In this post, you dig into WordPress themes, work with CSS and HTML, and
type template tags and a bit of PHP; this chapter arms you with the tools you need to gather to prepare for a smooth and efficient experience later.
Next to good ol’ pen and paper, nothing beats a good, solid text editor. We
admit, we’re a little old school, so for things like grocery lists and jotting
down ideas, we stick with a pad of paper and a pen. Unfortunately, writ-
ing code is difficult with a pen and paper, and it doesn’t translate very well
when we need to publish it to the Internet. That’s when a basic text editor
program comes in very handy — we always have one open on the computer
(usually several instances of a favored text editor, actually) and use it daily
for writing CSS and HTML, and for coding WordPress templates and themes.
Make sure that you use a text editor and not a word processor, such as
Microsoft Word, to write any code. A word processing program automati-
cally inserts formatting, characters, and hidden spaces because it assumes
that you want the document formatted. When you’re writing code, this sort
of formatting is the last thing you want — so stick with a basic text editor.
The text editors listed and described in this section are programs that are installed on your computer. Some of them are available only for Windows, some only for Mac users — we specify this in their descriptions.
