dragonfly18

Hi,
What editor is good to use to edit wordpress themes? Preferably a free one but would be willing to pay if it made life easier for a beginner (I'm a total newbie to html/css/php).

I basically just want to know how people edit html/php/css in a wordpress theme and be able to preview the whole site as you go and play around with it as you go (similar to wordpress dashboard but in an editor so more freedom to change things), then finally upload it to your website? How do website designers do this or design their themes? As using widgets etc in wordpress is ok but I still feel limited and want more control over the design and flow etc.

I want to add extra features in the theme (which would require added code) and then also edit the css to accompany new code and also edit original css.

How do you customise your wordpress websites beyond using just widgets and plugins?


Thanks
ps. I've tried editor Brackets I really liked the design and feel but I can't get it to load live preview with wordpress files from the purchased theme and finding it really frustrating as I really don't know how to load the website as a whole using the editor and play around with the code – I just want to be able to do similar to what 'firebug' allows you to do to websites but actually edit code for real and be able to visually see those edits as I go.