Sublime Text Plugins and Package Control

Sublime Text is a very popular text editor used by coders. It is fast, with multiple cursors and selections, and there are plenty of Sublime Text plugins that can be installed to add packages and features.

There are lots of text editors around everyone has their preferences. I tend to use Espresso for most of my work, but open up Sublime Text when the clock is ticking! Rather than go in to a list of the well-documented best features of Sublime Text, I just wanted to mention a couple of the plugins and packages that I use. Bear in mind, I am mainly a front-end web designer rather than a hardcore coder, so these are the ones that suit me personally.

My Favourite Sublime Text Plugins

First up, Package Control.
This is probably essential as it would be useful for most people who use Sublime Text. This lets you install, remove and update your plugins easily inside Sublime editor. Just paste the code into the Console to get started. Once installed, you can use the Command Palette to select the new Package Control options.

(Once you install Package Control, other plugins can be installed from within Sublime Text, but I will include links to the plugins for reference.)

jQuery for Sublime Text Plugin
Press Cmd + Shift + P to open the Command Palette then start typing “pa” for the Package Control entries. (Told you it was fast.)

Go to Install Package and type “jq” to see the jQuery plugin. Hit the enter key to install it.

Emmet
Used to be known as Zen Coding. It will really speed up your workflow as it allows you to enter HTML and CSS via shorthand. Imagine, you create a new file, set the language type to html and type “!” then hit the tab key. An HTML5 doc is created and you can rapidly add content in a similar way. Typing “p.red-text*3” creates 3 paragraphs, with a class of red-text. You can see the syntax for abbreviations here.

Color Picker
One of the most useful things for visual designers is being able to pick colours from a wheel or using an eyedropper. (This has been heavily-used by me in Espresso.)

SideBar Enhancements
This will make that right-click menu offer plenty more choices.

Code Formatter
To format or beautify your code.

SublimeCodeIntel
A full-featured code intelligence and smart autocomplete engine for Sublime Text.

There are plenty more plugins available. If you have any other suggestions for Sublime Text plugins, particularly good for visual web designers, please let me know in the comments below.

Finally, a really nice custom theme (two actually) for Sublime Text is Soda Theme, which comes in light and dark flavours.

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