A few days ago I asked on Twitter what FTP-capable Text Editor I should get for the iPad. The near-universal answer was Textastic.
I have been using Textastic for the past several days and am getting comfortable with the idea of making small changes and edits to my site files if need be. I wouldn’t code a new site by hand from my iPad alone, but for a current project I’m in the middle of there are times when I can jump into Textastic and make small edits on the fly.
The document workflow is a bit different than what I’m used to with Coda. With Textastic you pick a file or folder on your server you want to work with, download it to your iPad, work with the local copy, feel free to save it, and if/when you’re ready to upload it you chose to upload. In Coda, you’re basically working with the live file, and when you save it, you’re saving it to the server.
However, Textastic’s approach seems to make more sense for an iPad editor because it’s easier to make syntax mistakes and you generally code a bit slower on an iPad (especially if you’re using the on-screen keyboard).
That quibble aside, the app is great. It has an option to use Inconsolata, which I love; it has great syntax highlighting; and it was just updated for the Retina screen.
There was another app which people (Ben Brooks in particular) recommended, and that is Koder. I downloaded this app as well and it’s document workflow is much more akin to Coda’s. However, Koder is not yet Retina optimized and so the text is like ouch on my eyes.
Disclaimer: Textastic has previously been a sponsor of the RSS feed.