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PHP Software

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 7:22 pm
by XenoSOL740
Unfortunitly, I am a visual learner. I cant sit down and hard code PHP. I have so many uses for it, but I only have limited knowledge of PHP that spans a little past printing "Hello World". I Hope to learn alot in the forum, but something that would help me out alot is a PHP Software Deveopment tool. Something like Dreamweaver is to HTML, I was wondering if something existed for PHP? I have found many debuggers and script testers, but nothing that helps you actualy code the php apps, visualy.

Any ideas? thanks alot!

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 7:47 pm
by Deemo
so basically you want a WYSIWYG for PHP? ive never seen one

maybe you want something like Smarty? im not sure, ive never used it myself.

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 7:51 pm
by feyd
visually.. as in WYSIWYG? I'm not aware of any PHP editors that do it (for php itself), since a huge amount of PHP is not visual. Dreamweaver (ack) adds boilerplate code for php files.. but it's not recommended, we can get into that later though. :)

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 8:16 pm
by Skara
Yeah, there's really no point in it, as--like feyd said--php isn't really visual... If you just want a quick show of what happens...

Zend will do it, I believe, but it's rather expensive. I've seen another couple of apps as well, one that was a copy of Visual C++ for php. ^^; I've never seen a free one, though.
I just keep a browser window of it open. If you have to reupload it via ftp every time, it takes a bit longer, but just get an ftp uploader like flashfxp or the like. right click->transfer and it's done.
Or, you could install php on your own computer and some kind of server that supports it.


If you actually want a WYSIWYG editor.. Well, that's just not realisticly possible. The purpose of php isn't to create nifty effects or design, it's used to make things happen.

e.g.
get x data from a database.
sort this data into this format.
display in this order.

The only displaying part is the last bit, but php just outputs html--which is what really displays it. *shrugs*

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:01 pm
by d3ad1ysp0rk
Actually, I've thought of this before, and technically it is possible.

It'd involve a lot of hands on logic however, drawing lines between a variable in file and a database, then dragging it to the browser output. Conditionals would be hard to handle as well, although you might be able to create a drop down toolbar for them and then drag the variable there with expected values. Each condition would lead to a sort of tree like visual effect that allowed you to reference other things from that.

All in all, a pretty daunting task, and I doubt it would decrease production time by much of anything, and it's just easier to learn the language. Even if you feel you can't learn it, it'd be a better idea to keep trying and not hold your breath for any visual php creators.

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 10:19 pm
by feyd
seems it'd be an application for a UML code writer.. :)

Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:02 pm
by m3mn0n
So much easier to learn PHP rather than to search for and master a WYSIWYG editor for it (if a good one even exists out there).

If you're a visual learner, I'd recommend looking for a video tutorial series.

That helped me a lot when I was learning A+ Cert. Instead of reading a 1,000+ text book, the video helped a lot and made it so much easier. Sort of like watching the movie of MacBeth instead of reading it in high school. =P

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:26 am
by alvinphp
As far as I know a Visual PHP editor does not exist, but I think it is possible. It would just take some major development, especially when you consider the code would have to work correctly on multiple browsers and browser versions.

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2005 2:38 am
by cavallo
It would be posible with prado. But somebody must code software :). It would look like delphi or something like that.