Best editor for PHP

[liquedus]

Notepad... have dreamweaver but use it like 1% of the time, cause it takes a while to load on my system.

[bonkers]

VIM by far is the best editor IMHO... But that's because I don't like to try new editors when I already got my best friend...I mean, my text editor. I have it on my server, and I edit my pages directly via ssh. FUN!

[Redcircle]

vim is just great i preder pico but the ide's offer many functions such as class browsers, autocompletes, codebeautifiers that cut coding time down dramatically.

[WiZARD]

opinion very interesting thing.... :wink:

[elToro]

but all we need now is an IDE like delphi that can code complete function and classes you have written and them were in business

Zend Studio does that. That alone is reason enough to use it in my opinion.

For editing a single page or something where I don't need the functionality mentioned above, I tend to use vim (which seems to be a pretty popular choice here--what a bunch of geeks).

[fantaa]

editplus is not free anymore! :cry:

[frogrocker]

i dont find dreamweaver mx bad at all - it knows a bit, and you can code some things with the GUI, and it makes it easy to upload files, this is especially good if you're working with other people as it has checkin/out

[swirlee]

I always used to use TextPad, but recently I've fallen quite in love with Maguma Studio for PHP. Finally, an editor that has all of the features I expect from a complete IDE, most specifically function insight, which tells me what attributes are required for the very function I've just typed, whether it be a built-in PHP function or one I've defined myself in the current or any included file. Like magic.

[dwárrow_delf]

I've only used dreamweaver MX, I like it. . but I wish I could edit a php page like I can an html through the show design view mode. Ah well.

[swirlee]

but I wish I could edit a php page like I can an html through the show design view mode. Ah well.

As an aside, I always see people looking for some sort of "visual" IDE for PHP. I don't understand this desire. What would it look like? How do you represent a for() loop graphically? How do you represent a function definition graphically? You can't.

Some things you could do in a more WYSIWYG fashion, maybe, like class definitions, but in the end, you'd always end up writing some code by hand, and I think obfuscating that process with a point-and-click interface would just create a lot of frustration and slow down design cycles.

I already use a PHP editor (see above) that has syntax highlighting and function insight. How much more hand-holding do we need?

WYSIWYG design does have a place, of course, and that's in creating visual interfaces. That's what we have Dreamweaver MX for (even though I still code my XHTML and CSS by hand) and what other languages, like Visual C++, have interface design IDEs for.

I think that's enough.

By the way, dwárrow_delf, this rant wasn't intended as an attack on you at all, and I hope you don't interepret it as such. It's just that I think that the desire for visual design tools for languages like PHP (which contain concepts that simply cannot be represented visually) is so irrational, and I think if people would think about it, they'd realize that attempting to dumb the process down to the point-and-click level is pure folly.

[Joan Garnet]

I agree,
and I also think that is a good idea to completely separate the code and design. You can design a template and code the rest in a pure php page.
That's the best for me because you can really concentrate in what you are doing.

did I say that I love EditPlus??
You also have the free phpEdit tool http://www.phpedit.com/

P.S I'm downloading maguma Studio ... looks very good indeed

[astro_sk]

I have used text, dreamweaver and now I am using Homesite.
Dreamweaver used to reformat the code when you saved the file. Apparently in MX that is not an issue anymore, but I have grown used to Homesites ease of use and versitle code hints, implementations.

Cheers

[swirlee]

Dreamweaver used to reformat the code when you saved the file. Apparently in MX that is not an issue anymore, but I have grown used to Homesites ease of use and versitle code hints, implementations.

We use Dreamweaver 4 at work, which I hate hate hate (though I understand it's utility and don't blame anyone for preferring it to hand coding), and it's never messed with any of my PHP code. It just displays a little PHP icon wherever there's code and ignores it.

[WiZARD]

how about CodeChargeCtudio?

[Lee]

I have been using EditPlus (http://www.editplus.com) in the professional web development field for a LONG time and can't imagine a better editor.

EditPlus has every feature I could have ever asked for in scripting. I highly recommend it.

[CrazyEye]

I use:
arachnophilia

I just like it... Not very complicated... Very easy...
But this is most html editor

http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/

[LiLpunkSkateR]

Used to use Notepad til I got a parse error on line 546. :roll:

Now i use winsyntax:
- Line Numbering
- PHP Highlighting
- Multiple, tabbed files

It's basically all I need.

[Martin Pickering]

Erm.... am I allowed to mention "Apple Mac" here without being flamed? Preferably OS9.2.2 'cos my old Mac is a bit too slow to run OSX satisfactorily.



Martin
(I do have Dreamweaver MX for Mac but never used it. Seems a bit "top-heavy").

[swirlee]

We've nothing against the Mac, except that, ehm, OS9 (or even OSX) all by iteslf doesn't qualify as an editor. What program do you use to edit PHP?

[Martin Pickering]

What program do you use to edit PHP?

Well, I'm a real newbie to PHP (but not to programming - I was writing 6502 machine code probably before you were born!) So far I've taken one pre-written PHP script and modified it to do what I want. I used "SimpleText" which is about the most basic text editor available for the Mac.

Now I'm rather impressed by what I perceive to be the possibilities of server-side processing and PHP in particular, so I guess I need to learn how to use it. I've found a couple of tutorials but they all seem to assume some knowledge of object-oriented languages. These hadn't been invented when I was at university - we were still using Fortran 1V on a mainframe!

But I learned HTML mostly by creating pages with a simple HTML WYSIWYG editor then disassembling the code to see what was doing what. So when I saw this discussion thread I thought I might find something (for the Mac) to do a similar job. Create the code then figure out what it's doing!

Background: I'm 52, a Technical Author by persuasion, Electronics Engineer by qualification and I run an Internet mail-order business employing several people. I'm good with words and hopeless with math.

Martin

[sanderdolphin]

I'm happy with Dreamweaver MX for the coloring and easy file synchronization tools

I wish I could 'recommend' DWMX. It's my choice of editor, and it's great at doing some of the coding for me, but it crashes way too often. And using templates is a minefield - one wrong quote mark and boom - the file is all but destroyed (unless you edit in a text editor, put in the missing quote mark then reload in DWMX).

Great for beginners, but not for more advanced users.

[bonaverb]

i'd recomment ZEND for PHP coding (CodeCharge is good too). ZEND is not always good at debugging though, but pros should know where the problem lies when they see the error thrown (at compile/run time). For clean and simple HTML and Java (JSP's etc), i'd recommend DreamWeaverMX, its a great thing.

[noble]

I've recently downloaded jedit from http://www.jedit.org it seems to work great.

[MarK]

Has anyone tried ActiveState Komodo? I'm using the personal version (paid but worth it). http://www.activestate.com

[booble]

Hmm... IMHO, HomeSite is probably the best editor for PHP or other scripting languages out there. You gotta to try it. If I could run it in Linux, It would be a dream come true.