HTML editing issues

Ah well, I don’t think it is a Code First kind of product.
But it does both, PARALLEL, pretty good!
But alas yes, The Editor side is missing some functionality found in proper, full Code Editors,
Like Search , and a system wide version, and it some is a bit buggy, for which I find the
Undo redo action to be the worst culprit.

if. you have several pages open and hit the undo button after working on a few of them, well, you seem to enter a world of non undoable…undos. Your goosed, its gone.

But , as was said, I guess this is PRIMARILY a visual layout tool and inspector … written by a coder who had… Code first… Code Editors and created this tool to ENHANCE what he already - a code editor.

The Code Editors still exist, and as Pinegrow isn’t meant to replace your workflow toolset, rather to compliment it, May I suggest you use both together?

It also doesn’t have an FTP client… again, use another tool with it for that.

Pinegrow is PART of your tool belt.
It Compliments the Code environment with a Visual Approach, adding the possibility to Get At the code, unlike some proprietary branded versions , or where you have to pay for addons (which just inject some code into a proprietary format you cant access , in order to have some easily added functionality when it FINALLY exports your code …to HTML and CSS and random advanced flavoured thing here

and as for BBEdit , I too was going to suggest that *or TextWrangler if your still running that) as

in your words, …

Pinegrow sucking at being a text editor.

well funnily enough…BBEdit says…

2019-02-19_13-37-11

Hee Hee

SO yeah, after 25 years it would be nice to see a plugin for that (I use it mostly) Along with SublimeText.

So they are MUCH lighter footprints Than Atom or VSC
I’d love to use them with Pinegrow, especially Sublime, more so than BBEdit.
due to its advanced configurations, awesome plugin community ,support and it being Multi Platform.

Been asking for this for a few years now.

So, yeah, If you want Code first approach…
DO a code first approach, with a decent code editor.
They provide plugins for 2.
it would be GREAT if there was more! I’ve looked at the plugins and the dev is beyond my current skillset.

Use Pinegrow for the fannying around with the Visuals, but it also does other stuff to speed up your workflow,
Like the whole Wordpress thing
And now the Customise Bootstrap Themes
as well as Components
and all the other Hyper bolea stuff.

And Visuals… awesome for thet, with clicking classes on and off etc etc. you get the idea if you have used it much.

Although I’m not sure if partials still exist… they were implemented in 2.X, dissapered in 3
not sure if they ever returned, if you code/create along those lines, b
but people here have mentioned that they still work with absolute paths.

Either way,
Its not.a super duper Text editor, but it’s great for most stuff and a cursory glance, but no, its not a power editor and it would appear that the Devs realise that, but created plugins for some funky ones (maintained by teams for Hundreds!) so that their team of …4… could carry on with the Visual approach.

Frankly< I think they have found a good balance.
…notwithstanding the lack of the SublimeText Plugin and the Erratic Undo/Click-n-Pray function.

@hyperlinked There are Pinegrow extensions/plugins available for these 2 code editors (Atom and VS Code), to let them work together with Pinegrow. See this documentation for more info:

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If you want an HTML editor, why would you even buy Pinegrow in the first place???

I was looking for ways to accelerate my workflow on simple projects that don’t have heavy duty requirements. I don’t do a lot of easy projects so ironically they often take me significantly longer than they should because my tools and process don’t favor that type of work.

I wanted something that was better suited for a mostly plain ol’ HTML type of project that retained some familiarity with my normal way of working so I wouldn’t have to spend a couple of hours relearning how to use it every time I need to set up something quick and dirty.

I tried a bunch of different hybrid editors and Pinegrow appeared to be exactly what I was looking for until I realized how badly the undo/redo behaved. As atilla suggested, pairing something like BBEdit would resolve some of the pain and I’ve actually resorted to doing that… except I’m a TextMate guy.

Still, it’s not a great experience to use two separate programs like this. I didn’t know that I could get integration with Atom. Thanks for recommending that Marf. I’ll give that a try right away.

Thanks for pointing out the Atom integration, Marf. That addresses my key issues.

your welcome…oh plugins…did I not mention plugins>?
like about 7 times :slight_smile:

No problem!


Maybe sometimes a short and direct answer is enough,
and is easier to read and follow than a longer post with too much side information…
:innocent: :wink: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :heart:


Ugh, Atom + Pinegrow isn’t such a great combo after all. Pinegrow still gets in the way. It works better than Pinegrow’s text editor, but Pinegrow is clearly messing with the normal behavior of Atom. After saving in Atom, the cursor jumps to the bottom at random and the undo and redo when Atom is talking to Pinegrow also loses steps in some situations.

I think u have to make sure auto save is disabled in Atom.

And you had a longer post. as your initial Post. wasn’t really terribly specific

  • it just sucks maaaaan*

So I was covering several avenues.
I wont bother for you next time :slight_smile:

This depends if you are a code first or visual layout first designer.

For code first you really need to use a separate editor such as Atom, Visual Studio Code, Brackets, Notepad++, phpStorm, webStorm or something else.

