WebPutty

About WebPutty

WebPutty emerged in July 2011 as a tool from Fog Creek Software, the company that would later become Glitch. It was conceived to address the cumbersome workflow web developers faced when editing Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The platform functions as a web-based integrated development environment (IDE) specifically for CSS, allowing developers to write and edit their site's styling from any location.

The service is designed for web developers and designers looking for a more efficient way to manage their CSS. Its business model is centered on providing a hosted service, although it is also available as an open-source project that individuals or companies can deploy on their own Google App Engine account. This dual approach catered to both those who preferred a managed solution and those who required more control over their development environment.

WebPutty's core offering is a CSS editor with syntax highlighting and a side-by-side preview pane, enabling real-time visualization of changes. A key benefit is its instant publishing feature, which automatically handles minification, compression, and cache control, processes that optimize a website's loading speed. The platform also integrates the power of SCSS and Compass, popular CSS pre-processors that offer more advanced features than standard CSS. By simply adding a snippet of code to a website's template, users could have WebPutty host and serve their optimized stylesheets.