PHP Editor, HTML debuggers?

[meburke]

I've written quite a bit of early php code, but nothing really web and database-specific (more like administrative and maintenance stuff for LINUX), but now I need to develop some serious web applications. Since I wanted to be portable, I installed Apache, MySQL and PHP5 on one of my Windows XP laptops.

I'm having problems: First, I can't find a REALLY good editor for php on Windows. If anyone out here knows of a really good editor I would be extremely grateful.

Here's what I've tried so far: The best I've found so far is Komodo, but the debugging system is a little complicated since I can't launch an .html form from the ide and watch the whole process of passing data to the .php form.

I've been using DZSoft PHP Editor, which runs it's own webserver and includes an older version of Mozilla, but sometimes scripts that give me errors in DPE will run fine in my external browsers, and sometimes scripts which fail in DPE run fine in my external editors. Furthermore, I get error messages in DPE that aren't associated with any values in the debugging windows, so I can't actually follow the process.

PHPCoder really sucks. PHP Designer and HTMLGate are really nice programs although PHP Designer is a little too crowded for me, Notepad++ seems ok on the interface, and Coffee Cup didn't offer any improvements over the rest because it's mostly an html editor. The biggest drawback of all of these programs is that I can't actually launch a webpage for analyzing php, I can only launch an html view. (file:///... as opposed to http://localhost/... )

It frustrates me no end that a script that runs one day will not run another, and I can't track down what's going on. Does anyone know of any utilities that will allow me to step through my HTML pages and see the results? (Actually, if I can find my old laptop, I think I had Visual Interdev on it, but I can't remember if it stepped the html code or just the scripts.) There apparently was a product called Avotova Web Code Analyzer which sounds like what I am looking for, but the website is gone and I can't seem to find an archive with the product.

One of my current problems is a form that doesn't seem to be posting data, although other forms work just fine. I can't tell if something changed in my configuration or not, but it's probably a simple syntax error or typo since those are the usual source of my programming errors. (I've been a programmer on and off for 40 years, and I bet I've made millions of those kind of errors!) If I could parse the html page and see the output without having to rebuild it each time I took another step, it would be a real time-saver.

Thank you all for your help. Incidentally, I've read a number of posts before subscribng to this forum, and the quality of co-operation is outstanding!

Mike

[Niheel]

Don't know if this will help, but I use EditPlus with a custom PHP autocomplete and their PHP syntax highlighter.

It works great, it's simple and fast. Can also handle very large files for data manipulation. Sometimes I find the other editors can't handle big files such as log files.

[chipgraphics]

PHP Designer all the time! They're about to release PHP Designer 2006 soon, but the lastest release is packed with goodies !!

They have released the final beta version for 2006!!

I am testing it out now and I am VERY pleased with the new release !! I tip my hat off to MPSoftware ! Bravo !! I was already using their software a lot but still used others too. It looks like they have covered all the bases this time and I don't think that I will need to resort to any other editor!

It has customizable syntax schemes for PHP, HTML, XHTML, CSS, Perl, C#, JavaScript, VB, Java and SQL (Ingres, Interbase, MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase and Standard SQL), and a class/include browser.

Plus you can test and debug your scripts with the PHP interpreter, and integration of the PHP manual, parameter hint, auto indent of brackets, automatic close brackets, access to common code/script libraries are all available on the side panel.

Wait there's more (this sounds like a infomercial :D ), a FTP manager, project manager, file manager, ToDo manager, code templates, snippet support, export possibility to LaTex, HTML and RTF and morej. The best part is that it is FREE. They also have another program called HTML Gate, but I've never tried it. It's free too. Their website is.. http://www.mpsoftware.dk.

Also PHPNotepad is a great PHP editor. Some cool features that I wish a lot of IDE's would have. Can't debug with PHPNotepad though. :mad: PHPNotepad website is http://phpnotepad.upperbounds.com.

Best of Luck,

Chipgraphics