Espresso is Vaporware No More
After a long, long wait we’re incredibly happy to tell you that the first public release of Espresso is available! You can get it now at the Espresso website. This release is a Public Beta, so it is not yet finished.
Espresso PB1 comes with a powerful text core, and contains default support for HTML, XML, CSS and JavaScript (more Sugars are already available, but we decided not to include them yet). Previewing has Overrides just like CSSEdit, so updates are smooth and easy. Publishing offers you fool-proof synchronization, and a complete Browse mode for FTP, SFTP and S3. To get a first feel of Espresso, go try it out!
A Public Beta is not the 1.0 we expected when we announced it. We would like to explain why we dropped this ball, for those who have been anxiously awaiting a release. MacRabbit is currently two guys, and we are both still studying. Our academic workload this year was a lot heavier than we anticipated, and progress suffered as a result. Espresso is an ambitious project, so its complexity might have caused a delay in any case. Our biggest mistake was announcing too early.
With all this in mind, we’re now going into When It’s Ready mode. There’s still a lot of work to be done! New Public Betas will appear as we’re moving towards 1.0. A very happy 2009 to everyone!
Thanks Jan. Great work.
#1 - December 30th, 2008 at 2:28 AM
dizastor
Thanks for a great xmas present!
#2 - December 30th, 2008 at 2:53 AM
Adrian
Thanks for the update Jan. I’m tinkering around with the beta now and I have just a few basic questions:
1. Will CSSEdit’s functionality be built into Espresso or will Espresso compliment CSSEdit instead of replacing it?
2. Are clips in place or have they not been added yet? I can’t find them anywhere.
3. Right now Live Preview doesn’t seem to be live nor does it actually preview the file I’m working on. It’s basically a web browser. Will Live Preview ultimately detect the file you’re working on and display a preview of it or will it eventually function like CSSEdit does?
Thanks again.
#3 - December 30th, 2008 at 3:45 AM
Joey
Joey: 1 – for now, they will complement each other, but over time more CSSEdit features will make it into Espresso; 2 – clips haven’t been added yet; 3 – Espresso’s preview refreshing should be equivalent to CSSEdit’s; please e-mail us to debug issues like that!
#4 - December 30th, 2008 at 3:51 AM
Jan Van Boghout
Thank you so much for this, I can’t wait to try it out!
Just so you know also, I will purchase this when you release the final
#5 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:26 AM
chris
Thank you so much for this, I can’t wait to try it out!
Just so you know also, I will purchase this when you release the final
#6 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:26 AM
chris
Hey Jan,
THANKS for getting the beta up! It is really looking good. Question: Am I missing something, or is the tab functionality missing? Once I start a project (from an existing folder), and Espresso sees all my files, how do I get a few of them into tabs from the workspace? Is that something I want to do, or am I supposed to use them in the workspace only? What are your thoughts on the workflow?
#7 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:54 AM
jacob
Jacob: to create separate-window-tabs from Workspace tabs, simply drag them out into their own window.
#8 - December 30th, 2008 at 5:00 AM
Jan Van Boghout
Jan,
Is there any advantage or reason why you would want to edit in a separate tabbed window, instead of just using the workspace in the side bar?Also, will there be (or have you considered) any kind of interface / home screen that would enable you to set up and then launch one or more sites after you start Espresso?And, lastly, when you enter a term in the search bar, under the “project” section on the left sidebar, should it be searching through all the docs in project for that term? If so, it doesn’t appear to be working for me.
#9 - December 30th, 2008 at 6:44 AM
jacob
As far as the search functionality mentioned in my previous post, I didnt realize (until after I re-read about the ‘find’ feature, that it is only supposed to find files based on the name you enter in the search field. Any idea whether this functionality will be expanded to be able to search for a specific keyword that maybe in one of the documents in the project?
#10 - December 30th, 2008 at 6:50 AM
jacob
Umm, I know this is probably a VERY dumb question, but can anyone direct me as to how to load a live preview? I can’t find a way to do it. Am I missing something?
#11 - December 30th, 2008 at 7:35 AM
Rodney S.
Never mind. Figured it out.
Didn’t really get the point of the new button until now. Times to roll back the sleeves and try this baby out for real!
#12 - December 30th, 2008 at 7:46 AM
Rodney S.
In CSS, why Espresso doesn’t add closing bracket automatically like CSSEdit ?
#13 - December 30th, 2008 at 11:49 AM
Ced
Alright, where in the world is the live preview? I must be missing something big time. Thanks.
#14 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:30 PM
Lonnie
I must be doing something wrong, but the application will not open…
#15 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:31 PM
justin m young
Justin: download again if necessary and make sure you have Leopard. Re: preview — it is under the New button. Everyone: please visit the forums or send us e-mail for feedback like this instead of posting here!
