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I have had a new love of Coda, I previously review it a couple of days ago, if you want to read it your can find it here. Anyway I have been collecting tips for over the last week or so about Coda. These tips and tricks are designed to help you work with Coda and get stuff done, as well as this some of the tips are designed to point out the obvious task to you, that aren’t quite as obvious. They are in no real order. If you have any more Coda tips and tricks please leave a comment.

1) Turn On Validation

One of the coolest little features of Coda is in-line html validation. This enables you to know exactly which line has errors, before you put it into a html validator. You can switch it on by pressing the small triangle in the bottom of the Coda window. You will then see lots of Coda bubbles when you click on anything that has errors.

2) Line Numbers

Although line number are in the bottom right of the editor window, turning one line numbers can make it easier to work with documents. Turn it on by pressing View > Show Line Numbers.

3) Option Click To Select A File

When you click a file it will open, although you can turn this off by going through preferences. An easier way is to Option click on a file.

4) Stop Uploading Of Files

If you find that you are uploading the wrong files, you can stop the upload (or download) by clicking on the small activity circle to display a cross.

5) Install WordPress Clips Collection

Probably the coolest feature of Coda is the clips. No need for copy and paste. Download and install the WordPress clips file from WpCandy. It features a lot of commonly used tags and commands in your WordPress theme.

6) General Clips

If you don’t want to install just WordPress Coda clips you can use a site like Coda Clips to find more general clips to use. Includes items such as CSS, PHP, Javascript.

7) Show File Path

To show the save path of a file Command + Click on the tab to show the exact save path.

8) Block Edit Lines

A quick method of adding the same text to multiple lines. Press Option and select the lines you want to edit. Then type away. The same letters/words will appear on the same lines. You can do this multiple times on different blocks.

9) Add a CakePHP Book

If you use CakePHP in Coda you can add a custom book. Go to the book tab click the plus in the bar at the bottom of the page. Set the following parameters.

BookTitle: CakePHP

BookURL: http://book.cakephp.org/

Use For Mode: PHP-HTML

Search URL:http://book.cakephp.org/search

You can also add a logo. The idea for this tip came from Douglas Jarquin.

10) Search Through Your Books From The Edit Pane

As long as you specified a URL and Use For Mode when you add a book you can Command and Double click on any word and it will search for it using the specified book. If you have more than one “Use For Mode” Set you can encounter problems. Unfortunatly you can’t do this for the default books, but there is a work around.

11) Add A PHP Searchable Book

One the same vein as number 9 add a new PHP book so you can search for it through your edit screen. Add the following variables for a new book.

Book Title: PHP Online

Book URL: http://php.net

Use For Mode:PHP-HTML

Search URL: http://us2.php.net/manual-lookup.php?pattern=*&lang=en

12) Add A HTML Searchable Book

Similar to the previous tip add the following for a searchable book.

Book Title: HTML Searchable

BookURL: http://reference.sitepoint.com/html

Use For Mode:HTML

Search URL: http://reference.sitepoint.com/search?q=*

13) Add A CSS Searchable Book

You should know the business by know.

Book Title: CSS Searchable

BookURL: http://reference.sitepoint.com/css

Use For Mode:CSS

Search URL: http://reference.sitepoint.com/search?q=*

14) Add A jQuery Book

Book Title: jQuery

BookURL: http://docs.jquery.com/

Use For Mode:Javascript

Search URL: http://docs.jquery.com/Special:Search?ns0=1&search=*&go=Go

15) Duplicate A Tab

You can duplicate a tab by right clicking on a tab and select duplicate. Any changes made in one tab will be reflected in another.

16) Split A Window Vertically (or horizontally)

Although you can change this in the preferences you can split a window horizontally or vertically by pressing a button in the top right corner of a window. If you press Option you can switch it from vertical to horizontal and vice versa.

17) Change Text Size

Press Command and then either the plus or minus key to increase or decrease the size of the text in the editor.

18) Cycle Through Modes

You can cycle through the modes (Sites, Edit, Preview, CSS etc) by pressing command and the numbers 1 through 6.

19) Turn On Hints

Although it is blatantly obvious at the bottom of the screen, turn on hints so you can get small snippets of code info to help you code better sites.

20) Change The Sites Image

If you want to change the image in the sites mode pane, right click on the image and select change image. You can also refresh the image if the image show is out of date.

21) Slow Down Eye Candy

If you want the eye candy of the sites image flipping over, press and hold Command + Option and double click on the sites image. Everything will be in slow motion.

22) Show .htaccess and invisible files

If you want to view hidden files such as .htaccess and similar. Go to View > Show Hidden files. This is very useful since you don’t need to use Terminal to edit these files.

23) Enable Apple Scripts Menu

You can enable the Apple Scripts menu in Coda by going into the preferences and selecting Show Scripts Menu. You can then place your Apple Scripts in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Coda.

24) Use SubEthaEdit Syntax Files

If you already use SubEthaEdit, you can use your syntax mode files be copying them to the Coda folder in your Application Support folder.

25) Highlight The Current Line

If you have a really big complicated document you can change the colour of the currently selected line by going into Preferences > Colours > Highlight Current Line.

26) Tidy HTML

Although Coda doesn’t have a HTML tidier you can install a Service menu called Tidy Service. This can tidy your html for you.

27) Revet HTML

Instead of hitting Command + Z a million times, if you press File > Revert To Saved, it will download the HTML file so you can start again.

28) Quickly Create A Virtual Host Site

If you have a lot of sites on one server set up with virtual hosts, duplicate the site by right clicking on it and select duplicate. You can then edit the root path. No need to set up the site from scratch.

29) Use the Coda Panic Sans Font

If you want to use the Panic Sans font in other applications. Navigate to the application. Right click on it and select Show Package Contents. Then go to Content > Resources. Double click on Panic Sans.dfont to install the font.

30) Open The File In Your Browser

If you want to open the file you are using in your own browser you can press Command + Option + B.

31) Enable Triggers

If you want a quick way to insert clips, go to the clip menu, click the small “i”. At the bottom of the window, type you text and press tab. Then press save. Every time you type the text and press tab, it will insert the clip.

32) View Coda Videos

If you are a new user to Coda you can view a couple of intro views on the Coda video site.

Conclusion

If you know of any more Coda tips. Please leave a comment below. There are hundreds more. They just need to be uncovered.

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