Need assistance finding the perfect PHP IDE for Ubuntu

Question

I'm trying to build an application in PHP using my Ubuntu laptop. I'm having a hard time, however, finding an IDE that fits my needs. My ideal IDE would have the following features:

• Code folding
• Easy code snippet creation that is assignable to a shortcut key
• Code organization
• Unit Testing
• Debugger

Netbeans fits most of these requirements except that the ability to create snippets is complex. One must create a module file and then screw around with some XML and do the hokey poky to get a super simple snippet installed. I tried creating a macro in NetBeans, but it screws up the javadoc and I have not figured out a way to tell it to just paste in what I type for the duration of the macro rather than using all of the human assistance features. So what I get is a bunch of jacked up looking code with jacked up phpdoc.

gPHPEdit is more of what I'm looking for as far as snippet support, but it sorely lacks all of the other features that NetBeans does so well.

Any ideas on a great PHP IDE. Since this is a personal project, purchasing an IDE is not an option.

Answer 1

In NetBeans, you can make code templates. These are abbreviations with variable support, what you can complete with a selected key (tab, ctrl+enter etc).

You can find it under Tools -> Options -> Editor -> Code Templates.

Answer 2

I use Aptana which is build on top of eclipse or can be used as an eclipse plugin. It comes with some basic snippets and creating new snippets isn't that hard with eclipse.

I would recommend to start with the 3.0 beta as it has some new features that are quite useful. Apatana has almost everything you need and as it uses eclipse, you will get almost everything that is missing (like SVN or GIT support).