#16 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:36 PM
Jan Van Boghout
“for now, they will complement each other, but over time more CSSEdit features will make it into Espresso”
Although I’d hoped CSSEdit’s features would have been integrated, I will say that if you intend for developers to use both of your apps together they should integrate a little bit more intuitively. A good starting point would be an easy way to open the CSS file in CSSEdit from within Espresso. Coda currently accomplishes this through a right-click, “Edit with my application of choice” where you can set your default editor for various file types.
#17 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:43 PM
Joey
I can’t seem to upload my files once I edit them to update on my server. I’m connected, I click publish and it has a check mark but when I reload the file online its like nothing happened.
#18 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:43 PM
chris
Oops. Sorry about the feedback here. I’ll direct myself to the forums.
#19 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:44 PM
Joey
Hi guys! Lovely software! I am hoping to use this as my editor of choice someday
Is there any plans to have syntax coloring/support for server-side scripting languages (PHP, Perl, Ruby, etc…)? Having them supported in the product by default would be SUPERB!
Thanks!
Eagerly awaiting the 1.0 release
CHRIS
#20 - December 30th, 2008 at 4:58 PM
Chris
Chris: yes, we plan to include some more Sugars by default in 1.0.
#21 - December 30th, 2008 at 5:08 PM
Jan Van Boghout
You both have done a very good job! Hope I can learn from you…. lol
#22 - December 30th, 2008 at 5:58 PM
i.am.Ben
Do you plan any svn integration?
#23 - December 30th, 2008 at 6:22 PM
Mateusz
“Our academic workload this year was a lot heavier than we anticipated”. I think it’s time you quit school and do this full-time!
#24 - December 30th, 2008 at 6:57 PM
David P.
Wow, am I glad to see this! Thanks for letting us know what’s up! Falling behind is certainly understandable and of course forgivable, and I’m glad to see that you’re communicating and responding to comments. It is very much appreciated. Ok, now excuse me while I dive into this thing
#25 - December 30th, 2008 at 8:22 PM
Jt Hollister
Is there any way to get syntax colouring working? I’ve downloaded & installed the PHP sugar, restarted the app, nothing. Even other syntaxes (HTML?) don’t show, remaining as black monospaced fonts
Powerbook G4, running OS X 10.5.6
#26 - December 31st, 2008 at 2:48 AM
Mark
this new beta is great! ive been testing the private betas and this first public beta is a great jump (FINALLY LIVE PREVIEW!
) but i do think that it was too hard to find the live preview … what happens if someone is using espresso in a single window mode and doesn’t have a project window open? i think there should be a menu item to launch a preview tab/window … also when the preview opens, how come its blank? would be cool if you could launch a preview of the currently selected file.
but anyway, this app is shaping up to be a great program … coda? wtf is coda?
… and in regards to the issue of whether cssedit should be integrated into espresso, i don’t see a problem of it being separate, cssedit is a really lightweight app (in performance hit wise, not features!) so it could very easily remain separate … but with apps like coda i think many people now want a ‘complete’ app with everything in it.
oh and a quick question, if i make a website with espresso, is it fine if i add a little espresso icon down the bottom with a link letting people know that my site was made with espresso?
#27 - December 31st, 2008 at 4:56 AM
xfodder
“In regards to the issue of whether cssedit should be integrated into espresso, i don’t see a problem of it being separate”
If CSSEdit isn’t integrated into Espresso then Espresso is simply an $80 text editor. And there’s nothing wrong with that if you don’t mind paying $80 for a text editor. To you it might be a wonderful value, but many people will expect a bit more. Especially considering that Coda has a text editor, a terminal, a visual CSS editor and subversion support for roughly the same price.
I’m not saying that Coda is the better tool or that Espresso isn’t worth the price. However I am suggesting that if Espresso had CSSEdit’s features it would be a tremendous value and I’d actually buy it.
#28 - December 31st, 2008 at 5:19 AM
Joey
“If CSSEdit isn’t integrated into Espresso then Espresso is simply an $80 text editor. And there’s nothing wrong with that if you don’t mind paying $80 for a text editor.”
I agree, but keep in mind: unlike most text editors, espresso has a nice little coffee cup icon. You have to expect to pay a premium for that
#29 - December 31st, 2008 at 6:21 AM
Dan
Man oh man, software folks are very high strung. You would think many of these posters had invested with Bernie Maddoff. For a couple of bright students working in your spare time, you have done a fine job….. keep at it. Obviously there is a need for this product. But many comments reveal how we live in a highly caffeinated, now, now, now world
#30 - December 31st, 2008 at 10:03 PM
jim Stokes
I was almost right about you guys releasing something on Christmas day. 5 days off though. lol. Seriously, though it’s great to see something in the wild. If this thing is as great as I think it is, I’ll be dropping Textmate very quickly.
