There is a mountain of serious and desktop-worthy apps available for the iPad. Such as Textastic, for example, a text and code editor that you can get started with. It is wise to purchase a physical keyboard for this type of use, and a mouse also comes in handy. Programming on iPad with it works as follows.
Textastic is a comprehensive text editor that is also ideally suited for programming. The app recognizes the syntax of no fewer than 80 programming languages, including HTML. All your code is therefore neatly marked – if desired. This not only makes it easier to keep an overview, but also makes detecting errors a lot more efficient.
With a price tag of €9.99, it is certainly not the cheapest app, but for the target group it is worth every penny. Also because there is (yet?) no whining going on with mandatory subscriptions and extra in-app purchases. Pay once and you have everything promised in your hands.
You can of course use it to create plain texts such as notes and notes. But its great strength lies in code recognition. And even automatic completion for a selection of languages. That trick works for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C, Objective-C, and PHP.
Many extra features on board
It doesn’t just stop with text and code editing, but there are also plenty of extra tools provided. Such as FTP, FTPS (FTP over SSL), SFTP (SSH connection), WebDAV, Dropbox and Google Drive clients. At the same time, an SSH client has also been considered, which makes it a very complete whole. Which indeed covers all your programming needs for some editing, sharing code and if necessary compiling and trying out via SSH in one fell swoop.
When you start the app, you will see a bar with options on the left. Firstly, file manager, but you can also start other functions by using the buttons at the bottom left. From left to right: file transfer to a server (press the + to choose from (S)FTP, Dropbox, Google Drive and WebDAV. For each item the necessary login details and other necessary things must be entered.
You start a WebDav server with the second button at the bottom of the column on the left, followed by help files via the question mark. Finally, there is the settings gear. If you click on this, you can completely adjust the app to your wishes. Consider, for example, a light or a dark theme under UI Theme or a password for the app. Go through everything carefully, every ‘coder’ has its own specific preferences.
Readability code
We show how much marked code makes reading easier by means of a simple example: a machine-generated html page of computertotaal.nl. There is no nice design with lines and loops in it, which makes reading the plain text in a regular text editor a nightmare.
Provided with colored code elements – as you can see below – it becomes a lot clearer. Of course, hand-typed code is much clearer, but at least something can be done with this.
If you’re going to be typing HTML code yourself – which can sometimes be quite handy, if only to make some quick manual adjustments here or there – Textastic’s preview function will come in handy. Tap or click on the glasses in the button bar at the top (right). You now see a preview of what your diligent work offers in terms of results. Uses a web server internally for this.
This makes it possible to view the web page in the default browser Safari, if you wish. To do this – in the preview view – first tap Done to close it. Then keep the button with the glasses pressed or clicked for a little longer. In the menu that opens, tap or click Preview in Safari.
Code recognition
As promised, Textastic can also recognize code – for a number of languages. In the image above, next to the < and > buttons, you see a dashed button with a numbered ball in it. Click on that and you will see a list of errors found. To jump directly to a problem, click on an error and then Open (followed by file name and line number). You then immediately jump to the error found in the source code.
In this very specific example, fixing the errors simply involves removing even more redundant code. Ultimately, in this case, we would then be left with almost basic HTML code, after which you can then start ‘constructing’ again regarding, among other things, font, subheadings and so on.
Share, print and more
The button with the three dots at the top right gives you access to an extra menu. Including the option to share, email, print and a handy Copy All-function. As mentioned, you can also use online storage and SSH, which basically allows you to work on code directly on a server. And that makes Textastic a tool that should not be missing in any virtual coder’s tool bag.
Want to know more about your iPad as a laptop replacement? We also recommend the course Do everything with the iPad at!
.