Not sure if this has been covered here, but ciccioCB has released a very cool rapid deveopment suite for the ESP8266.
It is packed with very cool and easy to implement features that will get your projects up and running in no time.
I have used it for a while and am very happy with its stability and ease of use. Worth taking a look at.
Home page… https://sites.google.com/site/annexwifi/home
Cool demo videos… https://sites.google.com/site/annexwifi/home/demos
Have fun!