Eclipse PHP IDE

I have been using PHPEclipse for quite some time. I have used the Eclipse Java debugger and was impressed with how much debugging time it saved. However, when I tried to get the debugger working in PHPEclipse, I ran into some problems. This might have something to do with using the latest version of Eclipse, but I never spent the time to figure it all out. I had some spare time today, and decided to try out the Eclipse PHP IDE.

So I went over to the Zend site and downloaded the all-in-one package (keeps my PHPEclipse install safe) and the debugger extension (just followed the instructions in the readme). After a quick install of Subversive and a checkout of ANJEL, I was off to test the debugger.

ANJEL is an extension for Joomla so during development I run an Ant task to copy the files to the Joomla server directory for testing. There was an option to Publish files to server in the debug options, but no way to selectively publish the files (at least not that I could see). Since I don't want to copy all of the files over, I decided to go ahead and run the Ant task as I have been doing, but add the Joomla server directory as a PHP Project so I can add breakpoints and do some debugging. So far this works just fine.

I was able to get the breakpoints to work successfully, and I have to say I am very impressed with the PHP IDE. Some features that I have missed or not been able to get to work correctly in PHPEclipse are here. One of these is including projects in another project. I can add the Joomla project as a dependency of ANJEL and links (CTRL+click) in ANJEL source can take me to the Joomla code. It saves a lot of lookup time. You also get all the hover documentation along with it. Also, extended classes are shown directly in the file outline for quick access to inherited methods and properties.

There are still a few minor things missing from the configuration. The syntax highlighting is not as fine grained as I would like. There are not options for function or method highlight colors, etc. Also, the PHP file templates need a few more variables to be useful. For example, a file or path variable could help in automatic class naming for new files and documentation. The file templates also don't use the PHP editor like they do in PHPEclipse. This can be solved by writing the template in the editor and copying it, but it shouldn't be too hard to implement it.

One more big issue is the time required to build the “php model” on each start of Eclipse. It can take a lot of time depending on how big and how many projects are open. Hopefully as it matures, it will get better performance. Also, if you just leave Eclipse open, this won't be a problem.

As of right now, I would say the pros outweigh the cons, and I will probably be spending some development time with the PHP IDE in the future. And since we haven't even gotten to the 0.7 release yet (should be in February), I would expect this to become the Eclipse user's PHP IDE of choice, especially as the documentation for it becomes available.