Litmus

Looks fantasic guys, I'll have a play and let you know what I think.

I think this is going to be a very helpful tool for me. I've run into a problem though.

I'm having trouble editing imported css via:

/* typography styles */
@import url("typography.css");

Whenever I try to edit the styles inside typography.css, no live changes are made in the windows.

However, it works if you have styles in the main sheet where the @import statements are located.

Any ideas?

This is really exciting! Can't wait for the next revision.

Wow awesome! Very impressed. I will definately use this, if it had an html editor aswell like you mentioned above I would probably use it a lot more, probably over Notepad and Dreamweaver.

Also, I would like a Firefox extension so I can right click a page and click a button, and it opens that sites html and css in cssvista so i can see how bits work, that would be awesome.

Great work!

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the feedback - I can't seem to replicate the problem when using nested @imports...

Could you email me (matt@salted.com) the url you're having problems with and I can try to release an update today.

Glad you like it :)

Hi Matt - thanks for your feedback!

I hadn't thought of a FF/IE add-in. Can't imagine it being to difficult to add to the installer...

I'll look into it.

But, like you say, html editing is a priority at the moment, it'd be great if I could get it into 0.2.

Thanks again!

This is awesome (insert Zaphod Beeblebrox-style hyperbole here about the awesomeness of it) - can't wait to get back to work and try it on my 22" monitor.

This is great. I only have one problem... I have some sites where there's form-based authentication. I navigate there and log in, then press "Edit CSS" and of course, the Firefox pane still wants me to log in, which I cannot do now that I'm editing.

But the editing itself works great.

It would be nice if the css files that you edit would always persist.. that way a user *could* click links on their site... often times my css needs to work across pages, rather than just on one, and I'd rather not have to save to the clipboard all the time (like I have to do with Web Developer Toolbar).

Amazing work though... Keep it up!

Hi guys!

Wow! You have really pulled it off with this one, I currently use sitevista which is a super service on its own I didn't think the service could get any better!

This is an amazing program which definitely competes with dreamweaver, plus it's free. What more could I ask for, I will certainly be recommending it to all of my colleagues.

Good luck for the future I am certain it will be very popular.

Thank you very much for a wonderful software that will guarantee to save me a lot of time designing sites that I work on. I always wondered why there hasn't been a program that allowed us to do this sooner. I haven't heard of SiteVista either, so I'll definitely be looking into the service.

CSS Vista: What a brilliant idea to live edit and view the result in both major browsers simultaneously. I'm looking forward to try it out, and check out the productivity gains I expect it to give me.

Finally something useful - it'll probably save a lot of time of manually cross-checking.

I wonder if you're planning further enhancements, like syntax highlighting and syntax checking - perhaps you could evolve it to a "pro" version, which would surely be worth some bucks.

Nice! Now if only this laptop wasn't W2K :o
Will have to wait to try it out at home... another reason to look forward to 4pm ;)

I don't like it. Why? Because you didn't make a Mac version!

Jason: A Mac version is in the pipeline. We've started developing it now, and are just seeing what is possible etc. The plan is to offer native live editing in Safari and Firefox, with integration into our SiteVista service for further browser testing.

Thanks everyone for such positive feedback!

the focus of the css-editor gets stolen from my page in the browsers on every keypress.. perhaps you should force it to stay there, or something ^^

A Windows version? Where's the Mac version?

In split view the pages load at top speed in the IE part but always time out in the Firefox part.

The same pages load fine im my regular Firefox-browser.

Would be a fine application if it worked, I assume.

Gnorf - could you email me which pages this happens on? I can't replicate the error from here.

Thanks.

Nice tool. Thx.

WOW! talk about a time saver. This is freakin awesome. Not to mention how easy it makes it to view new css concepts from the big dawgs. HTML editor would make it worth my $.

Cheers fellas

flashy no likey. the firefox split screen does not like flash, and both split screens do not like javascript, sofar as i can tell. I have some screen shots but can seem to put my hands on am email...

scratch that. I found the email.:)

Hey guys! Great job! I've been waiting for something like this ever since I discovered the WebDev toolbar for Firefox. This is a godsend! Theres a few bugs (like if your typing a background image, and leave the url blank, you get errors left and right), but I'm sure its a work in progress. I love it! Keep this kind of stuff coming!

