12 Brackets Extensions That Will Make Your Life Easier

5 min. read
William Craig

CEO & Co-Founder
President of WebFX. Bill has over 25 years of experience in the Internet marketing industry specializing in SEO, UX, information architecture, marketing automation and more. William’s background in scientific computing and education from Shippensburg and MIT provided the foundation for RevenueCloudFX and other key research and development projects at WebFX.

Brackets is a great source code editor for web designers and front-end web developers. It has a ton of useful features out of the box. You can make your Brackets experience even better by using extensions.

These Brackets extensions will help make your web design and front-end web development workflow a little easier.

1. CanIUse

Quickly see the current level of browser support a certain web technology has without leaving Brackets. This extension sources its data from Can I use. CanIUse

2. HTML Skeleton

HTML Skeleton helps you set up your HTML files quickly by automatically inserting basic markup such as the doctype declaration, <html>, <head>, <body>, etc. Related: A Generic HTML5 Template

3. HTML Wrapper

Rapidly mark up a list of text into list items (<li>), table rows (<tr>), hyperlinks, (<a>), and more with HTML Wrapper.

4. Brackets Icons

This is a super simple extension that adds file icons in Brackets’s sidebar. The icons are excellent visual cues that make it much easier to identify the file you’d like to work on. Brackets Icons

5. Autoprefixer

Automatically and intelligently add vendor prefixes to your CSS properties with the Autoprefixer extension. It uses browser support data from Can I use to decide whether or not a vendor prefix is needed. It’ll also remove unnecessary vendor prefixes.

Autoprefixer

6. JS CSS Minifier

This extension will remove unneeded characters from your JavaScript and CSS files. This process is called minification, and it can improve your website’s speed. JS CSS Minifier

7. CSSLint

This extension highlights CSS errors and code-quality issues. The errors and warnings reported by this extension are based on CSS Lint rules. CSSLint

8. Emmet

Emmet is a collection of tools and keyboard shortcuts that can speed up HTML- and CSS-authoring. Emmet

9. Lorem Ipsum Generator

Need some text to fill up your design prototype? The Lorem Ipsum Generator extension helps you conveniently generate dummy text. (And if you need image placeholders, have a look at Lorem Pixel or DEVimg.)

10. Beautify

This extension will help keep your HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code consistently formatted, indented, and — most importantly — readable. An alternative option to check out is the CSSComb extension. Beautify

11. Simple To-Do

Make sure you don’t forget your project tasks by using the Simple To-Do extension, which allows you to create and manage to-do lists for each project within Brackets.

12. eqFTP

Transferring and syncing your project’s files to your web host or server requires FTP or SFTP, but such a fundamental web development feature doesn’t come with Brackets. To remedy the situation, use the eqFTP extension, an FTP/STFP client that you can operate from within Brackets. eqFTP

How to Install Brackets Extensions

The quickest way to install Brackets extensions is by using the Extension Manager — access it by choosing File > Extension Manager in Brackets’s toolbar.

Brackets Extension Manager If I didn’t mention your favorite Brackets extension, please talk about it in the comments.

jacob gube small Jacob Gube is the founder of Six Revisions. He’s a front-end developer. Connect with him on Twitter.

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President of WebFX. Bill has over 25 years of experience in the Internet marketing industry specializing in SEO, UX, information architecture, marketing automation and more. William’s background in scientific computing and education from Shippensburg and MIT provided the foundation for RevenueCloudFX and other key research and development projects at WebFX.
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