Lightweight web development on iPad

This is how i setup a simple web dev environment to play around with HTML, CSS and JavaScript on an iPad. It is not how to setup a full working development environment using iPad. Hence the “Lightweight”.

There are other solutions to turn the iPad into a more legitimate development machine. VSCode server and Github Code Spaces are the most popular. Look them up.

In summary, using the above solutions you are not running things on the iPad, you are either using the browser to access a dev environment on GitHub, or you are using the iPad to access a dev environment on your primary dev machine, laptop/desktop.

Things to remember

• Your browser options are Safari. The other options are just skins of Chrome, Chromium or Firefox, wrapped around Webkit.
• No dev tools, web inspector apps/extensions that you may find on the App Store don’t work, are limited or unusable.
• Safari will not open local files, period!
• Your favorite IDE or IA coding thing does not have an iPad version.
• Be patient, the workflow will need getting used to if you’re coming from a more feature rich dev environment.

It all boils down to what apps are available on iPad to edit files and preview them in the browser. A basic text editor and a quick and easy localhost setup to view my projects.

Basic text editor:

There are about three text/code editor apps i could find, i didn’t try them all. Some seem to have more features than others, but remember that you will never get the features you are used to with whatever editor you use on desktop/laptop.

I chose Runestone, the minimalist look and feel got me, plus it has all the basics and themes. It doesn’t have a tabbed UI, if you need more than one file open it translates to one app window for each file.

Its free, but you are limited to a few customisation options, pay a small one-time fee of €9.99 to unlock all customisation options.

A quick and easy localhost setup to view my projects

I’m pretty sure WorldWideWeb is the only app available to serve your local HTML documents on iPad. A plug-and-play mini web server with a built in browser to preview your files (again a Safari wrapper), you can also open the URL directly in Safari.

The app is free to use and remains fully functional. Upgrade to PRO for a one-time fee of €9.99 to keep using automatic refresh and other features.

Final thoughts

If i really want to work on something smoothly and efficiently i prefer to use my Mac mini or Macbook. Using the iPad for dev work is fun to experiment with, but not the real deal.