David - thanks for the email, I'm afraid there's a few problems with adding flash to firefox inside CSSVista - I very much doubt I'll be able to get this sorted for 0.2 - it's not so much of a bug as a missing feature ;) But I can promise it's on my CSSVista to-do list.

Shaun - Thanks for your comments! Also, thank you very much for pointing that bug out to me, I've managed to replicate it and it's been fixed in 0.2 which should be coming out ASAP.

Just putting my vote in for a Mac version. I see you are working on it so I'm just adding encouragement. :) Go Team!

Sounds like a great tool - if I could use it.

I've installed it and I can only view one screen (IE); I can't split (to see Firefox); and I can't edit CSS (it just keeps saying "Getting CSS... then nothing".

I'm using FF 1.5RC2 and IE 6 on XP. Is this supposed to work with only FF1? Is there some preference somewhere I can change the browser?

Keep it up guys!

Cheers.

Hi Andrew,

I think you're experiencing a bug in version 0.1 that's been fixed for 0.2.

Can you edit CSS on the start page?

If so, it's likely the page your trying to edit the CSS for is being affected by a bug in 0.1 - 0.2 will be out ASAP and contains loads of bug fixes and much, much more support for local pages.

two things that would turn this into an even more useful app:

1) syntax highlighting, as mentioned above, would greatly help the readability (and syntax checking would be a nice bonus)
2) the ability to save the css file, rather than copy & paste into another editor to save

nice release though! seems to have everyone talking.

I'm totally prevented from viewing any site within Firefox due to a proxy configuration that I can't set. Is there any way to change the settings of the browser within CSSVista? The real-time CSS editing is pretty nice, but it really loses it's appeal when you can't see it in both browsers! :)

Thanks for the free tool, though!

I'm happy to report that it's working perfectly on my windows 2000

Great software!! Thanks for giving it away!! It works perfect and smooth with both browsers.

A must in every designer's toolkit and a time saver when you are desperately trying solutions to an element in rebellion.

Anyway, apart from some of the improvements suggested above, I've immediately missed something that I guess (or rather, I hope) won't be difficult for Matt to add (please include it in the WISHLIST):

- Adding a [Split Edit CSS Window] button to make it "float", so that we can take advantage of the Navigation mode in all the screen width.

(You know... when absolutes meet relatives and the room is narrow, you can get everything overlapped and displaced... just like in the average family reunions :)))

Thanks again and those who also miss this functionality and think it would make CSSVista the unbeatable and definitive tool, please post so!

Interesting project! When some little bugs are solved this could be the dream-come-true for every developer/designer.

http://www.quirksmode.org/js/flash.html might be a good page to test the import problem mentioned and some javascript issues.

But overall, great software!

Hi - great stuff.
The IE part works well, but in my case, the firefox pane shows no change

I use Firefox 1.5RC2

The URL, for example, http://www.pbase.com/arjunrc/image/42689672

When I click on Edit Css, and modify my stylesheet (33106.css) any changes show up in the IE pane but none in the FF pane (I verified with firefox webdev that it does show those changes)

I just wanted to chime in and say thanks, too! You have done what I have been wishing someone would do for the last several years. CSS Vista is amazing and I use it every day. Hard to believe a program that is v0.1 is so useful AND stable! Keep up the good work, but I'm sure that's already your plan. :-)

Cheers!

I've run into alittle problem. I tried to edit a css page that is on my hard drive (I am still developing it), and when I click on EDIT CSS all it does is sit there and delete my css file (they do not go to the recycle bin). My css files are attached with the @import property. I learned the first time, as I hadn´t backed up the css file and lost over 4 hours of work, so I backed up the file (in the same folder) and tried again. This time it deleted both files, even though the backup wasn't linked to the html. Anyone experience the same thing? Any solutions or way of finding my lost files? Thanks, It sounds like a great program, but hasnt worked for me yet...

