15 Best Brackets Extensions For A Smooth Coding Experience

Different coders prefer different code editors. But, when it comes to front-end design, there’s only one code editor that beats all the rest. That is Brackets.

Brackets is the best and the most versatile code editor you can find for front-end design coding. This amazing code editor comes with so many amazing features packed into one app and, best of all, you can even supercharge it with extensions to add more great functions.

We handpicked several Brackets extensions that’ll make your coding life much easier. These extensions are so great that you’ll wonder how you lived without them.

Why Choose Brackets?

Developed by Adobe, Brackets is an open-source code editor designed specifically for front-end designers. It’s lightweight and comes with several visual tools that make front-end design much easier, like live previews, support for preprocessors, color palettes, and much more. More importantly, this code editor comes to you completely free of charge.

Unlike the expensive Sublime Text or the Atom editor, Brackets is much more advanced in terms of both functionality and user experience. The app already has a massive community behind it including developers who constantly release great extensions to make the code editor more effective.

Followings are just a few of the many extensions you can find on Brackets.

#1 Emmet

Emmet is a popular extension that you can find in almost every modern code editor. This extension simply improves your coding workflow by expanding the CSS and HTML code tags abbreviations, allowing you to spend more time writing the code that matters.

Once installed, Emmet will automatically take care of all the default HTML and CSS tags while you code. Emmet works best when you’re using HTML frameworks, such as Bootstrap or Foundation.

#2 Autoprefixer

When working with CSS, one of the biggest issues designers have to tackle is making sure the code works with each and every browser available. Because different browsers use different prefixes. This means you have to manually type different vendor prefixes for different browsers.

Autoprefixer is a time-saving extension that does that job for you by automatically parsing CSS vendor prefixes. This will help you save a ton of time that goes into coding CSS.

#3 Minifier

Minification plays a major role when it comes to website loading speed. By minifying your code, you can save a few seconds off a website’s loading time. Especially when you’re using lots of CSS and JavaScript, it’s crucial that you minify your code before publishing.

Brackets Minifier is a great tool that allows you to easily and properly minify your code without having to rely on any additional apps. When in action, the extension will minify your CSS and JavaScript and save them as separate files (eg: {filename}.min.{ext}).

#4 Snippets

Only coders know how painful it is having to write the same code and tags over and over again when working on big projects. What if there’s a way to write your most commonly used code using shortcuts?

This extension does just that. Snippets allow you to create and manage your own code snippets library so that you can quickly write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code by typing just a couple of letters.

#5 AutoSaver

Brackets has a system in place to remind you to save changes before closing the app. However, forgetting to save your edits can be annoying when you’re constantly previewing your changes.

With this extension, you can save that extra time goes into hitting CTRL + S because this tool will automatically save every change you make to your documents.

Just make sure to keep an original copy of your files before editing the files.

#6 Lorem Ipsum

Copying dummy text is another time-wasting task that designers hate to do. One of the problems of copying dummy text is figuring out the exact number of words that fit into a section in a design. This usually takes a few tries to get it right.

The Lorem Ipsum extension for Brackets solves this problem. With this extension in your code editor, all you have to do is specify the exact amount of words you’d like to have and it’ll magically appear. For example, if you want 100 words of dummy text, you just type lorem_wrap100. and the text will appear.

#7 Lorem Pixel

Similar to the Lorem Ipsum extension, the Lorem Pixel extension is a tool you can use for generating placeholder images for your designs.

Generating placeholder images is quite easy with Lorem Pixel. You can easily customize each placeholder image size using a visual editor and it even allows you to use custom URLs to insert dummy images.

#8 Any Template

The most boring part of starting a new project is typing those mandatory markup tags. Whether it’s HTML, PHP, or JavaScript, you must always use those tags whenever you create a new document.

Any Template is an extension that helps you fix that problem. With this tool, you can create templates to quickly get started on documents with pre-written markup. For example, if you want to create a fresh HTML document, simply select the HTML template and all the default HTML tags will instantly appear on the document.

#9 Tabs

Brackets makes it easier to browse your documents and folders with its sidebar. But, when working with lots of documents at once, this section can easily get crowded and make everything a bit confusing.

This cool extension brings Google Chrome-style tabs into Brackets to help you manage your documents and files using tabs. With this tool activated, you can comfortably switch to fullscreen mode and switch between tabs without having to look for any files in the default sidebar.

#10 Brackets Icons

This is another fun little extension that aims to help you manage your different types of documents easily in Brackets.

Brackets Icons makes it easier for you to recognize different types of documents by tagging them with special and colorful icons. You won’t have to look for the file extension ever again to recognize a file. Just look for the file icon to quickly find the appropriate document.

#11 SFTP Upload

What if you could manage your website files on your server directly from Brackets and upload new and updated files to your servers without having to use a separate FTP client?

If you’ve been dreaming of such a feature, then this extension is for you. With SFTP Upload, you can directly upload and transfer the files you’re working on Brackets to your server directly from the code editor.

#12 Swatcher

Working with color will be much easier with this Brackets extension. The Swatcher is an interesting tool that quickly generates color palettes from images, Adobe swatch files, and LESS and SASS files.

The extension will allow you to generate different colors and create unique color palette while you write CSS.

#13 ToDo

It’s easy to get distracted while you’re writing code and managing lots of different files. Like forgetting to fix an error, adding comments, or changing colors. If you face similar problems while you write code, this extension will come in handy.

ToDo is a Brackets extension that adds a section into your code editor to remind you of the things you have to do. It also works as a bookmark manager for your code as well.

You can use it by writing comments with // TODO: tag and you can quickly jump to specific sections in your document by clicking on a ToDo from the extension tab.

#14 PasteToBin

Pastebin is a popular tool web developers use to share and save code snippets. If you’re a fan of Pastebin, this extension will make things easier for you to save your code snippets directly from Brackets.

Using the extension, you can easily select the code you want to save and upload it to Pastebin directly from Brackets. And then it will automatically generate and copy the URL for the Pastebin file for you to share the code with your friends or save them for later.

#15 WordPress Hints

If you’re a web designer working on WordPress designs or maybe designing a WordPress theme or a plugin using Brackets, this extension will help make sure that you always follow the proper WordPress coding structure.

WordPress Hints is a Brackets extension that shows hints related to WordPress core functions while you write code for WordPress themes and plugins. The tool also supports advanced custom fields functions and WooCommerce functions as well.

How To Install Brackets Extensions

To install an extension, simply open your Brackets editor and open the Extensions tab.

 

From here, you can install extensions and themes as well.

Just search for the extensions you’d like to install and click the Install button to begin the installation.

That’s it!

What’s Your Favorite?

Brackets’ extensions directory gets updated with new and exciting extensions almost every day. So, be sure to check in often to see if you can find anything new.

Know any other great Brackets extensions? Let us know in the comments.

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