What is the best editor to use for PHP development?

[Niheel]

I've decided to upgrade from editplus to a newer more versatile php editor. What are your suggestions?

[dgreenhouse]

I use a number of editors & IDEs...

My primary editor at this point is: NetBeansIDE
http://netbeans.org/features/php/

I also use:
1- Komodo Edit - http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/,
2- Aptana Studio 1.5 - http://aptana.com/ (although they dropped PHP in their latest rev),
3- EclipsePDT & Galileo - http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/release-notes/pdt2_1.php
(although it's a real bear and hard to grok)
4- Dreamweaver CS3 & CS4,
5- And last but not least - EditPlus ;-), Notepad, and others.

My main lifting IDE is the NetBeans IDE

Microsoft's Expression Studio is picking up some steam, but has a ways to go.

For an all around editor that’ll treat you well, I'd pick Komodo Edit.

Hope that helps…

[Atli]

I'd recommend Netbeans. It's been my primary IDE for a while now.
I also use Notepad++ when I need to do something that I can't be bothered to fire up Netbeans for. (Or gedit, when I'm on Linux)

Aptana is also good, especially if you focus more on design than coding. It also has excellent JavaScript tools.

I used to use Dreamweaver too, but I wouldn't go back. It's a good enough editor, sure. But there is nothing in there that justifies the price tag on it. (Granted, I am a couple of versions behind.).
Not to mention that using Dreamweaver forces you to work on Windows, which is a huge downside.

[jeddiki]

I use HTML-Kit which is free
and has a lot of useful dropdowns for HTML php and javascript.

But I don't know how it compares to
Netbeans. or Komodo Edit

Maybe I should change as well ??

[sanjib65]

I like the free version of phpDesigner. It's good.

[Niheel]

Thanks for all your answers, I am going to go with netbeans.

I have dreamweaver which i'm pretty comfortable with for quire html/css edits.

So for i've gotten around to testing aptana, komodo and zend studio (eclipse). I enjoyed the ease of use and speed of netbeans the most.

I code in a windows environment using vmware to setup linux test machines. Some of the java based IDE's were really slow on vista.

I am jealous of CODA on mac though. That is really web-dev specific IDE. Very well thought out.

[dgreenhouse]

I'm running NetBeans on Win7 64bit and not having any problems.

I've got a local CentOS5 server with subversion, remote debugging enabled, and multiple VirtualHosts setup. I also connect to external repositories and it's been fairly solid so far.

It will take awhile to grok it, but it's well worth the effort.

Have fun!

[Atli]

@kub365
What isn't :P

I've used both Netbeans and Aptana (both Java based) on Windows 7 (x64) and XP (x32) and they both worked as expected. Not much slower, at least, than what I am used to on Linux.

Java apps do tend to have a pretty slow start on Windows, though. But they start running smoothly once that is over.

[code green]

I have been using Netbeans 6.7 for a few months now and am getting a little frustrated and annoyed because it keeps freezing the Operating System.
This is in a Windows environment. The whole system just hangs and I have to do a hard reboot. Apparently 6.8 is not as bad.

[Atli]

@code green
Weird. I had Netbeans 6.7 open on my Win7 RC desktop for like a straight week, in constant use for most of the day, without so much as a hiccup.
Could it be that you had some extensions installed that are causing problems?

Which version of Windows are you running?
A single application shouldn't be able to crash the entire system, unless there is an underlying problem. All versions of Windows since 2k should be able to handle a single app crashing without it actually affecting the system as a whole.

The most serious problem I know of was a bug in 6.5 that caused temporary files to build up, sometimes to a point where it started to affect it's performance. But that was only supposed to affect Netbeans itself, and it was supposedly fixed (or at least dramatically improved) in 6.7.

In any case, I seriously doubt Netbeans is solely to blame for this. There has to be an underlying/contributing cause in your environment. Perhaps something corrupted in your Java installation? Driver issues? File-system/registry corruption? etc...

[Markus]

I just started using Komodo Edit (free version) and I think it's safe to say I've finally finished my IDE search. I would often be changing IDEs every few weeks to find one I liked... and I never did. Until now :D

[dgreenhouse]

@code green
I'm using 6.8 and it has been great...

And then...

After my earlier post extolling the virtues of NetBeans, I started having some really weird issues and many things didn't work anymore! Argh! :-(

I had done a backup (with Windoze), did an update, probably a few other things, and all of a sudden - I couldn't upload to my local server, Subversion was whacked, files got whacked, NetBeans complained about driver versioning, and a bunch of other stuff.

There WAS an issue with the backup not being able to access files. Also, the system upon reboot - had to reconstruct files and check some stuff.

I started to freak over all the time spent setting up the dev. environment!

I went back to an earlier restore point (2 back), had to fix some NetBeans project properties files (by hand), and I'm back up! Thank the Data Gods!

I'll do another (Windoze) update and see what happens as I suspect others might run into issues running similar configurations. I'm also suspecting that Windows backup might have been fighting with the Subversion stuff running on the box - guess I'll have to be diligent.

I knew I was in for trouble with Windows 7 sooner or later.

btw/ Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit Intel...

[code green]

Running Windows XP SP3.
I was aware of the temp files build up problem. Not sure when it was fixed.
The freeze can happen anytime. Simply moving the window can cause it.

Like Atli suggests, I suspect some conflict or problem between the Java runtime and Netbeans.
A colleague says upgrading to 6.8 eased his similar problems (same set-up as me).
I think Java is updated automatically, might try downloading latest by hand.

[Atli]

@dgreenhouse
Yea, I've had some minor problems with it to. Subversion related, most of them.
But once you get it working, it works great! :P

I have to say, thought. Komodo Edit is very impressive.
I'm trying it now for the first time and, besides the ugly color-schemes it came with, it's pretty great. (I found a Dreamweaver-like color schema online so that's all good)

Best thing is that it's not a Java app, so stuff like the Gnome font-hinting (ClearType, for you Windoze folk :P) works on it just as it does on the desktop. I had to mess a lot with the fonts in Netbeans to get them to look like the fonts in Gnome.

[dgreenhouse]

@Atli
Yep... I really like Komodo also; been using it about a year.

It's Mozilla based, so plugins are easy to build...

I'm still dealing with the font stuff in NetBeans... I like it a lot, but there are; as always, lots of things I don't. It's compelling me to finally byte the Java bullet... :-)