I must chime in and echo Issachar's comment. I just tried it out with a local file and it, too, deleted everything I had been working on for the past 4 hours. No backup found. Why it even needs to delete the files to read them is beyond me...

Love the program I think you are definately on a great track.

I do have one rather major issue. I do a lot of customization of CSS files that are located in areas that I need to authenticate against Active Directory to access.

When I click edit CSS while at one of these sites it pops up an authentication window but it doesn't authenticate and in fact actually just hangs the program rendering it unusable until it restarts.

Any ideas? Any word on if this will become a feature or a bug you know of which has been fixed etc etc.

In case you are wondering - I do a lot of SharePoint customization, the CSS files are stored in a location that you have to authenticate to gain access to. On anonymous sites it works fine.

It also deleted my .css file when trying to edit a local file. It seems to freeze when you push Edit CSS.

Issachar, despite some days have passed already(and I guess you've been using your hard disk, so maybe the data have been overwritten), you can try with Brian Kato's Restoration:

http://www.geocities.jp/br_kato/rest2514.zip

It's a tiny program (162kb) and needs no installation.

If your files are still there, it will sure find them for you.

Good luck

I have the same problem as Shane, entering a password-protected URL hangs the program until you restart it.

It also deleted my css file. Thank god I had a backup!! This warning should be when you start the program!

I love the idea behind this tool - I imagine it could be hugely useful for me but being behind a firewall/proxy seems to prevent it from being able to load the CSS. Accessing sites on my localhost work fine. But trying to retrieve outside CSS files times out.

It a shame, because I would assume that in order to display the page in the browser the CSS is already available. No need to go of and retreive it again... otherwise I'd be using this ALL the time.

I was pointed to CSSVista by someone at the WordPress forum, and it was just what I needed! I'm not a coder, so I use WYSISYG editors like Dreamweaver for my webs design/maintenance, and it was hell trying to find a WYSIWYG editor for CSS as it simply doesn't exist--until I found CSSVista. It's not exactly like Dreamweaver, as you'd have to wade through CSS codes, but the immediate feedback with the live view makes all the difference in the world! I don't understand why other CSS editors out there don't have that (I tried about half a dozen of them, including TopStyle, Style Studio, EngInSite CSS Editor, TSW WebCoder..etc). If you guys can turn CSSVista into a true WYSIWYG CSS editor/designer, you'd kill the competition.

When there is more than one style sheet on a page, any changes made to the first style sheet called are ignored by CSS Vista -- neither browser will reflect the changes. I can delete every style from the sheet and the page looks the same. Changes made in any sheets that come after the first sheet, however, are reflected in the browsers. At least, this is the only pattern I can see to why CSS edits are sometimes ignored by CSS Vista (and like I said, this is not a specificity issue in my rules -- I can delete all styles and not see a change sometimes). I've emailed URLs of example sites with this problem.

When loading in a local HTML file with a linked stylesheet, CSSVista just hangs...I get nothing until I shut down the app. When loading in the same file from the net (http://www.modernessentials.com/new) it works just fine.

Using Windows XP.

To clarify, I did not lose my CSS file. It's still there, it just hangs when trying to load it in.

I showed this great software to my german readers http://labuschin.com/?d=7&id=175

Seems like it works with @import css files but not with in-line CSS. I make changes to it and nothing happens. Very cool concept though! Any idea when v .2 is coming? No rush. ;)

Seems like it works with @import css files but not with in-line CSS. I make changes to it and nothing happens. Very cool concept though! Any idea when v .2 is coming? No rush. ;)

Very nice work. Any dates set for 0.2? I have a few problems working with local files.

1) Some content seem to be hidden when its not. Refreshing the page makes the content flicker.

2) Local files cant be css-edited (alteast the one im working with). I dont get the CSS in the left hand pane as with remote pages. To replicate, copy the http://www.bermar.se/cb/test/boquistweb/index.htm and its css to disk and try to load it.

Cheers and great work!

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your comments,

Version 0.2 is long overdue now and we are working to get it out, there are some serious issues with editing local files (as many of you have noted here) that are causing big delays. We'll post to the blog when there's more info.

