Download
CSSVista 0.15 (.msi, 8.9MB)

Mirror Download Link

Please uninstall any older versions of CSSVista before installing 0.15.

Features

• Editing of CSS and inline styles, with a live preview in both Internet Explorer and Firefox at the same time.


• Element outlining in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.


• Powerful CSS Editor, including:
  • Syntax highlighting.
  
  
  • Auto complete.
  
  
  • Dual-pane editing (view two seperate places in the same css-file at once).
  
  
  • Find (and Replace) with RegEx support.


• Option to resize the window to typical sizes.


• Option to disable images and/or css.


• Firefox now supports various plugins such as Flash and QuickTime.


• Lots and lots of bug fixes.


• Auto file-version saving Testing has uncovered a lot of problems with this so I'm removing it for now.


• Auto-updates - all updates happen silently in the background.

Requirements
Windows XP, 2003 or Vista
MS .net Framework 2.0 (if you're using Vista you don't need this - if you're using XP or 2003 you probably already have it installed - if you don't - download and install it here).
The version of Internet Explorer you have installed determines which version CSSVista will use.

Troubleshooting
If CSSVista seems to be running slowly, try unchecking "Automatic CSS Refreshing" found under the tools menu. You'll need to press Ctrl+S from now on to update the browsers.

If you receive an error about IE throwing an 'out of memory' error, please post the url you were using at the time, or email it to me at: matt@mattbrindley.com if you prefer.

If your outgoing firewall blocks CSSVista, approve it and then restart CSSVista.
Some firewalls (including Windows Firewall) will continue to deny CSSVista access because of the way it first connects - restarting CSSVista will fix this problem.

What took so long?
First of all, an apology.
Sorry for the problems CSSVista 0.1 had, and sorry it's taken so long to get a fix out.
I'm not going to dwell on this, but I would like to explain why it took me so long to get an update out.

Not long after launching CSSVista 0.1 we saw an opportunity with SiteVista's email testing service and decided to focus on that, most of my time was spent developing email testing and CSSVista unfortunately took a back seat.

A few weeks ago I decided to just do everything I could to get a new build out. I started stripping out incomplete features and focusing completely on getting a stable, deployable build ready.

I really, really hope you'll find the tool useful.

It's also really important to mention that this may be the last major-version release of CSSVista. It will still be developed, but under different names (don't worry, we'll still be offering a free version of something very similar) and will not be out for a while. We have some fantastic and very exciting ideas for this application.

Post any bugs you find here and let me know what you think of it!

Posted by Matt at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

CSSVista's development is coming along very well and is really starting to pick up momentum.

I've been stuck on a few of the developer options (outlining, validation etc) I was wondering whether to simply release 0.2 with half a menu bar!

I wonder if it's better to release *something* with some important options (like settings/preferences panel) missing, rather than nothing at all?

For example, we have version saving working, but the settings panel I'm building for all the features won't be ready for a while yet. Do we release without the ability to turn features on/off and customise them?

The other reason I'm desperate to launch 0.2 is it has built in automatic updating. So once you uninstall 0.1 and get 0.2 - you'll never have to update it again.

What do you think? Launch 0.2 without a settings panels? Or wait a few weeks until the settings panel is finished?

Update: CSSVista 0.15 has been released.

Posted by Matt at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (23)

I've been thinking about a pretty smart addition to CSSVista 0.2's features.

It's taking the auto-complete a little further by including support for tag names, element IDs and class names that have been used in the HTML loaded in the browsers.

So it would trigger on pressing either "#" or "." or if you started typing outside braces. But it could also support things like li .selected (where it would predict both "li" and "selected").

What do you think? Obviously it could be turned off, would it get annoying? It could serve as a gentle reminder of the spelling/case of the classes and IDs you had used in your HTML, I think I would work faster if I had this.

Update: CSSVista 0.15 has been released.

Posted by Matt at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

So this is the list of features we've talked about adding into CSSVista 0.2. Some of these will need to be held back for later versions. Some others will probably never make it at all... What do you think? What would you like/hate to see in 0.2?

Syntax Highlighting/Code Colouring
This has been added now. However, the ability to customise/turn off has not. This needs to be added to the settings dialog.

Code Completion/Auto-Complete
This has been added. properties for it has not yet.

Code Folding
This has been added.

Line Numbering
Added.

Comprehensive Find/Replace
I'm about half-way through this, there's a few complications with the multiple tabs, but there should be no problem with having it for 0.2.

FTP/Local Saving of CSS Files
I've started on this, but have stopped because I wanted to see what people thought - is FTP important? Or do you already have a setup you'd use instead.

Version Saving
This has been added. I've found it really useful, I'm glad we've got this in for 0.2.

Disable...
...Images
...CSS
These 2 work - need a few more options here I think.

Resize...
...800x600
...1024x768
...custom
This all works. Any other default sizes?

Outline...
...Block Level Elements
...Outline Div Elements
...Outline Images
...Outline Frames
...Outline All Elements
...Outline Custom Elements
I'm particularly proud to be able to say that this is working since IE doesn't support "outline" :)
There's still some work to be done, and I think the options on the menu need adjusting.

Information
Show Image Dimensions
Show Image Src
Show Image Alt
Show Link Path
Show Link Titles
Custom Information
I haven't started on this yet.

Validate...
...CSS
...HTML
...Links
These have been added.

Proxy Server Support
Not started yet.

Session Sharing Between IE and FF (cookie sharing)
Not done yet (not even sure if this is possible yet!)

Flash Support
Added.

QuickTime Support
Added.

Custom Plug-in/Add-on Support
There's a lot of work to do here. How important is this?

Accessing Authenticated Pages
Not done yet.

I'm really keen to hear what people want.

Update: CSSVista 0.15 has been released.

Posted by Matt at 4:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

UPDATE: CSSVista 0.15 has been released.

CSSVista 0.2 is getting close to being ready to launch and I thought it would be a good idea to share the last few stages of the development of 0.2 with it's users on this blog.

We've had some really amazing feedback over on the SiteVista blog and I'd like to get a bit more technical, get some of you guys involved in what makes it in to 0.2 and later versions, and what we don't use at all.

I'm going to be publishing a sort of proposed feature list later, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts. I'll also include how close CSSVista is to fully implementing that feature.

0.2 now has all the bugs that have been reported fixed, as well as some improvements to it's CSS file handling (so no more disappearing css files).

The current build of 0.2 is far from stable, but while I make it stable, put it through QA etc, I'll be updating the blog with my progress.

And of course there's the Mac version to consider as well - more about that later.

I'm not going to go into too much detail right now - I'll be following this post with another for that, but here's a sneak-peek at 0.2:

UPDATE: Be sure to check out the feature list for 0.2

Posted by Matt at 3:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)