Sublime Text 2 Packages we love
Here at Freshleaf Towers, we’ve grown to love Sublime Text 2. No, love may not be strong enough – we adore it. One of the main reasons we covet it is down to its extendability with plugins.
First off, you’re going to need the Package Control Manager. It’s free, and requires a quick copy and paste to install into Sublime. Once that’s on, then installing more Packages is a breeze.
Once it’s installed, go to Preferences -> Package Control. A menu will appear, allowing you to show your installed packages, uninstall, find, or install a new package. From then, installing a package is only a short search away.
Here’s our favourite packages. All of them are free aside from the SFTP Plugin.
SFTP Plugin
Much like Sublime 2 itself, this is free with an annoying message, but $16 for a user license. If you work with FTP, then it’s invaluable and well worth the cost.
Emmet
Previously known as Zen Coding, Emmet is my best friend. It makes writing HTML super easy. It uses short CSS-style values to generate all the HTML you need in very little typing.
It has a learning curve, but once you get used to it you’ll never look back. Writing HTML is now effortless and I make far fewer errors. It also covers CSS, although I don’t use it as much. It also covers calculations (useful for CSS, type 50+5 and hit CTRL+SHIFT+Y and it’ll perform the action), number incrementing, Lorem Ipsum generation, and much more that I haven’t even learnt yet. Get it for the HTML Abbreviation, stay for the extras.
Try it now. Open a new blank HTML file, type html:5 and hit tab. Magic. Then try ul.nav>li*4>ainside body and hit tab. Looks like you just made a navigation, in no time at all. Have fun. Check outthe docs for more.
BracketHighlighter
Assists with highlighting { } brackets, etc. Useful for Javascript and PHP.
Laravel-Blade
Helps with using .blade.php templates in Laravel.
CSS Media Queries
If you find yourself doing lots of responsive CSS and find typing out common Media Queries tiring, this is for you.
phpbeautifier
Helps with making PHP easier to read.
NightCycle
If you’re like me and enjoy a good gimmick, this plugin is for you. As the sun goes down the theme changes to a darker theme for legibility.
Color Highlighter
This plugin highlights CSS colours as their respective colours, both HEX and RGB.
Find Function Definition
Missing a quick way to find your functions from Netbeans? This’ll solve that. With this, you can right click on a function, and find it. It’ll take a few seconds to run through your project, and throw you back at the function. Most useful in PHP.
The real joy of Sublime is finding a workflow and packages that work for you. Stay tuned, and in the next few days I’ll go through my favourite tweaks and shortcuts to make your workflow in Sublime truly sublime.