What is ideal software setup for programming web applications (editing php, javascript, xhtml, css) ?

Question

I've been developing web applications for 2 years now, and have been into simpler web pages for many more. I've been using Notepad, then ConText, then Crimson Editor (was my favorite for a long time) and I've been trying with Notepad++. I have NetDrive setup so I can edit and save files directly on the ftp server. On Firefox I use the Web Developer extension, Firebug and a couple more.

As my skills grow and need to do more stuff than before, I'm facing some limitations such as doing some versioning, tracking changes on the code, reverting back to an older version, these things I do them manually. Also I want to be portable so I'm trying to setup everything webdev-related in a Dropbox folder so I can sync it and have a functioning developer setup everywhere I go.

I'm wondering what software would you suggest for web app developing and how can it be setup to be portable or in the cloud?

Answer 1

Jetbrains' Web IDE is currently in beta and should be released before the end of the year. You can already download and use EAP releases. It will be commercial but might have a free/community version (as was recently announced for IntelliJ IDEA).

It's getting quite good with support for PHP, HTML, CSS and Javascript. It also has good version control integration (Git and Subversion are the two I've used) and has local change tracking (so you don't even need to check in to something to see old versions and revert them; it does this automatically).

That and a convenient distro like XAMPP is all you really need (well and Firebug).

Answer 2

I use Zend Studio (http://www.zend.com/en/products/studio/) as my IDE. It's not perfect (nor free), but I haven't found anything I like better and it has definitely sped up my development time. It really shines as a PHP editor, has a nice XML editor, decent HTML editor, and so-so JavaScript editor. But since it's built on the Eclipse platform, it should be possible to install plug-ins/mods. If you're like me and your main focus is PHP, with the other three languages taking a backseat, then I imagine this will suit you fine.

I wish I could tell you more about versioning, but I don't know much about this :/ I do know that Studio has a built in SVN manager. It also supports remote connections through FTP. I also use Dropbox, and there is no problem in using the two combined.

I've checked out NetBeans, and a few other IDEs, but there are so many small features/shortcuts that Studio has that the others don't that force me back to Studio. I will add these caveats though: Studio is memory hungry, and code hinting is much slower in the latest version than the previous (though they claim this will be resolved.) I suggest downloading the demo and seeing how you like it for yourself.

Answer 3

Try which editor you like the best. I used Aptana and different other editors (eg.: Zendstudio) a while ago, but I always go back to Geany (but I am on Linux) and a bunch of commandline tools.
You have to figure out yourself what is the best enviroment for you.

Answer 4

I thinks it depends on whether you achieve a full-featured IDE or a collection of tools that do their job separately. After using many editors on different platforms, I use Eclipse and Vi now: For small scripts that have to be changed quickly, Vi is the perfect editor, and it's available for every important platform, but it takes some time to lern the shortcuts.

But since most Web projects grow rapidly in size, I got need of a IDE which suits all my needs:

• Subversion integrated
• Code completion and helpful function for different languages (Python, PHP, HTML, even C++)
• Availability on Mac, Windows and Linux
• Open Source
• Extensible via Plugins
• Fully configurable

Eclipse does this all and much more. All the project stuff is placed in a workspace-directory, which you can sync via Dropbox or anything else if you want (since I would recommend storing project files in a repository rather than on a simple Webdav place).

Answer 5

The editor part is totally up to you, I use both PHP Eclipse and Vim. I don't think versioning integration in IDE is that important but code completion and syntax error control sure do help. Look into SVN and TortoiseSVN - it provides comfortable version control and you can use your sources from anywhere with an svn client and it's a must when you start working on one project with other people.

Answer 6

For the last year I've been contentedly developing using NetBeans 6.7 with [xdebug][2], Firebug 1.4 and [Darcs][3] as version control. The whole setup is portable, so I can use it on any windows machine and has proved very reliable; can't recommend it enough.
NetBeans covers all the bases: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP with auto-complete and the xdebug integration, once you get it working, is excellent. Darcs is console only, but its so straightforward to use that you just don't miss the GUI. I use [Console2][4] to work with Darcs.