can be presented in 17 languages. Some of the languages it is available in includes English, German, Russian, Spanish, and French, on top of others.
- CodeLobster IDE works on the following operation systems:
- Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10
- Mac OS
- Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian
If you’ll like to see CodeLobster in action (but don’t want to download it), you can also check out the YouTube review below.
If you’d like to download CodeLobster, you can head over to this link.