PHP development software

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BigTaf

Gawd
Joined
Aug 4, 2004
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Ive recently been learning PHP, I have used dreamweaver in the past for HTML and generally liked it, and I paid good money for it so naturally thats the first thing I went to. Ive found it to be decent but wondered if there was anything better out there?

Im willing to spend some money if its decent software, but I am also willing to check out Freeware/Open Source applications. Essentially I just like a nice GUI without alot of fancy graphics or anything that provides on the fly syntax checking. Because I'm new to PHP I realize I may not know all the features to look for on a development platform, so if there is any features you have found handy, id love to know about them.

I realize I can write PHP in just about any editor, but I am looking for ways to speed up development time and reduce the number of coding mistakes.

Also I think I have a good grasp of PHP, but Im having a really hard time figuring out what exactly PEAR can do for me.

Thanks

edit: Im trying PHP Designer 2006 today, any thoughts?
 
I use Rapid PHP by Blumentals I think, it's great for what I do, has syntax checking as well as built in ftp etc.
 
Zend studio and PHPed are probably the winners in the 'best' catagory. Both cost money of course, but they each feature syntax highlighting, function completion and 'hinting', code colapsing, built in manuals, debuggers, etc.

I would argue that Dreamweaver actually comes in pretty high on the scale too though. With the proper third party pluggings all it really lacks is debugging. In PHP development, debugging may not be all that important to you depending upon the project. Since you already have it, you would probably be best to stick with it unless you really want to spend some cash for the big guns. I havn't seen any free alternatives that realy match it (with third part extensions) either.

You would probably find the reviews at php-editors.com to be usefull.
 
Tweakin said:
I would argue that Dreamweaver actually comes in pretty high on the scale too though. With the proper third party pluggings all it really lacks is debugging. In PHP development, debugging may not be all that important to you depending upon the project. Since you already have it, you would probably be best to stick with it unless you really want to spend some cash for the big guns. I havn't seen any free alternatives that realy match it (with third part extensions) either.

You would probably find the reviews at php-editors.com to be usefull.
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this im actually curious about, debugging is one of those things that is bothering me. What third party plugins are you refering too?
 
BigTaf said:
this im actually curious about, debugging is one of those things that is bothering me. What third party plugins are you refering too?
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I am not refering to anything specific, just the fact that Dreamweaver is very extendable and that a lot of third-party plugins exist strictly for PHP (do to it's popularity). Check out the exchange section at Macromedia (wow... now totally overtaken by Adobe) and look at scripting and user-interface extensions for DW.

As far as debugging being one of those things that's bothering you... do you mean the lack of it? If you are not working on a massive project, a simple local server should work fine for debugging PHP. Install apache, php (set to be verbose with errors, warnings, notices, etc), any number of databases, and point Dreamweaver to the appropriate directories and debug via a browser.
 
Tweakin said:
As far as debugging being one of those things that's bothering you... do you mean the lack of it? If you are not working on a massive project, a simple local server should work fine for debugging PHP. Install apache, php (set to be verbose with errors, warnings, notices, etc), any number of databases, and point Dreamweaver to the appropriate directories and debug via a browser.
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Unforunatly im not hosting the server and it seems alot of the PHP errors have been turned off. What would really appreciate is on the fly syntax checking in dreamweaver. I cant count the number of times ive been frustrated with a script because I for a ;.

btw ive been going through the macromedia exchange, and damn is that website a convulted mess. but damnit im still searching :D
 
deuce868 said:
Non Linux/Mac = bad :D
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Yeah well if there were a good free Linux app like it that would actually WORK then I'd be using it.

gPHPedit is a dependency nightmare, so don't suggest that :p
 
BigTaf said:
Unforunatly im not hosting the server and it seems alot of the PHP errors have been turned off. What would really appreciate is on the fly syntax checking in dreamweaver. I cant count the number of times ive been frustrated with a script because I for a ;.

btw ive been going through the macromedia exchange, and damn is that website a convulted mess. but damnit im still searching :D
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Yeah, it certainly isn't the exchange I remember when I was into things pretty heavy 2-3 years ago. Kinda disappointing.

Well, if you are developing with PHP in any kind of professional matter, regardless of debugging you will need a local non-public test server or test server on your machine to work with. No type of live server should be configured with what you would want to have a test server use (lose security restrictions, E_ALL, etc). Rather you remembered all your ;'s or not, there is still the matter of testing to make sure the code does what you expect, which can not be done with a debugger. So, with PHP- sometimes a debugger isn't all that important.
 
PopeKevinI said:
Yeah well if there were a good free Linux app like it that would actually WORK then I'd be using it.

gPHPedit is a dependency nightmare, so don't suggest that :p
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Quanta is simply top notch, and Bluefish is pretty decent- although they need to add a number of things, and havnt had a 'major' release in way too long.
 
Tweakin said:
Quanta is simply top notch, and Bluefish is pretty decent- although they need to add a number of things, and havnt had a 'major' release in way too long.
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I've heard Quanta has had problems with gnome, and I don't want to switch to KDE just to make the one app work (one of my many complaints about Linux as a desktop OS)

I'll have to check out bluefish, haven't seen that one yet.
 
Tweakin said:
Yeah, it certainly isn't the exchange I remember when I was into things pretty heavy 2-3 years ago. Kinda disappointing.

Well, if you are developing with PHP in any kind of professional matter, regardless of debugging you will need a local non-public test server or test server on your machine to work with. No type of live server should be configured with what you would want to have a test server use (lose security restrictions, E_ALL, etc). Rather you remembered all your ;'s or not, there is still the matter of testing to make sure the code does what you expect, which can not be done with a debugger. So, with PHP- sometimes a debugger isn't all that important.
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I don't bother with a local test server. I have a fewsubdomains on my webhost dedicated to testing and just upload the files via cpanel for testing. It's not as complicated as it sounds; I rarely work with more than a dozen files at a time, and in the file manager I can just set up the uploads, check the overwrite box, and every upload just click back and submit again to refresh the files. Takes all of five seconds and gives me results on a live server.
 
PopeKevinI said:
I've heard Quanta has had problems with gnome, and I don't want to switch to KDE just to make the one app work (one of my many complaints about Linux as a desktop OS)

I'll have to check out bluefish, haven't seen that one yet.
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Quanta works fine in gnome as far as I can use it -- I do alot of my css in quanta and thats about it
 
PopeKevinI said:
I don't bother with a local test server. I have a fewsubdomains on my webhost dedicated to testing and just upload the files via cpanel for testing. It's not as complicated as it sounds; I rarely work with more than a dozen files at a time, and in the file manager I can just set up the uploads, check the overwrite box, and every upload just click back and submit again to refresh the files. Takes all of five seconds and gives me results on a live server.
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What ever floats your boat, but in the OP's case, I am thinking a local server turned on when developing web applciations and off otherswise will be a good option.

PopeKevinI said:
I've heard Quanta has had problems with gnome, and I don't want to switch to KDE just to make the one app work (one of my many complaints about Linux as a desktop OS)

I'll have to check out bluefish, haven't seen that one yet.
Click to expand...

You must have heard it wrong, or maybe are thinking of another program. I've been using Quanta for years, at least a year or so of that time with Gnome. Of course, there is a need for some kde specific libs to be installed, but I think most people these days have a bit of both... each DE has it's share of great applications.
 
The_Mage18 said:
It's also nice because it auto completes {,[,",' and ( for you.
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Except when you realize you used the wrong character several times, then it's a pain because you have to press delete a lot :)
 
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