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PHP Programming

PHP Development Environments? 59

Posted by Cliff from the programming-personal-home-pages dept.
rbolkey queries: "I've been looking for a comparison between Zend's PHP IDE, NuSphere's PHPEd, and Maguma's PHP4EE, but have failed to find any. Does anyone know how these IDEs compare? Are they useful? Are they worth the price?" We last handled this question over a year ago. PHP has changed since then, and I'm sure more development tools for PHP have been released since then. What recommendations do you have for PHP coding environments? What features do you find the most useful?
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PHP Development Environments? More

PHP Development Environments?

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  • Try Komodo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EnVisiCrypt ( 178985 ) <groovetheorist@nOSpam.hotmail.com> on Friday February 01, 2002 @04:44AM (#2936230)
    Activestate's Komodo [activestate.com] has an excellent interface, excellent color coding as well as the ability to debug XSLT files, if you are so inclined. It also has an excellent regular expression builder (handy if you ever delve into PERL), it doesn't do too bad with TCL, either.

    It works with windows or Linux and is available on a trial, educational, or professional license basis.

    I've been using it for about 3 months and it's been rock solid so far. Better than anything else I've used.

    btw, activestate's developer network is an excellent resource, too.
    • using it for about 3 months and it's been rock solid so far.

      Activestate's Komodo is buit on a Mozilla framework, so the stability of Komodo is in large part dependant on that. For Linux users, relying on Mozilla is pretty much a non-issue since most of us have it installed anyway. But installing it under Windows means you also have to download the Mozilla part, and already having Netscape doesn't count. Interestingly, their sight will tell you it's built on Mozilla, but doesn't actually let you know the entire browser is installed along with Komodo. If you're a Windows user with Komodo installed try browsing to it's install directory and double click on the mozilla.exe file. Surfs up.

      To be more ontopic, I agree that Komodo is nifty as an IDE. Activestate is more known for their Perl distributions for Windows, but Komodo does a fine job and dealing with languages besides Perl. The only thing that keeps me from using it is it's interface. I can't think of anything specificaly wrong with it, it just doesn't sit right with me.

      Having said that, I always go back to KDE's Advanced Editor. I set the syntax highlighting to HTML and it will still make your PHP easy to read (there's also PHP highlighting if that's all you're doing).
      • If you like KDE's Advanced Editor, you should try Quanta [sourceforge.net]. It's got pretty much the same syntax highlighting (I'm pretty sure it uses the same KDE widget), though the PHP highlighting works better, and it has a project-based interface. As well, it includes inline PHP, JavaScript, and HTML reference. I personally used to use Advanced Editor (and at one point Kate) until I discovered Quanta. IMO, it is a natural extension of kwrite into a PHP IDE.

  • Vim? (Score:1)

    by OiBoy ( 22100 )
    Zend's PHP IDE was too slow for me (when it would even run), and I never could get the debugger to work.

    PHPed is for Windows

    PHP4EE is also for Windows

    So, I keep using vim. If there is anything else out there, I'd love to try it. But for linux solutions it looks like I'll be sticking with vim for the foreseeable future.

  • I find Quanta [sourceforge.net] to work very well for me.

    With integrated language references for HTML, CSS, Javascript and PHP. Syntax highlighting for PHP, Perl, SQL and HTML. It works very nicely indeed. Good 'project' grouping as well.

    Not a user-interface that really gets in the way - just one that lets me get on with the job.

    Quanta development was languishing for a while, but Eric Laffoon has recently taken over and is kicking it back into gear and things are starting to move.

  • The pre-nusphere one works great, except for a few bugs. I like the purty colors and it gets the job done. I tried the new zend beta and i must say, no matter how hard they try, I cant get used to the java gui.

    And for the people who say, "I use vi or emacs", go plow a field with oxen , then try it with a john-deer. And if your a real man go hammer some nails with your head, if you have some spare time you can widdle me a new chair for my desk with a butter knife.
    • I think your analogy is a bit skewed. Ask an residential drywall hanger about using a screwgun and he will laugh at you. Ask a commercial hanger and he will say he has no choice.

      Sometimes a hammer is better than some fancy new tools.
      • Actually, most residential drywallers are all using screwguns now. They still carry a drywall hammer just for knocking holes in the rock and starting pieces on the ceiling. Which hurts, btw. I know all of this because in a prior live I used to hang drywall. Both commercial and residential.

