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PHP IDE?
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 9:01 pm
by ilovedoingwebsites
Hi Everybody,
I decided to really study PHP. I am a webdesigner from Cochabamba, Bolivia. I currently live in Houston and I own a web design company
http://www.ildw.com.
I am excited to be part of PHP, right now my problem is an IDE I have DWCS5 but I kind of wanted to get as far as I can. I don't like what Adobe is doing, trying to charge more money for 5.5 then 6 and so on.
I installed netBeans and the problem that netBeans has at least for me, is that doesn't have a design view, it makes me very uncomfortable to think to use this program in the future.
do you have any suggestions?
Thanks a lot

Re: PHP IDE?
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2011 11:51 pm
by twinedev
IMO an IDE is a great investment. Even if you need to pay for one. When you get used to it and consider how much time it will save you, pays for itself easily. Both ones I have paid for in the past well saved me enough time to pay for themselves.
Some alternatives, starting with what I use
PhpIDE - Been using this for a year and half, and love it, and still learning new features. Nice and robust, plenty of code hinting, not only for built in functions, but functions / classes that you have defined in the project you are working on. I love that it will save the environment not only when you leave the program, but switch to a different workspace (I set each site up as their own workspace for this reason). Not only are files reopened when you restart/reopen the workspace, but position in the files, code folding, etc. So nice when you have to switch back and for during the day. Although I don't use it, there is a tool for "split preview view" This also has built in SSH and mySQL clients. Higly configurable in many many ways. Cost: $299 for professional (IMO, worth the extra features for better productivity as well as security to do SFTP)
Zend Studio: Used I think since version3, all the way up version 5.5. Had many of the things I was used to, easy customized code snippets, the auto complete even for custom items like PhpED, also very customizable. Then with version 6, they switched and built it on top of eclipse, instead of completely private coded in Java. The features, and the speed of interactivity with 6.0 quickly got me to switch back to version 5.5. I continued to run 5.5 until I bought PhpEd. Even as far as setting Windows 7 to use the "old windows" look, and hacking the java on my machine to get the UI items to work properly. Big turn off was the fonts went to crap... Missed clear fonts. Later Zend updated their customer portal, and since I had a license so old, and they didn't program it for as old as I had, they auto gave me a license to I think it was 7. 7 and 8 still built off of eclipse. Version 9 which is out now, read in the e-mails they sent about it that it was supposed to be built from ground up. So not sure if they dumped eclipse. I'm too much liking PhpEd to switch. If you are going to do Zend Framework and use their things like Zend Server, as long as it is as robust and features are there again, this would probably be the one to go for. Price, also $299
Aptana: This was one of the ones we tried where I worked while evaluating something to replace Dreamweaver (I was a rebel I ran Zend Stuido on mine). Well. Instantly, I felt the same pains as I did when Zend switched to eclipse, since this is also built on eclipse. Lacking of auto complete (I prefer using descriptive variables, so liked having auto complete). Plus on top of it, right after the other programmers got used to it, the PHP IDE engine or whatever they were using with eclipse changed. From other developers, this was a downgrade. (I was still holding out on Studio 5.5) Price: Free
Netbeans: Didn't care for that it was on Java. I admit, I have a bias from back when had slower machines, and java wasn't as robust. I only put up with Zend being on Java because of its features, so I didn't give it a hard choice. I would honestly say I didn't give it a fair shake, I had work needing done, didn't want to evaluate another one, especially after core things were not easily present. Price: Free
Those are the round ups of the ones I used. Hope that review helps.
Re: PHP IDE?
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:09 am
by Christopher
There is also Eclipse. I'd recommend trying Netbeans and Eclipse.
Re: PHP IDE?
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 2:25 am
by Benjamin
I stopped using Eclipse because it was a PITA to change the colors.
Recently I found this nice plugin:
http://www.eclipsecolorthemes.org/?view=plugin
So I'm using eclipse again now.
Re: PHP IDE?
Posted: Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:10 am
by Celauran
ilovedoingwebsites wrote:the problem that netBeans has at least for me, is that doesn't have a design view
As far as I'm concerned, this is a good thing. WYSIWYG editors have a tendency to produce wince-makingly awful code.
Re: PHP IDE?
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 7:26 am
by Hermit TL
I second Eclipse for an IDE, but recommend a text editor, such as Notepad++ or gedit.
Re: PHP IDE?
Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 9:16 am
by twinedev
I gave Zend Studio 9 a try, from their marketing e-mails they rebuilt it on their own again (i read it as not built on eclipse like v 6-8). Well right off the bat, created a new .php file, threw in a custom function at the top, and well, autocomplete would not accept that custom function name as a suggestion... FAIL. Uninstalled.
-Greg