Webstorm: Best-in-class Javascript & Html Editor

By Author: Aleksey Korsun
Total Articles: 2
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For many years, IDE makers have offered advanced IDEs for strictly-typed languages such as C++, C#, Java, but have not focused nearly as much on script languages. JavaScript & HTML Editors have traditionally included only basic functions like code highlighting, code-formatting, and sometimes simple auto-completion.
WebStorm, a new integrated development environment from JetBrains, is out to change all that and set a new standard.
The main difference between using Webstorm and a web-language-aware editor with snippets, highlighting, etc. can be summed up in three words: Intelligence, Quality, and Integration.
An IDE would already provide much more than a dedicated editor. However, WebStorm goes way beyond that. It is built on top of the intelligent development platform inherited from IntelliJ IDEA, hailed by many as the smartest Java IDE today. What is meant by 'intelligence'? Intelligence is a range of features that ensure not only the highest possible coding speed, but maximum Quality of the resulting code. Some of these include:

HTML/CSS/JS code completion with support for HTML5 and modern ...
... JS frameworks such as jQuery, Prototype, etc.
On-the-fly code-quality analysis and syntax check, with in-place auto-fixes
General standards and browser-specific verification
Quick navigation to definition and usages for methods, classes, IDs, etc.
Cross-language automatic refactorings
JavaScript debugging

As a JavaScript & HTML editor, WebStorm is able to suggest javascript-specific code optimizations, quick-fixes and refactorings. It performs a comprehensive analysis of project code and offers developers best-in-class code insight, code completion suggestions and project navigation facilities.
And since the 'I' in 'IDE' stands for Integrated, WebStorm provides transparent support for the most popular version control systems (Git, Mercurial, SVN) and various issue-trackers, as well as project deployment and synchronization over FTP/SFTP.
Nicely enough, the developers of WebStorm release updates every few months and keep up to date with the latest web development standards. The latest Webstorm release supports HTML5, JavaScript5, LESS and SASS extensions for CSS.
Here are some concrete examples of WebStorm superior capabilities.
Most javascript/html editors treat anything within quotes as plain text, but WebStorm's code completion works even within quotes. For example, if your JavaScript code is outputting HTML code to the browser, code completion still works.
WebStorm also can help you with browser testing. It allows you to configure multiple web browsers, so that you can quickly open any file from the editor in one of the browsers for preview. From the code perspective, it provides you with automatic code inspections for HTML and JavaScript that warn you if your code is not cross-browser-compliant.
And last but not least: If you need not only JavaScript & HTML Editor but also need PHP, Ruby, Java or maybe Python support, you can use all the WebStorm functionality in other JetBrains IDEs: RubyMine, PyCharm, PhpStorm, and IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate Edition.
For a lightweight, fast IDE focused on efficient front-end web development, WebStorm is your best choice.