Zen Coding is an editor plugin for high-speed HTML, XML, XSL (or any other structured code format) coding and editing. The core of this plugin is a powerful abbreviation engine which allows you to expand expressions—similar to CSS selectors—into HTML code. For example:
div#page>div.logo+ul#navigation>li*5>a
…can be expanded into:
<div id="page">
<div class="logo"></div>
<ul id="navigation">
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
<li><a href=""></a></li>
</ul>
</div>
Read more about current Zen Coding syntax
- Go to Help > Install New Software… in your Eclipse IDE
- Add http://zen-coding.ru/eclipse/updates/ (or http://media.chikuyonok.ru/eclipse/updates/ if you experience issues with zen-coding.ru) in update sites
- Check Zen Coding for Eclipse group in available plugins list, click Next button and follow the installation instructions
- Restart Eclipse
This plugin provides native Zen Coding support for Eclipse. Unlike the previous version, this plugin doesn’t require EclipseMonkey/Aptana to be installed in your Eclipse IDE and provides superior feature support:
- Expand abbreviations by Tab key
- Tab stops and linked mode support
- Simple install and update process
- Change action shortcuts in Eclipse’s Keys preferences page
- Works across all Eclipse editors (even in WebTool’s XML Editor; the EclipseMonkey plugin throws exception on it)
- Preferences support to fine-tune output for each syntax and add new abbreviations and snippets
This plugin was tested in Eclipse 3.6 Helios, but should work fine in 3.5 Galileo
Aptana 3 Beta users: since Aptana 3 can also expand snippets by Tab key, there might be collisions in expanded result (for example, for div tag). You can remove unused snippets for Aptana bundles in order to make Zen Coding plugin work properly.