Sublime Text 2 has become my favourite editor for many reasons.

It is a great editor out of the box, however there are a few packages that can really make it fly. The ones I mention in this post are especially target towards WordPress development.

First I suggest you download the Package Control package which will give you a better interface for adding and managing plugins.

To install packages with the Package Control Package, click CTRL+SHIFT+P, then type Package Control: Install Package.

Sublime 2 WordPress Package

Sublime Text 2 WordPress Package is a collection of WordPress snippets and autocompletions for Sublime Text 2.

SublimeXDebug

Simple client to connect with XDebug.

One thing I haven’t gotten to work as smoothly as I had with Komodo IDE, is debugging via Xdebug. There is however a package which adds Xdebug facilities to Sublime Text.

PhpTidy

This is a Sublime Text 2 plugin allowing you to format your PHP code.

Search WordPress Codex

As the name suggests, Search WordPress Codex lets you search the WP Codex from within the editor. Furthermore, you can right-click on any given function within the code, and it can take you to the function’s reference page in the Codex. It can be super useful if you need to refer to the Codex regarding a given function or coding style.

DocBlockr

DocBlockr is a Sublime Text 2 package which makes writing JSDoc comments and PHPDoc comments a breeze.

WordPress New Project Config

WordPress New Project Config can save you a lot of time each time you start a new WP project. As such, this script can create a new folder with the project name, install the latest WordPress build automatically, fetch and install your chosen starter theme, eliminate default WP themes and the Hello Dolly plugin, create a database and table and finally, launch your project in Sublime Text 2.

It uses wp-phptidy, which is a little tool for formatting PHP code to conform the WordPress Coding Standards.

SublimeHTMLTidy

This is a Sublime Text 2 plugin allowing you to clean and tidy up your HTML code.

It uses a version of libtidy, which comes bundled with PHP 5.

SublimeWordPressCodex

This is a Sublime Text 2 plugin allowing you to easily search the WordPress Codex.

Most of all it let’s you right-click on any WordPress function and select ‘WordPress Function Reference’ to open the Codex page for this function.

SublimeText2StackOverflow

Same as previous but connects to Stack Overflow

Genesis

If you are working on WP theme development using the Genesis framework, this particular Sublime Text extension might be useful for you, as it contains a bunch of handy snippets that you can use Genesis child theme development that little bit easier.

SublimeLinter

SublimeLinter is a plugin that supports “lint” programs (known as “linters”). SublimeLinter highlights lines of code the linter deems to contain (potential) errors. It also supports highlighting special annotations (for example: TODO) so that they can be quickly located.

BracketHighlighter

This is a fork of pyparadigm’s SublimeBrackets and SublimeTagmatcher.

SublimeText2Git

Git integration: it’s pretty handy. Who knew, right?

Sublime Alignment

A simple key-binding for aligning multi-line and multiple selections in Sublime Text 2.

Here are some excellent articles about using Sublime Text 2 for PHP and WordPress development

http://clintberry.com/2012/sublime-text-2-php-symfony-development/

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/tools-and-tips/sublime-text-2-tips-and-tricks/

Also make sure you checkout this free video series on how to set up your workflow in Sublime Text 2:

https://tutsplus.com/course/improve-workflow-in-sublime-text-2

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