Sublime Text

I have used a long list of code editors over the years, ranging from notepad on windows to Espresso on mac, to textmate and Sublime Text. Ultimately, SublimeText 2 came out in front because it is so simple to use and so exceptionally customizable.

With a field as broad as development, every individual’s personal preferences can yeild varying effects on speed and productivity. I research quite a bit about improving my workflow and have built my SublimeText preference file up to be a pretty solid starting point for most people.

Favorite Snippets

Close_windows_when_empty — Closes the whole window if there are only empty tabs open when you hit cmd + w.

"close_windows_when_empty": true

Color_scheme — Set a path to use a custom downloaded theme like Appealr.

"color_scheme": "Packages/Appealr Color Scheme/appealr-color-scheme.tmTheme"

Folder_exclude_patterns — Set up folder exclusion for commonly used directories in your projects.

"folder_exclude_patterns": [ ".git", ".bundle", ".sass-cache", ".svn", ".hg" ]

Font_ — Set type preferences for readability. Obviously, a monospaced font like Source Code Pro from Adobe would be best.

"font_face": "Source Code Pro", "font_size": 12.0

Highlight_line — Highlights the currently selected line based on styles in your theme. Incredibly useful if you use multi-pane layouts.

"highlight_line": true

Highlight_modified_tabs — Another theme-based preference, but still useful. If you have multiple tabs open, one with un-saved changes will be highlighted.

"highlight_modified_tabs": true

Match_ — On creation of an opening bracket/brace/etc, a closing one is inserted.

"match_brackets": true, "match_brackets_angle": true, "match_brackets_braces": true, "match_brackets_content": true, "match_brackets_square": true,

Scroll_ — Allows you to scroll past the end of a file, which is necessary, especially if you hate extra empty lines at the end of a file like I do. Scroll speed to 2 is also helpful if you’re impatient with large files.

"scroll_past_end": true, "scroll_speed": 2,

Translate_tabs_to_spaces — Simple. Add this. And if you’re still using tabs in your code, quit it.

"translate_tabs_to_spaces": true

Complete Preferences:

The full preferences file is available on GitHub. My sublime text color scheme, Appealr, is also available on GitHub.

{ "bold_folder_labels": true, "caret_style": "phase", "close_windows_when_empty": true, "color_scheme": "Packages/Appealr Color Scheme/appealr-color-scheme.tmTheme", "draw_indent_guides": true, "draw_white_space": "selection", "file_exclude_patterns": [ ".DS_Store", "*.lib", "*.log" ], "folder_exclude_patterns": [ ".git", ".bundle", ".sass-cache", ".svn", ".hg" ], "font_face": "Source Code Pro", "font_size": 12.0, "highlight_line": true, "highlight_modified_tabs": true, "ignored_packages": [ "Vintage", "SublimeLinter" ], "line_padding_bottom": 3, "line_padding_top": 3, "match_brackets": true, "match_brackets_angle": true, "match_brackets_braces": true, "match_brackets_content": true, "match_brackets_square": true, "open_files_in_new_window": false, "remember_open_files": true, "remember_open_folders": true, "scroll_past_end": true, "scroll_speed": 2, "show_full_path": true, "tab_size": 2, "theme": "Nil.sublime-theme", "translate_tabs_to_spaces": true, "use_simple_full_screen": true, "wide_caret": true, "word_wrap": true }