        BTW, I've never gotten the Zend IDE to work and I paid for it. Beware.
    • I use PHPedit [phpedit.net] now, it's very good, and seems less buggy than PHPed

  • Acme is a programmers tool and comes as part of plan9 & Inferno

    things like click on an include filename and it opens in another pane, plumb an error message and the source file opens in the editor on the line specified in the error message, shell output to a pane, etc. etc.

    There's an Acme clone for unix systems called Wily

    oh yeah, colour coding is for wimps :)
  • Why do you need an IDE for PHP development. If you forget a function, www.php.net/manual/ and bam, you have the answer to that function, and the PHP manual is probably more up to date than the IDE anyway.

    You want color coding? Use Homesite from Macromedia. I am not sure if it is available for Linux, but its an awesome web development package. Face it, with your PHP development, you will also need to do HTML/CSS/JS so why not use a package that integrates all of them together?

    Thanks, -Vic
  • Why not use Emacs? It can have color coding and is completely customizable...
    • Have you ever tried to get a true PHP withing HTML mode working. Perl mode is fine but gets screwed up by the HTML. HTML mode doesn't work well at all. Yea, yea, I know you shouldn't mix the two anyway but sometimes it happens and it really screws up highlighting and indenting.
      • MMM allows you to run two major modes within the same buffer.

        So first, go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/mmm-mode/
        and get and install mmm-mode.

        Next, get php-mode from http://php-mode.sourceforge.net/ and install that.

        Then, put this in your .emacs:

        (require 'mmm-mode)
        (setq mmm-global-mode 'maybe)
        (mmm-add-mode-ext-class nil "\\.php[34]?\\'" 'html-php)
        (mmm-add-classes
        '((html-php
        :submode php-mode
        :front "")))
        (autoload 'php-mode "php-mode" "PHP editing mode" t)
        (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.php[34]?\\'" . html-mode))

        (defun insert-php-region ()
        (interactive "*")
        (let ((php-template '(" n p n "?>" > n )))
        (tempo-insert-template 'php-template tempo-insert-region)
        (mmm-parse-buffer)))

        (defun my-php-hook ()
        ;; C-c C-f is used by pgsml
        (define-key php-mode-map
        "\C-cd"
        'php-search-documentation)

        ;; C-c C-m is used by pgsml
        (define-key php-mode-map
        "\C-cb"
        'php-browse-manual)

        (define-key html-mode-map
        "\C-c\C-p"
        'insert-php-region)

        (c-toggle-hungry-state t))

        (add-hook 'php-mode-hook 'my-php-hook)

        Now you will have HTML syntax highlighting and indenting for the HTML bits, and PHP syntax highlighting and indenting for the bits.
  • is UltraEdit 32.

    You can get a PHP Syntax plugin.. Works beautifully.
  • I end up jumping around languages a lot. PHP, ColdFusion, Java, and even the ocassional ASP. Homesite handles them all very well. Excellent text manipulation, tons of color coding options, and snippets allow you to build your own add ins.

    I've only used Komodo a little bit, but it was rather klunky, and at $300, way too over priced. Haven't used the ones you mentioned, but I'd be glad to hear about them.
    • I have to second this opinion. Allaire Homesite (now bought by Macromedia I believe) is easy to use yet bursting with time-saving features. Just steer clear of its 'design mode', it's as quirky as Frontpage, although the editor does at least try to clean up the HTML clutter afterward (smart filters/optimizer, works quite well).

      All in all, an excellent product if you're not afraid of dropping a few dollars on a quality tool. If you're looking for something free, well you might as well stick to Notepad++ because that's probably the most you'll get for 0.00$
      • " If you're looking for something free, well you might as well stick to Notepad++ because that's probably the most you'll get for 0.00$"