Lachlan-
Yes, you're right, it shouldn't need to get the CSS itself, I'll look into it for the next version. It can't just get it from the browser unfortunately because they remove all the comment, line breaks etc. But I'll look into getting it from the IE's cache.

"If you guys can turn CSSVista into a true WYSIWYG CSS editor/designer, you'd kill the competition."

We're still not sure on this, but it would be cool!

Andy Matthews:
Sorry you're having problems, CSSVista 0.1's support for local files is poor, we're working on it :)

Rich:
Inline styles should work, but there are bugs. I think I've got them all fixed in the next version.

"Some content seem to be hidden when its not. Refreshing the page makes the content flicker."

I haven't seen this before, is there a page you have online somewhere that I could test? I'll run it through 0.2 as well to see if the problem has been fixed.

"Local files cant be css-edited (alteast the one im working with)..."

Yes, sorry about this, 0.2 is much, much better at handling local files.

"Cheers and great work!"

Thanks!

This is a great idea for a tool, dramatically failed though at implementation.

I just downloaded the latest version of css vista from your website and thought to give it a try on the site I 'm currently developing.

What a surprise - my css file was deleted!!! ...or should i say "Ze Hungry Vista Volf ate my css" - at least if you guys send it to the recycle bin, it would be most appreciated.

Suggestion to save other people loosing their work :

It seems you have posted the disclaimer about not editing css files which reside in the same folder as the html file (by the way, where do you recommend I save the css file for the application not to delete it?). The disclaimer though is not highlighted enough. Thanks for not displaying it in 5px fonts. I believe such an important warning should go over the warm welcoming displayed and in bigger font.

An alert when downloading would also be most appreciated. An alternative approach would be to postpone the distribution of the application to the rest of the world, but can Ze Vista Volf stay Hungry???

A daft question..
How Do I SAVE the css I've been editing.
I don't see an option to save at the moment

Hi Alan. There's not a 'save' option, as often the CSS file will reside on a remote server. Best option is to keep your text editor open at the same time, and copy&paste between them, as you would when using the Firefox dev toolbar. There will however, be a save feature in a future version, which will incorporate FTP.

@The web masters: "Ze Vista Volf" will be caged up by version 0.2 :-)

As a developer I rely *a lot* on the live CSS editing feature of Chris Pedwick's Web Developer Toolbar in Firefox. CSSVista 0.2 is literally going to be a dream come true providing almost the same features with the awe-inspiring advantage of covering IE AND Firefox. Eagerly awaiting it now!

Incidentally, I used to be a QA technican, so if you want a hand with any bug testing I'm always willing to help out.

Keep up the world-class work Matt!

I'd love to use cssvista, but the live update doesn't work on Windows Server 2003 (my work dev environment). It'd also be nice if it worked on localhosted sites, though I see local files are noted above.

We want a Firefox extension!! Wohoooo!! :D

Very nice tool, helps me out with all the background images required for today's sites.

Would love to have a Help | About screen to check my version and to have some ability to check for updates. I had to come here just to make sure I was up-to-date.

When there is more than one style sheet on a page, any changes made to the first style sheet called are ignored by CSS Vista -- neither browser will reflect the changes. I can delete every style from the sheet and the page looks the same. Changes made in any sheets that come after the first sheet, however, are reflected in the browsers. At least, this is the only pattern I can see to why CSS edits are sometimes ignored by CSS Vista (and like I said, this is not a specificity issue in my rules -- I can delete all styles and not see a change sometimes). I've emailed URLs of example sites with this problem.

Excellent software, this will be a huge timesaver! Great work!!

I click on Edit CSS button and nothing happens at all.

Wow. Very impressive.

I think these blog is really useful for new comers and Excellent resource list.

Awesome tool. Works great. I wish it had color coding, but I am assuming that this is dead now that it is 2007 and the current version was released in 2005?

By the way, I would actually purchase this program in a heartbeat if you fleshed it you and actually went into "dreamweaver" territory. I think you guys are seriously on to something here. It is the first true css wysiwyg editor that I have seen. (Adobe might even snatch it up for themselves if you are not to careful).

