Export SP Designer 2013 Master Pages locally for editing in any software

Question

I'm trying to edit a Master Page's code and associated CSS.

The HTML and CSS in SP Designer 2013 does not resemble the in-browser markup shown in something like FireBug or Chrome's View Element.

Therefore, I would like to export the pages as files, and also their associated style sheets and such locally to work on them in my own development environments... like Dreamweaver, or even Notepad++.

How is this done?

Thanks

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edit:

Okay, so I'm familiar with Design Manager for editing pages locally. I have already connected my drive to the server. But I'm having trouble with this too:

1) So in Chrome's in-browser View Element, I find the logo's class ms-siteicon-img that I want to change.

2) You can see on the left of View Element, I can alter that CSS class there and get the desired result.

3) But when I go to resources tab in View Element, I go through all of the available stylesheets, but do not find class ms-siteicon-img.

4) Moreover, When I go to my mapping, I do not find any of the Stylesheets that I saw in the in-browser viewer (meaning, main.css is not shown in my mapped drive).

Why are there these discrepancies?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If you aren't seeing the style sheets you are expecting it is likely because they are in the hive. If they are in the hive you don't want to be touching them. You can use the Design Manager to create your own themes or designs that SharePoint will use instead of the default masterpage if done correctly. Following the information in Arsalan's post will get you there.

(Sorry this is not a comment, not enough reputation yet).

Answer 2

With SharePoint 2013, the newly introduced Design Manager should be helpful in your case.

In short, you can Map the drive of Master Page Gallery.. Once you map you have the files in File Explorer, you can open these files in desired tool like Dreamweaver or Notepad++, update them right within the Master Page gallery.

Few things to keep in mind are, in SharePoint 2013 you don't work directly on .master file/the Master Page file. You have a corresponding HTML file with each MasterPage, you should be working on the HTML file and Convert an HTML file into a master page. For Server side markups/controls, you have Snippet Gallery, which provide you server side code (commented) you can put in the HTML file which can be automatically translated by Master Page file once you convert your HTML file into MasterPage.

UPDATE

As @Dohvakin said, these CSS are internal to SharePoint.. You should not edit these CSS files.. but instead you can overwrite them by using same tag and replace the existing ones.. You just need to make sure that in Master Page you have registered your custom css after the main css files (using CssRegistration).. If even by overwriting the css, it doesn't affect.. Try to write !important after the css change