Atom is a new IDE from Github has gained popularity among many different developers, replacing IDE’s like PHPStorm and Sublime Text. What makes Atom different from other IDE’s is it is built to be entirely hackable from the ground up, making it extremely customizable. Atom is designed around packages and themes, it even comes with it’s own package manager “apm” which makes managing these packages a breeze. In this article I want to look at some of the best Atom packages available for WordPress/PHP development.
Prerequisites
Before we begin you must install Atom (duh) which you can do from their homepage.
After you install Atom ensure you have Atom’s package manager installed by typing:
apm --version
Essential Packages
Before we get into WordPress specifics, there are quite a few essential packages for general web development you’ll want.
Linter
Validates your code using linters.
apm install linter
Linter Specific Packages
Linter also allows more specific packages for different languages, I’ve provided a quick install command for the most popular. Note that you may need other applications installed to run each one, reference the Linter Atom page for more info.
apm install linter-jshint linter-php linter-phpcs linter-phpmd linter-scss-lint linter-csslint linter-js-yaml linter-tidy linter-htmlhint
Atom Beautify
Beautifies all major languages quickly and easily. Definietly for those of us who write sloppy code
apm install atom-beautify
Minimap
Provides a Sublime-like minimap preview of the code
apm install minimap
Color Picker
A color picker, awesome for web designers. Right click or press CMD-SHIFT-C/CTRL-ALT-C to open it.
apm install color-picker
Emmet
If you don’t know what Emmet is and you do anything with HTML/CSS, go look it up right now. I’m serious.
apm install emmet
File Icons
Makes the file icons look much prettier.
apm install file-icons
Highlight Line
Highlights the current line in case the theme doesn’t.
apm install highlight-line
Project Manager
Simple and easy project manager similar to the one in Sublime Text
apm install project-manager
Livereload
Atom plugin for the popular app Livereload
apm install livereload
WordPress/PHP Packages
WordPress-API
This package provides support for the WordPress Core API and many helpful snippets to speed up development.
apm install wordpress-api
Autocomplete PHP
Addon for the built-in autocomplete package specific for PHP
apm install autocomplete-php
Aligner-PHP
Simple and quick aligning for PHP arrays, objects, etc.
apm install aligner-php
That’s all I have for now, though I will be updating this list often with new packages I find!