Tag: tool

Recently, I stumbled on this tool that has really helped my development process. It keeps my css file(s) current in the browser as I edit and save them. Before this I’d make an edit, save/upload (which I’ve combined into one step with SublimeText) then switch to the browser and refresh the page and/or clear cache to make sure the latest edits are loaded. Then rinse and repeat. But now with this tool I’m able to save my edit and glance at my browser as it auto refreshes the stylesheet once it notices the new file (usually about 1 second) and I see my edit, and continue with my edits. It may seem small but after doing this dozens and perhaps hundreds of times each day you can understand the simplicity of this!

[Before I used a javascript based tool called CSSRefresh which would just automatically reload the css file every second. Which had the same effect, but was a heavy consuming load on the browser as well as on the server. It ended up making the browser go much slower (especially when scrolling) and it crashed it often. Sadly, I was forced to accept the tool as a flop for my workflow.]

SoFresh is a bookmarklet based tool though. It allows you to specify a css file or more to ‘watch’ and then when the file changes on the server it smartly reloads it, saving me the trouble to switch apps reload page and wait and potentially reload while clearing my cache. My refresh and cache shortcut keys are much happier now and I take a breath every time I save an edit.

SoFresh! – It makes your CSS yummy..