PHP, Visual Studio

[Nico VanHaaster]

Hello All,

I am very new to the PHP world, all my development has been either
ASP.Net or classic ASP. Now I have to help out on some projects that
are PHP driven. Now from what i have been told is there are decent PHP
IDE's that will integrate into Visual Studio. I am far more familiar
with that application than i am the VI editor. And honestly don't know
why the VI editor would really be used.

Now i will be working on remote servers over an SSH Connection which
is where the problem comes in i believe.

I have downloaded and installed VS.Php but can't seem to get figure
out how to open the remote site into the Visual Studio application.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a better IDE or even some sort
of remote tool that would work better in my situation?

Thank you

[Jeff]

Re: PHP, Visual Studio

I personally use Zend Studio. It isn't bad but not as good as Visual
Studio. You can work remotely and connect via FTP, not sure about
using a secure connection with it. It integrates with SVN and CVS
which is nice. I'm not in love with it but it's all I really know.

http://www.zend.com/products/zend_studio

[Jeremy]

Re: PHP, Visual Studio

Nico VanHaaster wrote:

Hello All,
>
I am very new to the PHP world, all my development has been either
ASP.Net or classic ASP. Now I have to help out on some projects that
are PHP driven. Now from what i have been told is there are decent PHP
IDE's that will integrate into Visual Studio. I am far more familiar
with that application than i am the VI editor. And honestly don't know
why the VI editor would really be used.
>
Now i will be working on remote servers over an SSH Connection which
is where the problem comes in i believe.
>
I have downloaded and installed VS.Php but can't seem to get figure
out how to open the remote site into the Visual Studio application.
>
Can anyone point me in the direction of a better IDE or even some sort
of remote tool that would work better in my situation?
>
Thank you
>

I like ActiveState Komodo; it's kind of a pain to set up the remote
debugger, but it works OK once you do. I typically just check it into
SVN (which integrates into Komodo) and then update a working copy on the
dev server with my changes... makes it pretty easy and safe since you
can always get back to any previous version if something goes wrong.
You can even set it up to automatically update the dev server copy on
check-in if you don't want to keep an SSH window open.

Komodo is cross-platform but based on the Mozilla platform rather than
Java (with a native editing widget) which I find makes it a bit snappier
than the java-based Zend studio. Zend studio has an easier debugger,
though - although it's a little less stable in my experience.

You should try both zend and komodo (both have trial versions) and see
which you like better.

http://www.activestate.com/products/komodo_ide/ (they have a newer
version than I am using it seems)

http://www.zend.com/products/zend_studio

[Roman]

Re: PHP, Visual Studio

Nico VanHaaster wrote:

Hello All,
>
I am very new to the PHP world, all my development has been either
ASP.Net or classic ASP. Now I have to help out on some projects that
are PHP driven. Now from what i have been told is there are decent PHP
IDE's that will integrate into Visual Studio. I am far more familiar
with that application than i am the VI editor. And honestly don't know
why the VI editor would really be used.
>
Now i will be working on remote servers over an SSH Connection which
is where the problem comes in i believe.
>
I have downloaded and installed VS.Php but can't seem to get figure
out how to open the remote site into the Visual Studio application.
>
Can anyone point me in the direction of a better IDE or even some sort
of remote tool that would work better in my situation?
>
Thank you
>

I use VS.PHP and it's the best tool out there. It allows debugging both
PHP and JavaScript.

I always work on project locally. It comes with it's own embedded Apache
and PHP. But apparently it can work in external mode by placing a DBG
module on the server:

http://www.jcxsoftware.com/jcx/vsphp/docs/debug

--
Roman Ziak

https://www.dipmicro.com

[Willem Bogaerts]

Re: PHP, Visual Studio

I am very new to the PHP world, all my development has been either

ASP.Net or classic ASP. Now I have to help out on some projects that
are PHP driven. Now from what i have been told is there are decent PHP
IDE's that will integrate into Visual Studio. I am far more familiar
with that application than i am the VI editor. And honestly don't know
why the VI editor would really be used.
>
Now i will be working on remote servers over an SSH Connection which
is where the problem comes in i believe.

You have two options, I think: work remote or work locally.

Personally, I strongly suggest you work on your local machine. Install
PHP there, along with the necessary database, and make a copy of the
site. Using Subversion, CVS, Sourcesafe, or whatever source code control
system can be a great help in getting your local site live quickly and
in a managed way. The great advantage is that working locally allows you
to make stupid mistakes (like code that fails to include a WHERE clause
in an UPDATE query, for example, I really did that once) without having
a real catastrophe.

If you must work remote, it greatly depends on the server you are
working on. If it features an X server, you could even run a graphical
IDE on the server using Cygwin as your terminal.

Best regards,
--
Willem Bogaerts

Application smith
Kratz B.V.

http://www.kratz.nl/

[Colin McKinnon]

Re: PHP, Visual Studio

Nico VanHaaster wrote:

I am far more familiar
with that application than i am the VI editor. And honestly don't know
why the VI editor would really be used.
>
Now i will be working on remote servers over an SSH Connection which
is where the problem comes in i believe.
>

Couldn't say - I live in Linux-land - Unix *is* the IDE.

If you happen to like pointy-clicky run/stop/step/run IDEs (personally I
think they don't really lend themselves to productivity) you could try Zend
studio for a no-brainer solution. Or PHPEclipse, although setting up the
debugger is wee bit tricky.

HTH

C.