Easier way to edit the html of a Tumblr theme without using their interface?

Question

In building a Tumblr theme I've got an external .css on my server which is very convenient because I can work directly in my editor, save to my server and refresh to see my results.

However, if I need to make changes to the HTML of my theme I've been making the changes in my editor, copying everything over to the "Customize Theme" option in Tumblr, then having to save there. This is really tedious and cumbersome because of the way their editor is laid out (the html covers the entirety of the the preview).

Does anyone have a smoother workflow? Even if it involves just viewing my .html directly from my server when tweaking, then pasting it in when done. Like some way to inject test content so it's not just the html template tags?

Answer 1

While Tiny Giant Studios is right as far as the Theme Garden is concerned, there's nothing stopping you from externally hosting 'til your heart's content while you're actively developing.

To that end, you might try Tumblr Themr. I haven't actually tried it yet, but it sounds promising enough.

EDIT: Seeing as the original link is not resolving, you may also try their github page

Answer 2

The short answer is an unfortunate no.

The Tumblr system requires that all assets (from CSS files to images) be kept on the tumblr server. Seeing as theme developers (at the moment in any case) do not have direct ftp access to a theme's directory (if that even exists), one cannot work from an editor (e.g. notepadd++) alone...

I'm not sure if they're looking into changing this, but for the time being we're stuck with being copy/paste solutions.

One thing you could, however try is copying over all the HTML markup and then using browser plugins - like stylebot or developer tools for chrome - to write the CSS and once you're done, copying over all the CSS in the head section of your theme.