PHP editor software recommendations

Ran across this for you Windows users:

http://hapedit.free.fr/

Anybody tried this one out?

http://www.nvu.com/

I downloaded the Mac version and checked it out briefly. It is seriously impressive. Now if there were some way to make a plugin for this! It would be a major coup for any CMS that can embed or plug this thing in! It’s platform-specific, so it would need to be a loosely-coupled plugin mechanism; basically it looks like a little modification in its native "Publish" methods would be needed, to feed the resulting document into MODx instead of uploading a finished HTML document. It can be made to start with the selected template. I see amazing possibilities, but it’s way beyond my skills.

I must say I like the PHP Designer very much

Debugging php, I have used MAGUMA for quit a while, now it is opensource:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openstudio

Maguma Pro cost only 19.99 : http://www.maguma.com/Maguma_Studio.502.0.html
they allso have a free version.


Cheers,
John

Quote from: sottwell at Jun 30, 2005, 10:45 PM

Anybody tried this one out?

http://www.nvu.com/

As far as the Window$ version goes, it drives me nuts that it won’t keep my source code indents alive. Further it doesn’t color code syntax to my liking. I’ve used Dreamweaver for years and years and got spoiled by it’s outstanding syntax highlighting.

The only thing I’ve seen come close is the previously mentioned HAPedit - at least as far as Windows goes. It even has really good code hints. But it doesn’t do much for you in the way of WYSIWYG. It’s definitely more developer oriented. Which is what I like.

I’ve looked at Nvu as well and, as far as basic HTML editors are concerned...it’s pretty good for what it is. It’s got a little ways to go before it can be said to be a good replacement for Dreamweaver...but considering that it’s free, I’d say it’s a good editor. I’d really like to see what the developers can do with it in the way of making it developer friendly. Integration of PHP, ASP, ASP.NET, and other IDE’s would make Nvu a much more powerful tool indeed.

As far as Windows-based PHP IDE’s, about the only one I really like so far is Zend Studio. Granted, at $300 for the professional version it’s certainly not the cheapest solutions...but neither is Dreamweaver when you think about it. I thought about it like this...if I’m charging customers for my services, certainly spending $300 for a solid development tool isn’t all that bad. And considering that Zend is the defacto company for the further development of PHP, certainly the same could be said about Zend Studio to a certain degree.

I’ve been trying new editors and IDEs for what seems like a zillion years now. And I’ve come full-circle back to Rapid PHP 2005. Later versions are called PHP Designer, but they actually seem to have removed some things that I liked in the prior version and generally slowed the thing down too much for my liking.

I liked the debugging features in the Zend Dev. Env. a lot - as an idea. In practice it seems as if 9 out of ten warnings that it throws up are actually it misunderstanding the context of the code. Being able to debug in steps and set watches is nice, but it doesn’t have a multi-line search and replace (without writing a regex), which is a must for me, and I like that Rapid PHP is also designed to work with CSS, JavaScript, and XHTML. Plus it takes more than ten seconds to load, and I’m not that patient. OK I’ll wait a while for Photoshop, but not to edit a text file.

I think that all I learned from my odyssey of PHP editors is that I should’ve just stayed home and learned to make the most of the features on the program I already used...

There is also Notepad++(free) and TopStylePro ($$)
I bought TopStylePro several years ago and even though It hasn’t been upgraded lately, it still is a super PHP, html. css editor. I found that EclipsePHP and the other IDEs based on it, like PHP Design Studio Pro (Joomla! at Work) (which I just removed) and Aptana are too complex and hard to learn.
Study after study, have confirmed that 80% of program users, only use 20% of the functions of a program. I prefer lean editors that do several jobs well (the 20%). CoffeeCup products are good but cost $$.
However if you have FireFox 2.+, you have one of the best IDEs out there - put the "web Developer" and "firebug" plugins on it and you have a terrific setup costing you nothing (0$$)
Cheers,
HalD

Of course after I wrote this I stumbled upon TSW WebCoder Pro, which seems pretty sweet...

I guess my journey hasn’t ended yet after all...

Although I’m at the point where I feel I should probably stop mucking about and get some *REAL* work done...

* On my Mac i usualy use Smultron or the free version of BBedit : TextWrangler (Taco HTML edit seems good too).
* On Windows i like PsPad
* On Linux-KDE i use most of the time Kate. Il will probably give a try to Bluefish and Kdevelop

I have tested Nvu & Eclipse : The good is that they are multiplatform but i did not feel comfortable with them.

Edit : (some more links)

On Windows, Crimson Edit. I’m still trying to find one with similar features for the Mac. (free; too cheap to pay for one!)

Looks like I just found it... downloading Smultron now!