Zend Studio

[stuart]

Zend Studio - Basic Review Page

Zend Studio - What real PHP Developers think of Zend Studio

Zend Studio 5 is the only Integrated Development Environment (IDE) available for professional developers that encompasses all the development components necessary for the full PHP application lifecycle. Through a comprehensive set of editing, debugging, analysis, optimization and database tools, Zend Studio 5 speeds development cycles and simplifies complex projects.

Please share your experience and comments with others here....

The users here who have bad things to say about this product probably dont even realise A) how powerfull it is or B) what half the features do...

Zend 5.0 is the best PHP INTERGRATED DEVELOPMENT ENVIROMENT around..

If you want a simple EDITOR for your little kiddy scripts then sure, somthing else may suit your needs better.

If however you are looking for a PROFESIONAL php IDE where multiple programming professionals can work together on commercial projects then you have it all in Zend's product.

[kneighbour]

This is one of the better editors out there - but still not perfect yet.

There are some annoyances...
- no tag editor : well, it does have a code completion system, so it can be done, but it is not as good as Dreamweaver, for example.

- the FTP system is clumsy. It adds the FTP sites into your system namespaces. It works - but I do not like it.

- slow to load, slow to use : this is probably the biggest problem in daily use.

Good points
- a lot of powerful (if rarely used ) stuff. Ie links to subversion, etc.
- good code formatter
- extremely easy to read font in editor
- end bracket highlighting

Ok, on the PC it's pretty good. On the MAC, it's just not that great. Hard to install. Doesn't have all the features it has on the PC. Server must be installed seperatly from terminal and then it's quirky, (if it works). No HTML view, you have to load the file in an external browser if you are on the MAC.

It feels like they just don't put in the same effort on the MAC they do on the PC. The interface for MAC OS Look and Feel is something you will turn off right away.

I just don't seem to be able to find a viable alternitive to Zend on the MAC if you want a debugger, code completion (like in Zend Studio) and syntax checking. I am wishing and hoping someone will give them a run for their money on the MAC side.

Dreamweaver 8 had some nice improvments but I want to see a debugger, code completion (like in Zend Studio) and syntax checking. I think that would be the best of both worlds.

Anyone had much dealings with their Zend's support? I would be interested in your comments on that.

4 out of 5 on the PC 3 out of 5 on the MAC.

[Jesreed]

I'd say it's decent, but definitely not the best.
It works slow... I mean, really SLOW because jawa consumes 99% of CPU.
One unique thing it certainly has - code folding. That's all.
Other features leave much to be desired.

I've tried Zend Studio 5, PHPedit 2 and PhpED 4.5

PhpED won.

It's far from being the best and it's far from being robust.
But it is the most marketed, and the most shamelessly marketed for certain.
The editor is buggy, lacking features, and it's been so for 2 years now.
Being written in java does not help at all. There are performance issues as well.

Do yourself a favor and look around, don't buy this one because the website looks to be professional!

I have swithced to nuSphere phpEd just recently and I'm very happy with this latest choice.

Best ever, is able to keep up with all your doing for instance i can have a object on another file, use an __autoload to load that object and it is still able to do code completion also the phpdocumentor is a great feature for adding your own custom comments/descriptions to your custom functions and objects so when working in big groups of programmers the documentation is in the programming.

I actually like how they got the ftp, but one thing i don't like is if you have a open project with a ftp dependancy and you load zde it hangs for the timeout period untill it says project failed to load.

dreamweaver sucks bad, it adds craploads of bulking code, uses way to many divs for simple stuff, and if you ever decide to switch editors later, your going to have to rebuild all the code and take out all their junk. dreamweaver to me is just a step higher than frontpage and a step lower than dog crap

Here is all the editors i've tried.
DZSoft 4-5 //Great for learning the basics with built in ftp
Homesite 3-5 //Better For html than coding
phpdesigner 4-5 //Nice But clustered with features
dreamweaver 1-5 //if going with adobe use coldfusion you newb
frontpage 1-5 //Crap for coders, good for the challenged

Zend Studio has some very nice features like code completion for your own classes, project setup, SVN integration & extended debug options. But... after I've tried the v.5.2 trial for one week I gave up because of some unacceptable problems:

- It crashes very often. It simply suddenly dies on Windows XP, and if you had things unsaved you lose them. Unacceptable.

- After you have done a find & replace action, you can't go back. It simply moves the cursor over the screen when you press CTRL+Z, without undoing anything. Unacceptable.

thanks for the great site.
-- mark

In regards to people compaining that ZDE is slow, I have had the same troubles. But as soon as I turned off the option "Use OS Look and Feel", every thing became responsive and useable, and the auto complete became lightning fast.

Hope this may help you.

Zend is one of the best PHP IDE out there. In fact PhpED and Zend are the only 2 IDE worth mentioning... BUT Zend has one of the best features ALL windows editors lack, I mean ALL of them, exept some Java based ones... Code Templates.

Ok but X editor has that I heard you saying... ok but is it really useful at all?... I've seen some that you are able to define the cursor position nice, but useless. Others are even worse and you can just store code, again useless... Others will ask for input with a dialog window or be dragged from a list...not cool when you have alot templates and again pretty much useless...

Wouldnt be nice to be able to setup your own variables and change them as you type?... If you have ever seen how Textmate works you instantly know their snippets feature beat the hell out of ALL editors in all plataforms, Textmate is for editors what Photoshop is for graphics applications, simply the best. Well, Zend has that feature for you waiting to be used!
is not as great as Textmate and has limitations though... you can't set tabstops and you cant apply templates to selection and is not as smart as Textmate but gets job done... and most importantly is very useful.

DEMOS
http://macromates.com/screencast/insert_html_tags.mov
http://macromates.com/screencast/htm...formations.mov