PHPIDE - Zend's Eclipse Plugin

[sp0n9e]

Why is this editor missing from the editor index?

This plugin is far superior to phpeclipse, making phpeclipse all but obsolete. While eclipse is somewhat of a heavyweight (not for plain old editing php files), the functionality phpide provides by merely being a part of eclipse is amazing. PHPIDE uses the WTP (another eclipse plugin) for any non-php code highlighting.

You can also install subclipse, making using svn transparent. Eclox also uses doxygen which takes most of the tags of phpdoc and creates similar documentation, replacing the need for using phpdoc (the application...phpdoc and doxygen syntax are nearly identical). Code completing for your own objects/classes/functions is also done and will read the details about your definitions from the docblock tags!

There are a few bugs, as this is still in beta (pre 1.0) but is really usable now. A code formatter is scheduled for January 2007. Zend is also giving away a debugger to integrate into eclipse, but this is not part of eclipse (as phpide is the official php plugin). This is because Zend intends to sell the debugger. But you can beta-test the debugger plugin for them now for free (registration required, iirc)

Links:
http://zend.com/phpide
http://eclipse.org/php

I have to mention one more little feature that i do that has nothing to do with phpide, but has saved me tons of time:

You can use svn hooks so that when you commit changes to svn, the svn server updates the code in a specified folder, such as your website, eliminating the use of ftp... 2MB of 1k files uploads in svn in under a minute. Also, because svn only sends diff's of text to be uploaded, upload times are TINY.

[awarberg]

On either site you link to there is little help to be had with respect to installing the plugin. They mostly give you links to some downloads which do not install php-ide correctly by themselves.

Downloading the All-in-one package (which includes eclipse ide) helps a bit but 1) its another major download and 2) you probably already had the Eclipse IDE and just wanted the php-ide plugin! So now you have either 2 disconnected versions of eclipse or you need to move all your other plugins to the all-in-one package version.

But even when you have accepted the all-in-one you still cannot use the ide optimally. There is no built-in webserver to display your site and the PHP executable debugger is not available per default (the "define a php executable location before continuing" error). You can download the executable debugger from Zends website but, once again, you are left without an installation procedure.

This might be a great product -- if it could be installed more easily!

Best regards
Andreas