CMS Made Simple Forums

Dreamweaver just doesn't cut it anymore for me writing php.

I'm looking for an open source Integrated Development Environment that is well suited for making php modules, etc.  Needs to work on Windows.

I use XAMPP for testing on my local PC.

I'm looking at Netbeans.  Before I invest the many hours to learn it, I would like to hear if other people who do this stuff like it.

Any alternative suggestions or feedback?

Thanks,
Ken

Someone recently suggested CodeLobter.  I downloaded it, but haven't had a chance to try it out.  I'm accustomed to just using a text editor (Notepad ++), so moving to an IDE will be a significant step for me.

I use Netbeans, but I don't have very high demands. I like the way I get warned when I forget a ;

In another post Plger promotes Geany, don't know if it's an IDE. I think I'm going to try that sometime either.

plger wrote: Just found out a great tool, and I wanted to share it with other developers who like me maybe never thought about that...
I use Geany, so I don't know how you do this (or if you can) on other programs, but I know most good code editors (of course big environments like eclipse, but also small notepads like editplus) have similar functions.

Introduction (which you may skip):
No matter how much I program for a given system, all the function parameters and default values just don't get "saved" in my memory. So for instance I keep looking out CreateLink in the api to see if the $inline parameter is before or after the $urlonly. Then I thought: it would be so cool to have a tooltip with the function parameters for the CMSModule like the one I get for normal php functions. Then I thought that I probably wasn't the only one to have met this situation and looked out Geany's help for the first time (is it me or everyone using computers just never read any documentation and fumble with every device until they get a hang of it?). There it is, "tags files".

I copy pasted the module function list from the cmsms api and used a few "replace" to get the desired format, saved it as cmsms.php.tags (which I've attached to the post, just remove the .txt) and just imported in Geany using Tools->Load Tags. Now when I type CreateLink(, a little tooltip with the parameters and default values appears...

Now I understand why people nowadays can't remember a phone number. But still, I'm quite happy with this, and I thought if other people use such tag definition files it might be good to share it with other users.

Pierre-Luc

I'm currently using www.EmEditor.com (no not open source, but for US$40 not all that expensive).
Everyone has a different way to get things done. For me the good things with EmEditor are Clear working space, Macro handling, various plugins. I'm missing a direct FTP function/plug in. There is no debug facility. When using a project (works like a breeze) svn is not in place (at least I don't detect it by changed icons).

Next to this I use Grimson editor www.crimsoneditor.com. Light weight. It doesn't seem to open files the same way over and over (double clicking a file doesn't always mean that you see and can work with the file, since Grimson is not the active window). Macros are nicely included. No debug facility. No internal support of svn.

I just downloaded www.codelobster.com and tried it. It is a relative new (PHP related) application. Seems very nice with type ahead options. It is free, but the speciallity Smarty and JQuery plugin (that help you to find the correct coding quickly) are to be bought. Might be nice to have a CMSMS plugin here. The help support is, in my eyes, amazing: select a coding work such as return, press help and you are brought to php.net with the return help page opened at once (nicely done, keep the fingers crossed that php.net is not changing their way to prepare pages). I've had no time to test it, but a debug facility is in place.

Here is another spot to get some more info: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-php-ide/index.html
Better for all of us readers is probably: http://www.php-editors.com/

Btw, my focus is on windows related IDE's. Geany is [edit]not [/edit]and I could not find the original location of the download [edit](see below)[/edit].

Happy coding,

Duketown

Duketown wrote: Btw, my focus is on windows related IDE's. Geany is not and I could not find the original location of the download.

is to? http://www.geany.org/Download/Releases

My development is done under Windows Vista & xampp.

I use a combination of things, as I guess most people do, depending on what's required.
Some are free, some are paid for (ouch)

For hard-core editing I fan of UltraEdit (commercial): http://www.ultraedit.com/.
It has many advanced editing functions, and is designed as a programmer's editor (http://www.ultraedit.com/products/ultra ... tures.html)

Dreamweaver (commercial) doesn't really cut the mustard anymore, but I find it useful for saving generated pages for preview/layout tweaking, when text doesn't tell you anything.
If I had to choose today, I wouldn't buy it.

I recently found Codelobster (http://codelobster.com/), free, but not Open Source, which is relatively new, and does have some issues.
However, support is fast, and they are, so far anyway,  moving steadily through releases.
It has many features of high-priced PHP IDE's, such as debugging (with breakpoints/stack/watches), class view, code completion.
It can be slow to load and close projects, but it will successfully load cmsMadeSimple projects and allow you to step over the source whilst debugging.
I went through the list of PHP editors, trying those I could, or felt were worthwhile, and codelobster came out tops for me comparing features vs. cost.
It is NOT PHPEdit (phpedit.com), but neither does it come with the price tag - Codelobster is  totally free.
I hope the Codelobster developers continue to grow financially, as I feel that given time, this will mature into a serious IDE.

I have, for some years now, donated my time and efforts to a non-profit organisation (http://cssaustralia.org.au).
Because I get no monetary return, I asked PHPEdit if I could have a 'free personal license' which they offer.
I did not expect them to agree, however it costs nothing to ask, yet to this date, I have not had a reply, not even a 'no way on God's Earth'.

I haven't tried phpDesigner (commercial) (http://www.mpsoftware.dk) but it does look like a neat IDE for low cost.
If Codelobster disappeared, this would be next for trials.

Another useful tool, and also free, is HeidiSQL (http://www.heidisql.com/)



Hope this helps someone ....

Fat Lizard

Eclipse PDT works fine for me. Though if you find it too slow, Komodo Edit is a pretty good and fast solution.

PSPad (http://www.pspad.com/) is the best free editor for me. It supports a lot of syntax schemas (HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, SQL etc..), has autocompletion, that can be extended in a simple way and code explorer, so that I can see all the class methods and properties at once. It has also a built-in FTP editor.

I found that Notepad++ is worse as PSPad. It does not even have a file exporer by default...