I came across Dash – The API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager for OSX – in a tweet the other day and thought it sounded interesting and maybe useful at kc web design kent. At kc web design we work a lot with html, css, WordPress, Expression Engine and all sorts of other code bases like PHP, Jquery, etc at kc web design kent and when forgetting syntax or functions it’s a case of using Google or Stack Overflow to refresh your memory. When I’m using Coda I sometimes use the books to lookup syntax while I’m coding but they don’t always cover everything you need and don’t have the full documentation for things such as WordPress or Expression Engine which we use a lot at kc web design kent.
Dash is a desktop app for the Mac that gives you access to a searchable, offline selection of over 80 API’s. You can download just the ones you need, search for specific words in all documentation and even store your own code snippets and make your own searchable documents. It sits nicely in the menu bar at the top and hides away until you need it. One really nice feature in Dash is when you search it also searches google and Stack Overflow so if it doesn’t find an answer for you in the API documentation then you have the option to see whats there as well. After testing Dash while doing a bit of WordPress dev the other day at kc web design kent I found it extremely useful. It doesn’t always give you what you need when searching but it does make it very easy to look through the documentation without having to search through online codecs and docs.
I’m not sure how useful the snippet manager will be at kc web design – I tend to store all my code snippets directly in Coda so they’re right where I need them – but it could be good for storing large chunks of code for templates and themes.
And, as I’m writing this I’ve just had a notification window pop-up to tell me the WordPress 3.7.1 docs have been updated so it looks like it updates all docs in the background. Bonus!