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Preferred development tools?

  • Purely a matter of taste – and a chance for everyone to weigh-in with their own opinion without anyone being “wrong” – what’re your preferred development tools when dealing with PHP, and more specifically, with WordPress / bbPress code?

    In my day-job I live and breath Java code and use JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA, which itself doesnt support PHP out of the box but a sister product from JetBrains (was called “WebIDE” and now I think is “PHPStorm”) does an exceptionally good job of supporting development in PHP. I was also pleasantly surprised and find myself occasionally using NetBeans v6.8 too. Both development environments allow very fast cross-referencing of methods. Both tools mirror local development remotely – handling the upload/download of changes.

    If I’m not in an IDE, then it’s TextWrangler on my Mac or UltraEdit on a PC, uploads handled using FileZilla.

Viewing 18 replies - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)

  • Gautam Gupta
    Participant

    @gautamgupta

    I use Komodo to code + Filezilla to upload, though Komodo can automatically connect to FTP and edit the files there but it hangs while doing that.


    chrishajer
    Participant

    @chrishajer

    Never found and IDE I liked using: maybe because I always work on tiny little pieces, never a big project. Notepad++ on Windows, or vim on Linux. ssh, scp, svn and bash for transferring files.


    zaerl
    Participant

    @zaerl

    GNU/Emacs + ECB + cedet.


    kevinjohngallagher
    Member

    @kevinjohngallagher

    Coding:

    I’ve found NotePad++ to be quite invaluable in the past year or so.

    I’ve use both Komodo and the PHP plugin for Eclipse in the past; but frankly once you use Visual Studio and intellisence, i find half-assed IDE’s to just annoy me. Thats purely personal ofcourse, but it’s lead me to keeping the NotePad++ installer on my USB stick just incase i have to work somewhere on the move (how sad is that???).

    Somethign else that won’t endear me to anyone, when outputting tables or visually formatted HTML, Dreamweaver makes life so much easier. I can’t count the amount of time i’ve saved by churning some HTML out on Dreamweaver and then just finxing the code with one or two saved Reg-Ex’s.

    FTP:

    Filezilla

    Images:

    Fireworks is still awesome. I thankfully haven’t had to touch Photoshop for any theming in years and years. I’ve not tried the latest version of GIMP, but it’d have to be something special to overtake FireWorks.

    UML / Process / User Flow

    I use Visio.

    Edit: Ok I realise that i’ve just mentioned both Adobe and Microsoft products, so i expect the comments to come flying in ;-) Night all!

    I use Notepad++ as well with the “Ruby Blue” theme.

    After using Visual Studio for .Net at work I’ve found myself badly wanting to find a full featured IDE for PHP as well. Unfortunately I’ve tried several and always end up coming back to plain old Notepad++. If only I could have Visual Studio’s “goto method” feature in Notepad++ I would be set forever!

    That said, of all the IDE’s I’ve tried, PHPStorm, which Paul mentioned, has been my favorite so far. I might still be using it right now if only I could find where the hell to download their themes! I became so frustrated trying to find the themes that they advertised that I simply gave up.

    I have spoiled myself with light-text-on-dark-background themes and I am simply unable to work for long periods of time on a white background. If anyone could point me to a place where I might find a light-text-on-dark-background theme for PHP Storm I would be extremely grateful!


    Gautam Gupta
    Participant

    @gautamgupta

    If only I could have Visual Studio’s “goto method” feature in Notepad++ I would be set forever!

    Komodo has a goto feature, just right click the function press goto and it will take you where the function is defined.

    Both PhpStorm and Netbeans 6.8 allow you to [ctrl | command] click on a method and jump to its definition. Its invaluable! There’s nothing quite like being able to click your way through the [bb | word]Press code and actually see what is going on. NetBeans is free to download and is a friendly full-featured IDE (great for the VisualStudio folks).

    With the ease of code navigation in these tools, anyone interested in doing a “find in files” search for things like “add_action” and documenting what you find … as a way to help out the other plugin writers and bbPress coders?


    kevinjohngallagher
    Member

    @kevinjohngallagher

    oooooooh, Paul that is really good to know (your info too Gautam).

    When I’m back at my office in June I’ll install theme and see if it improves my workflow. As much as I like NotePad++, it isn’t ideal once you’ve gotten used to the power of something grander.

    Thanks for the tip, and the v useful thread!

    I use Notepad/Textwrangler + Filezilla. I’m only just starting to REALLY learn php, and all this info is very helpful, thanks!


    _ck_
    Participant

    @_ck_

    Ha, I can’t even get used to Notepad++

    Original notepad all the way!

    (unfortunately the poor formatting in all my plugins demonstrates that too)


    Gautam Gupta
    Participant

    @gautamgupta

    Another thing I like about Komodo is that it has the same UI as of firefox, can install extensions and do many things similar to that of FF. BTW, it can also do regex find/replace in files which is really useful. Do check its features list – http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit (the paid version has more).

    As I have not see it listed yet

    Bluefish http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/

    on both Linux and Win platforms

    for just about everything coded.

    but sill use Notepad++ for txt files (don’t know why – force of habit I guess


    Michael
    Participant

    @michael888

    Programmers Notepad and Filezilla. Smoothest operation that way – at least the way I see it.

    Then I use InDesign and Photoshop for images.

    Not much on the process flow side – guess I’d use Visio (or stick to good ol’ pen and paper) .


    Xevo
    Participant

    @xevo

    Dreamweaver, Filezilla and sometimes conTEXT when I need a lightweight editor.

    For design I only use Photoshop, don’t need the rest, unless it has to be a vector, then I take Illustrator out of the closet.

    Haven’t seen Dreamweaver mentioned by anyone else in this topic, why is that?


    chrishajer
    Participant

    @chrishajer

    Dreamweaver has a bad reputation among the developers I know/work with as an elaborate, bloated, WYSIWIG editor responsible for a large number of do-it-yourself abominations on the net.

    Reading back through that I realize it’s kind of harsh! But that is the attitude I get from people towards it. Personally I don’t use it because its auto complete likes to do wonky things with my code. Also when many times you just want to text edit a few lines who wants to wait for the program to load?


    chrishajer
    Participant

    @chrishajer

    I haven’t used it Dreamweaver in about 10 years, but when I did, it always created invalid HTML. I didn’t like the autocomplete either. I found that using it made it harder to learn how to create HTML since it was hiding so much from me.

Viewing 18 replies - 1 through 18 (of 18 total)
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