Hey Nice concept, downloaded and installed, tried to work on a current page I'm having trouble with, but the CSS file never even loaded (froze). I woke up this morning to find the entire style sheet deleted with nothing in the recycle bin. I realize the prog is still in development, but please, make your disclaimer more prominent to save other users the same trouble. Would love to see a full working version and you have my support.

Great idea - the only thing I've seen that is remotely similar is TopStyles side by side preview.

http://www.newsgator.com/img/ss/topstyle-4.jpg

I realize it's only v0.1 but I tried four sites and none of them look correct when I hit the edit css button. Not sure if it's because all CSS files are being @imported. Feel free to email me if you need specific URL's to test on.

I'm also unable to use this with sites that require authentication :( .

Nice tool!! I've been using Firebug for Firefox and missed such a tool for IE.

Suggestions for CssVista:
- Click to 'inspect' an item, in viewer
- line numbers
- Cascade inspector, log viewer thinghy
- Temporary disable a css line

When buildig a website locally, an options to directly load the local css file, hit save and the css file is saved.

Great work!!
Helped me reduce my CSS editing work to half!! I don't have to do DOM inspection separately for both the browsers now.

Few suggestions...
1- Uniform UI for the product would be nicer.. same fonts mainly.
2- Agree with Dennis in the above post. Line numbers and click on DIV/SPAN elements to locate CSS would be nice.

Thanks.

Hi,

Conditionnal import css don't work for editing in css mode. In my example, i cannot edit ie6.css.

My code:

The don't work.

Thank,

Patrice G.

Sorry, the code is:

The conditionnal hack don't work for edit the file.

Is the IE version it shows - IE6 or IE7?

how's that Mac version coming along? ;)

I am sooo excited by this...you just have no idea. I work on designing web sites all day every day and I just can't tell you what a joy it was to happen upon this exact web page and this little program. So kudos to Matt. However, I would also like to know how the Mac version is coming along because most of my office is mac based and I can't see trying to do everything we do here on the one Windows compatible computer in the whole office. In any case, how did this software come to be and how doe it work without causing problems? I've seen people try to make software like this before and it just doesn't happen the way it should. I'm definitely going to implement it though and see if it will help me out and I'll let you know what I think of it.

It doesn't work under Windows Vista (with and without compatiblity mode)!

When i start CSSVista in Windows Vista, my CPU runs at 100% and CSSVista writes about 10MB per second into my RAM.

What can i do?

Great concept and will help me tweak some of my pages. However, i've noticed that the results are fairly inaccurate in the ie pane when I hit edit css. For http://absoblogginlutely.net the main title text comes out black, times new roman instead of the css state, and the right hand margin has a white background and is not transparent.
Yet in a live ie environment it shows up correct.

Another option that would be nice would be to choose the primary browser when not running split screen - at the moment it seems that only ie is supported?

I love the program, and it's a godsend under XP... it won't run for me under Vista though. Same problem as described by Andre above. Will this be sorted out in version 0.2?

Regarding running CSSVista on Windows Vista, it seems that you need to run it with administrative privileges. That should fix almost all the Vista problems.

We'll have that bug fixed in the next version.

Noob Question:
Where is the file --> save ?
I edit my css then cant save the changes I made.

Sorry for this stupid noob question but, can anyone help ?.

Brian: There's not a 'save' function. We followed the Firefox Web Dev Toolbar's lead on this, where it lets you edit the code live, but you then copy and paste that out into your standard editor once you're happy with it.

Future versions will handle the opening and saving of files within CSSVista itself.

Nice tool!! I've been using Firebug for Firefox and missed such a tool for IE.

I continually get this error in the FF part "The operation timed out when attempting to contact "
I tried various sites including litmusapp.com and the same thing kept occurring...i have FF 2.0.0.13

any ideas???

i'm running vista on join domain environment and it won't run for me under vista business edition

after a few second ( a minute?) i came with error box: cssvista fatal error.

when i go to properties window (cssvista.exe), the option to run as administrator is not available (disabled/turn of).

any help please?

thankyou