        You mean, aside from emacs, vim, and the myriad other tools out there? There really is an embarrassment of riches out there from which to choose.
        • True, but for the weak-minded of us who haven't tried tackling emacs or vi, the Notepad metaphor still reigns. Heck, I used to work with EdLin and "copy con:" in DOS, so anything that lets me use the arrow keys is enough luxury for me.
    • I've been using Homesite since version 3.0 (about 5 years). Getting to were it is today has been rough. It's been a memory hog and riddled with annoying little bugs. The latest version is pretty well refined. I like the built-in FTP file access. This a must-have if you're working on several servers all at one time. The editor is very good at colorizing PHP and SQL. It has lots of nifty features and tools for editing, formating, and storing snippets. It doesn't like big files.
  • ... I use Emacs. Whenever I try one of those dedicated PHP editor, I miss some features I'm used to. Emacs does already quite well SGML/XML/HTML/JSP/JS/Java, PHP lags a bit behind, but with the manual in a browser and the syntax coloration, I've all I need for productive work. By the way, I use StyleMaster for the CSS, in case you were wondering if I was just another Emacs zealot...
  • I use phped 2.96, which is the last version released before Nu-Sphere took it over. It's really a shame, I would love to get the new version but Nu-Sphere is charging $299 for it [nusphere.com], which is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for a scripting language ide. The older version is great when it works, but can be extremely frustrating when you try to add a file to your project and the whole thing crashes. Also, there isn't a linux version to my knowledge. All in all though, it's the best choice for windows php development.
  • I own Nusphere's IDE and it's a real pain to get working on a different box than the one you develop on. I've yet to get the debugger wroking on it. The other problem is the editor only runs on Winshit. Can't wait for a Linux version of the editor. Since I need to run a M$ OS, I've installed Macromedia UltraDev and added the open source Phakt PHP extension [interakt.ro]. Very nice RAD GUI dev based mostly on ADO. I was able to develop a site based on 5 MySQL tables, including joins, relatively simply. Much faster than coding everything by hand. In fact, I intend to buy the commercial version, ImpAKT [interakt.ro] when I get home. Again, I REALLY wish Macromedia would get their shit together and create a Linux port of Ultradev. I would hock one of my guitars for that!
    • Thanks for the appreciations. We were VIM guys ourselves (we have even created a (yet another) made with VIM logo) until we have started InterAKT and needed some real productivity. Using our tools that generate code and let you parametrize it boosted our productivity and allowed us to deliver quality software development services.
      We are willing to continue our work on PHAkt & ImpAKT and we are working right now on a 2.0 version of both products.
      I don't think you'll see a Linux version of Ultradev, and the reasons are very simple. The HTML editor UD uses is a customized version of the M$ DHTML control. Porting it to Linux it's pretty impossible as I think it's based on MFC.

      Alexandru
      Product Manager
      http://www.interakt.ro/ [interakt.ro] :: Engineering Your Desires
      +401 411 2610
      • Alexandru,

        Cool!! I'd love to help you guys beta test. Shoot me an email or contact me with that wierd slashdot message thing.

        To bad about the M$ thing and Ultradev. Does anybody know if there's a similar product for Linux?
      • PHAkt looks cool, but I have one issue-- From what I can see, you're stuck serving on Windows. One of the main advantages of php over the other options Ultradev provides is easy portability. Is their any hope of getting the pages generated using PHAkt to work on other platforms? I understand the Ultradev won't, but it seems like the output should.
        • I run my websites on FreeBSD and develop on Win XP. So, PHAkt generated code works on OS's other than windows. I think that answers your question.
          • Isn't ADODB a Windows only technology? How do you connect to your databases? I looked around on the interakt site, but could find nothing that suggested the possibility of serving the pages from Unix. Pointers or more info would be appreciated.

            Thanks
  • .. on the side of Quanta. It includes syntax highlighting and references for "supporting" technologies (HTML,CSS,yada...) and doesn't have what you don't need. I also like the included documentation integrated into the environment.

  • Vim (Score:2)

    by Fweeky ( 41046 )
    To be honest I've never felt the need for an IDE. My favourite text editor, a webserver, a command line version of PHP, and very occasionally a PHP debugger do me just fine.

    Every IDE I tried was either slow, unstable, missed basic features of a good editor, or just Crap[tm].

    It's not as if PHP is the hardest language in the world to fit in your head, you don't need an IDE to constantly try to stop it leaking out. Well, maybe you do, but I don't :)
  • Since PHP doesn't really allow you to do anything interesting that a normal IDE would allow (like, say, DEBUGGING!), we just use Vim [vim.org] and migrate to Perl.
  • You don't get the debugging (which I hear doesn't work all that well in the other options anyway) but you get a lot of other great stuff (very nice mulitplatform editor with PHP mode, projects, FTP, etc.). www.jedit.org

  • i recently discovered the 'mapping' capabilities of homesite and i'm once again hooked. being able to quickly page between code/browse to server-processed code makes testing quick & painless.



    i've tried other editors for both windows and x-plat, but none of them let me have the precise code-within-code syntax coloring. i like being able to specify the html/php/css color codes separately, but still have them all work inside the same document. no other editor i've tried manages to do that as well.


    the only gripe i would have is that it doesn't handle heredoc syntax exceptionally well, but i haven't seen another editor that does that, either...

