Emmet: Your Secret Weapon for Faster and Cleaner Code

Emmet is a powerful tool that can drastically speed up your web development workflow.

In the fast-paced world of web development, speed and efficiency are key. Writing repetitive HTML and CSS code can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially in large projects. This is where Zen Coding (now popularly known as Emmet) comes to the rescue. It is a powerful toolkit for web developers that allows rapid writing of HTML, CSS, and XML through shorthand syntax, making coding faster, more efficient, and less tedious.

This article explores the origins, features, syntax, and practical uses of Zen Coding/Emmet, demonstrating how it can significantly enhance your front-end development workflow.

What is Zen Coding / Emmet?

Zen Coding started as a project by Sergey Chikuyonok in 2008. It was initially a collection of plugins for text editors, aiming to provide shorthand notations for HTML and CSS. It evolved into Emmet, a more robust and feature-rich toolkit that is now integrated into popular code editors like Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Visual Studio, Sublime Text, Atom, Brackets, and many more.

Emmet is essentially a text expansion tool, you write short expressions that are dynamically converted into full snippets of code. For example:

ul>li*5

Expands to:

<ul>
    <li></li>
    <li></li>
    <li></li>
    <li></li>
    <li></li>
</ul>

Key Features

Abbreviation Expansion: Emmet allows users to type abbreviated HTML or CSS syntax, and then expand it into full code blocks using a keypress (usually Tab).
HTML Boilerplate: Emmet can quickly generate the basic HTML boilerplate, including the doctype, html, head, and body tags.
Nesting: Emmet supports nesting HTML elements using CSS like selectors, making it easy to create complex HTML structures.
Multiple Elements: You can generate multiple instances of an element quickly by using an asterisk (*) followed by a number.
Auto-numbering: Generate repeated elements with incremental values.
Wrap with Abbreviation: Select HTML and wrap it with an Emmet abbreviation.
Lorem Ipsum generator: You can generate Lorem Ipsum text right from the HTML editor.

Installing Emmet

Most modern code editors like VS Code come with Emmet pre-installed. For others like Microsoft Visual Studio, Sublime Text or Atom, you can install it via the package/extension manager.

Basic Emmet Syntax and Examples

Abbreviation	Output
html:5	Boilerplate HTML5 document
div	<div></div>
.class	<div class=”class”></div>
#id	<div id=”id”></div>
lorem5	Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Child Elements

div>ul>li

Expands to:

<div>
    <ul>
        <li></li>
    </ul>
</div>

Sibling Elements

header+main+footer

Expands to:

<header></header>
<main></main>
<footer></footer>

Grouping

(div>p)+span

Expands to:

<div>
    <p></p>
</div>
<span></span>

Multiplication

ul>li*3

Expands to:

<ul>
    <li></li>
    <li></li>
    <li></li>
</ul>

Auto Numbering and Text

ul>li.item$*5

Expands to:

<ul>
    <li class="item1"></li>
    <li class="item2"></li>
    <li class="item3"></li>
    <li class="item4"></li>
    <li class="item5"></li>
</ul>

CSS with Emmet

You can use similar shorthand in CSS files:

m10

Expands to:

margin: 10px;

and

p10-20

Expands to:

padding: 10px 20px;

Lorem Ipsum

You can generate Lorem Ipsum text using the syntax below:

lorem

will generate 30 words of Lorem Ipsum text

Or you can generate any number of words as loremn, where n is the number of words to generate.

lorem100

Will generate Lorem Ipsum text consisting of 100 words.

Zen Coding, now known as Emmet, is an indispensable tool for web developers. By mastering Emmet’s shorthand syntax and integrating it into your daily workflow, you can save time, reduce repetitive typing, and improve productivity. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced developer, learning Emmet is a worthwhile investment in your coding efficiency.