#31 - January 2nd, 2009 at 6:46 AM
Arik Jones
You _have_ to tell people that it only works on 10.6 Leopard. Just because you all have it doesn’t mean that people who want to try Espresso do. I had to email you three times during the private beta wondering why it wasn’t working.
#32 - January 2nd, 2009 at 11:55 PM
tom
Tom, there’s a huge Leopard DVD image in the Requirements section on the Espresso front page. We’re looking at making the app fail more clearly on Tiger, but the web site is pretty explicit about this.
#33 - January 3rd, 2009 at 12:01 AM
Jan Van Boghout
Quit calling me impatient! To say that is to completely misunderstand where I’m coming from. By all means, take your time on the app, polish it and make it as good as you can before releasing it. I’m excited about the public beta, but even that wasn’t all that important in my mind. All I was trying to say is that you should keep us at least somewhat informed along the road, since you DID announce it early, the best thing you can do to reconcile that is to keep us at least somewhat in the loop.
That said, it looks like you’re making major headway — the public beta, and the fact that you’ve been responding to comments here now, are both very good signs in my opinion. With that said, I’m NOT impatient at all, I will repeat: Take your time to polish the app!
Thanks and keep up the great work, I really like what I see so far!
#34 - January 3rd, 2009 at 12:12 AM
Jt Hollister
Hey guys,
great software so far. After just a few minutes of testing I can say that it fits my needs much better than Coda does. Anyway, I’m still missing built-in php- and svn-support.
How much are you going to charge after the beta-period?
Keep on coding…
#35 - January 5th, 2009 at 6:41 PM
Jens
Great work guys!
This is the EXACT application I have been waiting for.
The beta is just enough to hold me over until 1.0 release.
Just keep it simple!
#36 - January 7th, 2009 at 1:42 AM
Jeff
I would really like to see something like “PHP-HTML” from Coda built-in. Please do NOT forget about it!
#37 - January 11th, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Tom
It’d be great to see support for web frameworks like Ruby on Rails (especially in terms of syntax coloring).
#38 - January 12th, 2009 at 4:06 AM
Arik Jones
Hey guys.
It must be great to know how much you helped the US choose the most popular president in generations!!!
: )
Obama Site designed using CSS Edit:
http://seodenver.com/2008/04/10/barack-obamas-web-designer/
#39 - January 21st, 2009 at 9:52 PM
Frequency
Beta 1 is going to expire soon! Help! I’m already leaning heavily on Espresso… another beta soon? Final version?
#40 - January 26th, 2009 at 7:23 PM
Chris
Don’t worry Chris, beta 2 is on its way.
#41 - January 26th, 2009 at 8:34 PM
Jan Van Boghout
When I pre-order. Do I get v2 for free? I don’t want to buy some advertised features which will appear v2 when I have to pay for the upgrade.
#42 - January 27th, 2009 at 2:36 PM
Tekl
Tkl, pre-ordering is for the 1.x series. Don’t buy until you are happy with what you have in your hands!
#43 - January 27th, 2009 at 2:42 PM
Jan Van Boghout
Espresso is a fine app. I tried it and I’m just… Wow
I’m only missing one thing: ODB Support. Will it be implemented at any time?
E.G. Cyberduck is using ODB and can work together with Smultron – wouldn’t it be great to see Espresso working hand-in-hand with cyberduck?
Keep up the nice work!
#44 - January 28th, 2009 at 6:21 AM
Nobo
Has anyone had issues with the dmg not mounting on their computer? I can’t install Beta 2 because of that. What to do?!
#45 - January 30th, 2009 at 10:53 AM
Rodney
YAY! I love CSSEdit2 I couldn’t live without it! You have no idea how excited I am to try this out…*ahem* is there ANY possibility of including versioning? svn,git? If so this “could” be my replacement for textmate + cssedit2
#46 - February 1st, 2009 at 12:08 AM
Vincent Franco
CSSEdit + Espresso = Love!
#47 - February 8th, 2009 at 1:11 AM
Ethan Hackett
No news since december
#48 - February 10th, 2009 at 10:47 PM
Deivian
As a Coda user (and Visual Studio refugee) I like what I see so far with Espresso Beta 2.
PRO
* It’s quick – much, much quicker than Coda.
* The right-hand Navigator is far more useful than the left-hand one squeezed into Coda.
* The CSS style Navigator – again very useful.