  • Is the best editor for any lang you use. its great.

    Chris Lee
    lee@mediawaveonline.com
  • Hell, I use pico -wz.
    I could care less about features, I just want the job to get done without having to learn another interface.
  • I love CodeWright [starbase.com]. It's Windows and it's commercial. It supports a ton of languages out of the box, and you can add more (including your own), sometimes without programming. Syntax colouring can nest languages within another (like PHP in HTML). It's got lots of add ons (via real API), plus Perl and Basic scripting languages.
  • Editplus when I am in Windows, and Quanta / gvim when I am in Linux.

    Editplus is a fast easy editor. Quanta is great for HTML stuff especially.
  • Get it here [nedit.org]

    Not really an IDE but a super editor with a lot of customization capability. Does syntax highlighting for a ton of languages out of the box and you can define new highlighting patterns and export/import them to/from files. It's what I do the majority of my PHP programming [seattleserver.com] in. It's free to boot. I also use Bluefish [openoffice.nl] some for the HTML work. It's pretty decent with some specialized PHP support. It's nice for forms, you don't need to remeber the exact syntax for all the different input types.

  • On the Mac side (classic & OS X native), BBEdit [barebones.com] is the pro's choice... it does context-sensitive coloring, etc and is the hands-down favorite for any kind of program coding on the Mac -- and it recognizes SQL syntax as well.

    Adobe just announced [zend.com] that Golive 6 for OS X would have the Zend debugger engine integrated within it, as well

    Dreamweaver Ultradev [macromedia.com] is another good choice, but at this point in time PHP isn't exactly integrated into it unless you use 3rd party extensions or an abstraction layer like ADODB.

    --dr00gy

    • BBEdit 6.5 on MacOS X with Apache, PHP, MySQL.

      You will never touch Emacs again after you have experienced BBEdit. It is the best $84 I ever spent.

      BBEdit does a good job with HTML, PHP, and Javascript all on the same page, recognizing their various keywords and escape chars. It includes a command shell similar to Emacs' shell buffer.

    • Re:Mac-side tools (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ibbey ( 27873 )
      I agree. I haven't had a Mac for 3 or four years, but the one thing that I really miss is BBEdit. No editor for Unix or Windows matches BBEdit's perfect balance of ease and power, all wrapped up in a clean interface. And, even 5 or 6 years ago, it provided HTML tools superior to anything I have found since. Who needs wysiwyg when the tools are that easy?

    • Yep, BBEdit is hands down the slickest thing since sliced bread. And everyone who's used it to do any real work will tell you the very same thing.

      The amazing thing is that it provides all of this for such a small walletprint -- $79 !!! (upgrade from freeware BBEdit Lite) I really shudder to think of having to work in any other environment than an OS X box with BBEdit.

  • I've tried both, and they each have their own advantages. Simply, if you're using Windows, go with PHPEd. If you're using another OS, you'll have to use Zend's IDE.

    Zend coded their's in Java, so its cross platform, but a lot less "responsive" and integrated than a program designed for a specific OS. This feature is also its biggest shortcoming.

    Feature wise, PHPEd _was_ the winner, but I'm not sure how that still stands. I think Zend is in the release process of version 2.0 of their IDE, and judging from the press release a few months back, it'll nearly match PHPEd. Features such as code completion, snytax bubbles, FTP integration, an integrated debugger, and CVS support were all missing from Zend's first IDE, while all are present in PHPEd. A good portion of those are supposedly in 2.0, but I haven't tried it myself.

    Actually, I think both Zend and NuSphere have "free trial" versions of their respective IDE's, so give it a shot for yourself! ;-)
  • Through its dynamic content functionality, GoLive 6 for OS X supports PHP authoring. It's nowhere near a full-fledged IDE, but it's the closest functioning thing I've seen to a visual editor.

    Even so, I still continue to use BBEdit [barebones.com] to create my PHP/MySQL apps.

  • VIM? (Score:1)

    by xarc ( 457222 )
    VIM completely rules, and the newer versions have PHP support.

    alias elite_php_ide="vim"

  • I am wondering if such a comparison can bring a real relevance for the PHP development community evolution to an improved level. I don't think that small nifty features will make PHP development a better choice for the real web developers, that need productivity and a framework for application development.

