Open Different File Types With a Windows Text Editor Like Notepad++

Can you remember the first time you experienced the dreaded white screen of death?

I clearly remember Brian Gardner posting a line of php code in the StudioPress forum trying to help me with customization.

I pasted it into the wrong file causing my site to stop working.

What i should have done was downloaded a copy of the file and opened it using a text editor like Notepad++.

Notepad++ opens a huge range of different file types and allows you to keep a copy just in case you stuff it up like i did.

New To WordPress Code?

I suggest you install WordPress locally and download Notepad++.

You can then play around with all the CSS and PHP code in your theme files.

The most common file types you’ll open with Notepad++ are:

• .php – Functions code
• .css – Styling code
• .xml – RSS Export file
• .sql – Database code
• .htaccess – Server configuration

Backup Files

You should always copy a file for backup before editing the code. Especially if its a .php file.

If you make a mistake and suffer an error, you can always upload the backup file to your server overwriting the problem file and restoring your site.

Search Find & Replace

The search feature lets you find code and replace all instances in an entire file quickly and easily.

This feature comes in handy when customizing WordPress, changing internal links and finding the block of code you want to edit or change in some way.

Here’s an example using the term ‘search’ to find all CSS code used to style the search form in a theme.