* Code (un)folding – very nice
* Projects – I prefer the Espresso way as I notice that in Coda files that I’ve opened from a network server will all vanish when the server gets disconnected (extremely annoying to have to remember which ones I had open and find them all again) – this doesn’t happen in Espresso and it nicely reconnects and redisplays the files when the server comes back online – far more user-friendly
CONS
* Currently missing a Find In Files feature.
* I miss the Books feature from Coda – I know I can do the same in any browser but it’s nice to have it integrated into the same environment.
* Something like Coda’s little plug-ins and ActionScript events would be nice to, for example, put in a default XHTML structure, convert text to lowercase, add a block of “Lorem Ipsum…”, etc.
Looking forward to the final release
#49 - February 12th, 2009 at 5:04 PM
Cali Cardiff
Jan,
Ik heb je al verscheidene keren gemaild met het verzoek me te laten weten op welke bankrekening ik kan betalen voor Espresso, zonder dat ik daarop ook maar enig antwoord krijg.
Betekent dat dat je niet geïnteresseerd bent in een verkoop met een overschrijving? Laat dat dan aub even weten; dat is wel zo handig.
#50 - February 13th, 2009 at 3:43 PM
E. Vlietinck
Hi!
Just curious, what language you use to code apps for Mac? I am studying programming but none of my teachers seem to know what language to use.
Sari
#51 - February 26th, 2009 at 6:20 PM
Sari
@Sari
There are a lot of languages you could use, but most native mac apps are made with Objective-C and the Cocoa framework.
#52 - February 27th, 2009 at 12:33 AM
Derek Reynolds
Is there a changelog document available for when new betas are released?
#53 - February 27th, 2009 at 1:58 AM
Arik Jones
Thanks Derek!
#54 - February 28th, 2009 at 11:34 PM
Sari
Just got beta 3… The changes to preview are exactly what this needed to push me over the edge to actually start using Espresso and dumping Dreamweaver. I’m really excited!
FYI, it would have been a major help if you had announced beta 3 on the blog. I signed up thinking I would be notified of updates and news! Boy was I wrong, two updates since the last blog post and you guys continue to show great resistance to keeping people updated! Maybe you should delete the blog and get a twitter feed? There really needs to be a reliable news source other than refreshing the page twice daily -_-
Anyway, as I was saying, Espresso is everything I hoped it would be and I love it and I will be buying it!
Couple questions…
1 even though my doc type is set to HTML 4.01 strict, auto complete still puts a / at the end of tags. Is there (or will there be in 1.0) a way to change this?
2 is there/will there be a way to automatically start documents out with certain info? Like, automatically put in all of the doctype, header, etc for HTML docs?
#55 - March 5th, 2009 at 4:16 AM
Jt Hollister
Wow, just downloaded the newest beta after letting the program sit for awhile and this is shaping up to be exactly what I was hoping for. I will be using this on a daily basis and will definitely purchase. Awesome work!
#56 - March 10th, 2009 at 5:42 PM
Dustin Walker
Just found an awesome little piece of good design I wanted to point out and thank you for. When two documents of the same name are open, it puts a subtle indicator of the folder each one is from, making my life much easier! Thank you so much, it is attention to little details like this that make the app so fantastic.
#57 - March 15th, 2009 at 11:36 PM
Jt Hollister
Please fix the toolbar. It is turning itself back on, changing the display back to “normal” from small or text-only. I hate toolbars. I like Espresso. I write Sugars because I like Espresso. But I really, really hate toolbars and I’m never going to use 99% of the functionality you have placed there. Help me out!
#58 - March 19th, 2009 at 4:37 PM
thom
Really cool guys, I only wish I could get a free copy now
I really like your work! If only I saw this a while ago when I was creating my mom’s website… but no worries, I will now be making a lot more websites just because of this app. Haha!
Really cool, thanks again guys. If you ever need help, feel free to email me… I assume you guys can figure out my email address by this form
#59 - March 22nd, 2009 at 2:28 AM
Matt
P.S.
I put Rabbit into the anti-spam field, and it didn’t work!
#60 - March 22nd, 2009 at 2:28 AM
Matt
The name “Espresso” is funny – but stupid at the same time: Try to find espresso via google, if you only catched the name… Whooohaa… Nice experience…
#61 - April 2nd, 2009 at 12:08 PM
John Jane Doe
I am impressed with the new beta and will be making a purchase. Keep up the good work!
#62 - May 31st, 2009 at 12:22 AM
scott carvin, denver seo
I would love to see svn support soon. Rolling the x-ray/inspector mode into espresso would also be a great addition.
#63 - April 23rd, 2010 at 5:35 PM
Andy