    During the last 3 years, all the editors have included nice and standard functionalities like: multi project support, code highlighting, autocompletion(even for your own functions), integrated debugger, integrated help, etc.

    But when it comes to programming dynamic websites, the tasks to do are pretty repetitive and boring and real programming is usually not needed. Usually you connect to a database, get some fields from a query and put them in a HTML table (repeating the procedure for each row or not). Usually you need to see the HTML output and to write some HTML code (preferable in a WYSIWYG editor).

    None of the current IDEs allow you to do this (except for Macromedia UD, which does not support PHP natively, but using our GPL extension PHAkt [interakt.ro]). Programming web application using one of them is a very complicated solution to the problem. You have to reinvent the wheel a zillion times in creating a lot of "form validation", "user authentication", "repeated regions" etc. code blocks, that are very particular, hard to use by others and unmaintanable.

    <paradigm shift>What we need is a powerful framework for developing PHP applications, something like .NET, a platform that will allow us to compete with the ubiquitous .NET and J2EE.</paradigm shift> (I love using this paradigm shift thing:). It has to support SOAP and the rest of the current communication protocols (UDDI, ebXML, etc) and has to provide some "already written and tested code blocks" for reuse.

    That's why we are developing and have released Krysalis [interakt.ro] - as an Open Source project. Krysalis aims to become what Cocoon is for Java. (if you don't know Cocoon, check http://xml.apache.org [apache.org]). A platform for writing web applications with a complete separation between the data, the application logic and the presentation layer. Of course, to do this, the most hyped and elegant way is by using XML and XSLT. The process is very simple, we use a sitemap that describes the possible requests to the server, some pipelines where we describes the succession of data gathering and transformations and then, for each request to the server (the server is Apache with PHP support) we execute the corresponding pipeline. That is, read the PXP file ( an XML that contains the application logic), execute it and retrieve the complete XML tree, then read the XLST files associated with the request and process the original XML tree with them. After all the XSLT processing is done, we print the output to the browser.(the output can be XHML or PDF or anything else if you provide a Serializer that will do the conversion from the last XML tree to the needed format).

    This way, might a site became a little harder to write, but maintaining it will be a piece of cake. The current alternation between application logic and HTML tags (presentation) is a real pain in the ass when you need multiple presentations (like HTML / PDF, like English version and German version, etc). Each time you make a modification in the application logic, you have to search all the places where that application logic block is used and correct them, too. Etc.

    How can Krysalis help me create my sites faster? Using taglibs. Taglibs are already written code sections that are included and parametrized in your files and which are converted to real PHP code at the execution time. We have already implemented taglibs for the SQL connection, form variables, authentication.

    Technically, Krysalis is also based on ADODB (php.weblogs.com/ADODB [weblogs.com]), and the PHP problems with way too many and different database connectivity APIs is solved.

    To get back to the current topic, what Krysalis need right now is an IDE. We are working on one (Krysal IDE), an editor that will allow you to develop Dynamic Websites with the same ease as you develop Web Services. To reach both the Windows and Linux community, we'll implement it Java (we know. Maybe it will be slower, but at the current hardware prices I don't think this makes a real difference). The rendering engine will be Mozilla (probably) as in the next 3 month it will be mature enough (we think). More, the Lite version will be also open source, so everyone will be able to use and improve it.

    Take a look at a current pre-alpha screenshot of Krysal IDE at http://www.interakt.ro/products/Krysalis/ [interakt.ro]. The XML/XSLT part is not yet implemented, we have done only the dynamic XML generation and preview with a preliminary support for taglibs.

    That's what we think on PHP development. I would like to know how the slashdotters view this approach.


    Alexandru COSTIN
    Product Manager
    http://www.interakt.ro/ [interakt.ro] :: Engineering Your Desires
    +401 411 2610

  • Well, I tried many PHP editors, and under Windows the best one I could find was EditPlus (or Edit+ if you want), it simply works fine, it's light and stable. PHPeD isn't too bad either, but EditPlus has more nice features!
    Now i've been migrating to linux and i couldn't find anything similar to the Windows PHP-Editors, so i'm now using ViM with "syntax on" (.vimrc) ... it's not very handy but if you get used to it it's a neat editor.

  • OK ok ok ... I'm going to get beaten over the head for this ... but I quite like vim 6's colour highlighting.

    The ability to step through a script during execution would be nice, but enough "error_log" statements (and tail -f on another console) is excellent.

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