After recently buying an iPad for some responsive website testing I started to look into good web development apps for quick changes to sites or development of new ones while on the move. Doing a google search for “best web development iPad apps” I came across Koder.
Reading some of the previous reviews and checking out the app’s site www.koderapp.com it looked like it did exactly what I was looking for. Local, Dropbox and FTP integration and synchronisation. Inbuilt browser and syntax highlighting in what looked like a powerful text editor for the iPad. Some negative reviews about crashing and issues with the previewing slightly put me off, however a newer version 1.2.2 had since been released which apparently addressed these issues.
So I took the plunge and downloaded it. For just £3.99 or $5.99 in America, this is a steal for the features and functionality you get. On first load I was impressed with the UI and ability to theme and style the editor’s look. The file browser sidebar is collapsible so you can edit the files in full screen mode. As I am a Coda user on the Mac it was nice to see a similar snippets area for frequently used code ‘clips’.
After playing around with some files on my FTP server I went to preview the files. I was pleasantly surprised to see Firebug as an option in the browser (I hadn’t read the features fully!) it’s great to be able to debug files on the fly like this. I’m not sure how well the touch screen works with Firebug, as you could end up clicking on the wrong thing again and again.
On the whole this is a featured packed app that is a great iPad solution to website changes on the fly. Of course this will not replace Coda on my MBP but that is not why I have downloaded it. If you want a strong iPad app for text editing and website changes then go get it for a small £3.99.
