Page 1 of 2
PHP Editor
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:50 pm
by cbrian
I went to the other PHP Editor post, but the one's posted didn't work... Can someone point me to a good PHP/HTML editor with syntax highlighting, debugging, automatic indentation for php and html, and whatever other good features?
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:55 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Totally free, I use it 100%... I don't want to sing it's praises or anything but
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
It does everything you said. I even think it's better than dreamweaver cos it's just a pure editor, nothing else
EDIT: Sorry it won't debug but it underlines braces / parentheses etc so you can see what's closed and what isn't and it highlights so it makes it very easy to debug. Debugging should be something you do yourself anyway... php outputs errors so it speaks for itself.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:01 pm
by cbrian
I downloaded it, and it doesn't highlight or underline stuff or automatic indentation or even it seems support for PHP or HTML.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:04 pm
by John Cartwright
Crimson has the following features ( from their site )
Edit multiple documents
- switch between documents using file selection tab.
- Ctrl+Tab brings the last accessed document to topmost.
- support window splitter to see different parts of a document.
Syntax highlighting
- configurable via custom syntax files.
- preconfigured for more than 100 computer languages.
Multi-level undo / redo
- all editing actions are recorded from the opening of a file.
- any document always can be undone to it's initial contents.
- unlimited undo and redo buffers.
Project management
- manage group of related files into one project.
- remote files also can be included in a project.
Directory tree view window
- click to open documents.
- filter to display only selected file class.
Find & Replace
- replace specified text one by one, or as a whole.
- support regular expression.
Column mode editing
- copy and paste rectangular selections.
- switch between column mode and line mode. (Alt+C)
Natural word wrapping
- word wrapping does not affect syntax highlighting.
- configurable wrapping indentation. (easer to understand the syntax)
Spell checker
- around 100000 words were added in the dictionary.
- users can register new words in their own dictionary. (InstallDir/user.dic)
User tools and macros
- execute external programs with proper arguments.
- compile, execute and test your code.
- ease your fingers with key stroke recording. (record & replay)
Edit remote files directly using built-in FTP client
- open, edit, and save documents in remote FTP servers.
- save account information (encoded) for automatic logon.
Print & Print preview
- configurable page header and footer.
- print with line numbers.
- print with syntax highlighting. (used in color printer)
- true type font selection for printer.
Other useful features
support Unicode & UTF-8 encoding, drag & drop text editing,
single instance / multiple instances, ability to detect changed files,
bookmark & go to, highlight active line, highlight matching pairs,
multi-byte support with integrated IME (for eastern languages),
auto indent, wheel mouse support, copy & paste, line numbers,
configurable line spacing, option to save files in Unix format,
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:04 pm
by Chris Corbyn
You have to save the file as .php or .html before it will highlight.
It uses syntax files that decide which language it's highlighting for you see. Since it supports all kinds of languages.
It does work

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:08 pm
by cbrian
Erg. Today is my stupid day of the week, sorry.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:12 pm
by cbrian
One question: How do I view what the program does? I can get the HTML in a browser with Alt + B, but the PHP doesn't do anything.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:20 pm
by Chris Corbyn
You need to run PHP and a HTTP server configured on your local machine like everybody else.
PHP has to be parsed by PHP itself. There's no workaround.
Otherwise, upload your scripts to your web server. You can't preview PHP output in an editor. No editor can do it really.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:34 pm
by John Cartwright
d11wtq wrote:Otherwise, upload your scripts to your web server. You can't preview PHP output in an editor. No editor can do it really.
There are several editors that can do this actually, such as Zend.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:36 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Phenom wrote:d11wtq wrote:Otherwise, upload your scripts to your web server. You can't preview PHP output in an editor. No editor can do it really.
There are several editors that can do this actually, such as Zend.
Oh... well i guess zend makes sense. I didn't know that though. Does it work well? I may try this

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:37 pm
by John Cartwright
Have never tried more than echo 'hello world';
and it seemed to work fine

.. and that was with phpED editor.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:42 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Well I'd be pretty worried if they claimed they code preview but couldn't even echo "Hello world!";
I shall try it on a prewritten script and wee what happens
Probably just as easy to work on the file directly in Crimson (or similar) and preview it by just refreshing a browser window however

Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:46 pm
by Burrito
does crimson allow for multiple resource tabs?
I use homesite 5.5 and I can have two different drives in my "browser" pane that I can toggle between. It makes it super easy to be working on multiple projects at the same time, or the same project (one on my local machine and one on a mapped drive to the server).
I'd have a hard time giving that up...but the rest sounds pretty nice.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:48 pm
by Chris Corbyn
Burrito wrote:does crimson allow for multiple resource tabs?
I use homesite 5.5 and I can have two different drives in my "browser" pane that I can toggle between. It makes it super easy to be working on multiple projects at the same time, or the same project (one on my local machine and one on a mapped drive to the server).
I'd have a hard time giving that up...but the rest sounds pretty nice.
Yes it does. I currently have 10 tabs open!. It also has project management stuff but I've never used it. Not even sure where it is or exactly how it works. As far as editors go it's nice though. BTW it fits on a floppy too, even with support for over 100 languages.
Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2005 5:55 pm
by Burrito
I just d/led and installed it and I guess my last post wasn't clear enough.
what I mean by resource tabs are "explorer-like" tabs that show files within a certain folder/directory that I can simply dbl click to open w/o having to click open and browse for my files...I'm not seeing this in crimson.
that's the beauty of homesite, I can have TWO of those resource tabs avaiable so I can just toggle between the two and have my list(s) of files for two totally different locations right at my disposal...
does crimson do this and I'm just missing it?