What's a good PHP development enviroment under Windows?

Question

I have programed PHP a few days and found that It's not easy to debug the code(which I mean the PHP code itself, and especially the Javascript code).

I am using gvim as editor, firebug and the truthful alert as debugger. But I am not satisfied, I need some killer feature like setting breakpoints, step code etc.

Are there any development enviroment for this? What kind of develpment enviroment do you use?

thanks.

Answer 1

Possible Dupe:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6166/any-good-php-ide-preferably-free-or-cheap
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/116292/what-is-the-best-ide-for-php

Open source have a look at:
Eclipse PDT
Aptana Studio
Netbeans

Commercial Software:
Zend Studio
Komodo IDE

If you are looking at better debugging abilities, have a look at Xdebug. Provides a lot of debugging functionality such as stack traces, profiling and heaps of other things

Answer 2

I use Eclipse PDT. It has a debugger that allows you to set breakpoints etc..., has really good code completion and its free! I highly recommend it

Answer 3

Another good Commercial software to look at is NuSphere's PhpEd. I love that program under Windows, but sadly I hardly use Windows anymore.

Answer 4

NetBeans 6.9 has a pretty good PHP support also. I find it slightly faster than Eclipse also.

I also use Chrome with the developer window; best tool I have found so far. It may not have PHP breakpoints, but it sure help in debugging Javascript (via console.log(obj) instead of alert(str))

Answer 5

Hands down the best PHP IDE that I've encountered on all platforms is JetBrain's PHP Storm (or IntelliJ IDEA for full power Java, too). It's full integration with phpunit, debugging, refactoring, code completion, and appropriate in-line syntax highlight (even when mixed with HTML and JavaScript) and code folding, and the list goes on. Really, it's a fully featured editor that us Java guys are used to, but for php! All the other IDEs fall short somewhere, whether it's in the syntax highlighting or barely supporting debugging...

The downside is that it costs something. I've always been a proponent of the best tools that money can buy, though. PHP Storm is in the two digit price range though, and I consider that great for everything it does. Check it out:

http://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/