Coding with Coda

Chapter 4. Tinkering with Preferences

When I was but a teenager, a neighbor of mine once bought a brand-new Harley-Davidson motorcycle and had it torn apart, sitting on stands in his front yard two days later. My dad and I walked over to see what he was doing, as we were completely shocked by what he had done.

“What’s wrong with your bike?” my dad asked him.

“Nothing,” he said. “I just wanted to tinker a little bit with it.”

It’s a good thing Coda doesn’t cost as much as a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, because one of the first things I want to do with any new program is to “tinker a little bit with it” and set it up to my preferences.

Selecting Coda → Preferences from the menu brings up a window where you can tinker to your heart’s content. There are nine tabs to choose from, so let’s set up Coda the way we like it.

General Preferences

Split Direction

When editing files that can be previewed within Coda, such as an HTML file, you can split the viewing area. For example, your code could be in one split pane, and a preview of what you’re editing could be in another. This preference sets the default for whether the split is horizontal or vertical.

An added bonus is that you can quickly switch to the opposite of your default setting by holding down the Option key when splitting a direction in editor, followed by clicking the Split button in the path bar.

Sidebar Position

This sets the default positioning of the sidebar in the editing area.

iCloud

This option is only available if you purchased ...