In Pinegrow click on the support --> settings menu item at the top of the application.

Uncheck Save backup files… I do this because PG causes a mess in my projects if I let it save backups.

Uncheck Auto-Format HTML code

Scroll down to the “sync” section and either disable or enable “Auto-reload files when changed outside of Pinegrow.” - This and the Auto-format html is the majority of the issues when editing html outside of pinegrow WHILE pinegrow is running with the same file also open.

Make sure any other settings are enabled or disabled to your preferance including anything like Emmet or CSS features that change the code inside of Pinegrow automatically.

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At this stage you are primarily editing in your preferred editor or IDE and using Pinegrow to check the visual placement. I find that using Chrome’s Inspect feature along side Atom or Notepad++ works very well for this use case and during the coding stage I don’t really have Pinegrow open. The only thing I don’t have is the auto reloading of the page which is such a horrid time consuming thing to have to actually manaully press the refresh button. Joke.

What I like about Pinerow though is having multiple screen sizes open at the sametime and then when I save in Atom, or whatever, the screens reload. Though I have the integration plugin disabled at this stage and just go for the auto refresh thing to do it’s thing.

This discussion has been informative as well as confusing. I am evaluating PineGrow coming from Webflow and Oxygen. PineGrow looks interesting because I want a hybrid of visual and coding. I was actually going to try to incorporate Visual Studio Code today. I found this thread by searching PineGrow, Emmet.

I am really a newbie playing catch-up to code and binge-watching videos on YT. I haven’t come across anything that does what PineGrow appears to do (from what I have found).

It looks like Terry44 haa some advice on settings that I somewhat understand. Any other advice to someone new looking at PG for a true hybrid? I was not expecting to read that PG was horrible at HTML. Thanks!

I have been designing websites for 24 years now first with a simple editor, then with Homesite (sad of its demise) and since then various html editors. Pinegrow has definitely helped me transition to responsive websites. However, because I’ve always coded I slip back into these old ways because my knowledge base is html. Would be nice if Pinegrow editor was up to the standards of other editors just to please us “Old Guys”

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mxs, would adding Visual Studio Code or Atom not solve that problem?

Yes I have tried and use VS Studio but that has saving issues but I understand that is being addressed. It can’t be rocket science to integrate a decent editor.

I want to buy Pinegrow, at least the Standard version to get going, but I absolutely want to use Visual Studio Code with it. I’ll be monitoring to see if that issue gets resolved.

Wow! Glad I stumbled onto this thread. Now I realize why I’m having so much difficulty getting my HTML to display and behave as expected. Direct drops of HTML code sections into PineGrow results in weird re-arrangements of sections, and additions of code elements. For years I have been hand- coding HTML5 sites in Microsoft Expression Web. I was hoping PineGrow would allow me to more easily integrate responsive elements into the process, but if I can’t get HTML code to respond properly in PG, it’s not going to be useful at all. Having to use an external HTML editor side-by-side with PG doesn’t streamline anything. Especially if, when I drop the code into PG it ends up being corrupted. Might as well keep slogging along with MS Expression web and W3 CSS. I’ve invested many hours in learning PG. Disappointing!

To be honest, I’m only using Pinegrow for some prototyping, animations or email editing, but to create a website with it is just to much work for me. A simple text editor works 5x faster.

Are you sure you don’t have HTML formatting activated in the preferences? Does it happen on save or when you drop the code?

Whatever the situation, I guess this the best/simplest way to “visually” add code snippets to your documents is the one shown in the following video:

Note: This is the solution we recommend in our documentation https://pinegrow.com/docs/master-pinegrow/the-library-panel/#inserting-code

The external code editor is obviously another cool solution :slight_smile:

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I use VS along with Pinegrow and it works fine. I don’t get corrupted code or anything like that. I think having the possibility to have industry standard Visual Studio Code to work with PG is great thing.
Cheers

Emmanuel, thanks for the links. I have spent several weeks attempting to learn PG, and have spent many hours with the PG video library. We often make assumptions that don’t serve us well. I assumed I knew the basics of the library panel, and therefore skipped that video. Big mistake! There was a load of critical info there that was very enlightening. Software as complex as PG can be a double-edged sword. PG is extremely capable and flexible, (and quite obviously a labor-of-love) but the downside is that, because of it’s capability it can be very difficult and time-consuming to master. This is especially true for web builders like myself - not really professional - I can’t code anything except HTML - but I have nonetheless been building and maintaining a small number of web sites for decades, some of them quite large (see www.charlottejackson.com - hand-coded with HTML5 and W3 CSS) starting with Microsoft FrontPage. Google has forced me to enter the world of responsive, mobile-first coding. I purchased PG in an attempt to pull myself and my limited abilities, into this new world, and move me up from the very aged (but still very capable) Microsoft Expression web. I am not giving up on PG yet. It’s likely that my code issues are my fault in some way, and hopefully, as I gain more understanding of PG, I will be able to diagnose my own problems.

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