Is there a addon where let say I want to see the origin/stack/trace of a variable I can do so?
I primarily want to see where variables are coming from, what classes and files they go through.
If there is another editor that does this well Ill take suggestions as well!
Thanks.
I don't think TextMate is able to do that, with or without a plugin.
-- START EDIT --
When I was still using it and I wanted to see (and possibly jump to) where a method or property came from I just used Search in Project.
-- END EDIT --
Vim in conjunction with ctags and cscope can help you jump from instance to prototype and vice-versa — wether it's in the current file or not — with <C-]> (or <C-$> on my french Mac keyboard); with TagList or TagBar you can see the structure of your code… but none of this can give you the clean overview you are looking for. But there is probably a plugin for that.
But if that kind of features is important for you it is typically a good reason to use an IDE instead of a text editor. In Eclipse, for example, you have a Type Hierarchy view that does most of what you want and possibly other tools to do the rest. I haven't tried every single IDE under the sun but I think a similar or more powerful feature exists in all of them.
Maybe in Emacs…
Plugins to make PHP coding easier and efficient in (g)Vim?
e.g. Error detection/highlight, debugging, etc?
For error detection, there is no miracle, but Syntastic is a good start.
If you have installed xdebug, then you can use :
DBGp-client
vim-add-xdebug (I never used it, but seems more recent)
DBGPavim (the most recent, nice plugin with good documentation)
Also, there is a package with some PHP config/plugins all-in-one, PIV, but I prefer installing plugins one by one.
Finally, the best advice would be to first install Vundle, so that you can then do this :
:BundleSearch php
Then yank the plugins results you're interested in, into your .vimrc, then
:BundleInstall
And you can test these plugins in no time. And launch :BundleClean after removing lines in your .vimrc if you don't like the plugin.
I found the free book 'A Byte of Vim' very helpful. It contains descriptions of a useful set of plugins.
http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Vim
See also Dr Chip's Vim page.
http://www.drchip.org/
I'm a Web developer. I had been using a variety of editors and ide-s for web development(php, javascript,html,css) six months before I decided to learn a true editor and started using emacs. I learned all the basics, used the starter kit, practiced using buffer, windows etc..
I got a grip in 2 months. A month ago I started learning about vim and I found a lot of plugins to achieve the things I want. I'm finding to achieve the same effect in emacs you have to do a lot(for php/js/css/html editing).
Here are the list of things I'm finding hard. Note: These things are related when I'm editing php/html/css/js.
syntax hightlighting(php/smarty). -- the php major mode is too old and it always highlights html/smarty inside the php code incorrectly.
I love ido-mode but i couldn't find how to define a project and fuzzy match files inside the predefined directory
I can setup nerdtree plugin to get a quick overview pane on the left with the files I'm working on with vim. But configuring speedbar and source code browser in emacs is bit difficult.
Context aware completion I really don't know how to do that. I have seen something like that in clojure mode where it shows the definition of a method in the messages area.
Tags-generation: The tags generated with excrebant-ctags does not always work with php. In vim it is easy I can open a file containing the definition right under the cursor.
Manual lookup I want to lookup the manual for a particular word under the cursor without opening the browser (in the messages area(mini-buffer)).
I love ido mode and switching b/w files in tramp,buffers,local files using ido-mode.
Can anyone point me in the right direction? Do you use emacs for same kind of editing I do? What is your work flow?.
nxthml-mode is the ultimate mode for web development.
You can easily define a project in terms of its VCS or .dir-locals.el with find-file-in-project.
Fuzzy matching is called flex matching in ido. You can enable it with:
(setq ido-enable-flex-matching t)
I've never had any problems with ctags, manual lookup is trivial to implement...
Manual lookup I want to lookup the manual for a particular word
under the cursor without opening the browser. (in the messages area
(mini-buffer))
It sounds like you are after eldoc-mode support for PHP? (enable it on a lisp file to see example)
;; Major modes for other languages may use ElDoc by defining an
;; appropriate function as the buffer-local value of
;; `eldoc-documentation-function'.
A search for eldoc-documentation-function and PHP turns up this:
http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/php-doc.el
I like Emacs for small projects and quick editing.
There are things like C-x ( to make a repeat-macro, delete-matching-lines, describe-function (...), apropos, the quick C-x 2 to split window, the warnings (text was edited elsewhere do you really want...) and the quick Lisp fix in .emacs that make me having an Emacs open at all times.
But for bigger projects, when you want to hover a keyword and have its definition, the call hierarchy, the updated syntax highlighting etc... Emacs is not enough for me. I use Eclipse (which is slow and not perfect anyway for C C++).
syntax hightlighting(php/smarty). -- the php major mode is too old and it always highlights html/smarty inside the php code incorrectly.
The simplest and best way to manage mixed languages in one single buffer is to clone the window showing it with C-x 4 c and use different major modes for each window showing this single buffer, for example, one window with the php-mode, one window with the nxhtml-mode to correctly highlight the HTML syntax.
I am going to start working on a website that has already been built by someone else.
The main script was bought and then adjusted by the lead programmer. The lead has left and I am the only programmer.
Never met the lead and there are no papers, documentation or comments in the code to help me out, also there are many functions with single letter names. There are also parts of the code that are all compressed in one line (like where there should be 200 lines there is one).
There are a few hundred files.
My questions are:
Does anyone have any advice on how to understand this system?
Has anyone had any similar experiences?
Does anyone have a quick way of decompressing the lines?
Please help me out here. This is my first big break and I really want this to work out well.
Thanks
EDIT:
On regards to the question:
- Does anyone have a quick way of decompressing the lines?
I just used notepad++ (extended replace) and netbeans (the format option) to change a file from 1696 lines to 5584!!
This is going to be a loooonnngggg project
For reformatting the source, try this online pretty-printer: http://www.prettyprinter.de/
For understanding the HTML and CSS, use Firebug.
For understanding the PHP code, step through it in a debugger. (I can't personally recommend a PHP debugger, but I've heard good things about Komodo.)
Start by checking the whole thing into source control, if you haven't already, and then as you work out what the various functions and variables do, rename them to something sensible and check in your changes.
If you can cobble together some rough regression tests (eg. with Selenium) before you start then you can be reasonably sure you aren't breaking anything as you go.
Ouch! I feel your pain!
A few things to get started:
If you're not using source control, don't do anything else until you get that set up. As you hack away at the files, you need to be able to revert to previous, presumably-working versions. Which source-control system you use isn't as important as using one. Subversion is easy and widely used.
Get an editor with a good PHP syntax highlighter and code folder. Which one is largely down to platform and personal taste; I like JEdit and Notepad++. These will help you navigate the code within a page. JEdit's folder is the best around. Notepad++ has a cool feature that when you highlight a word it highlights the other occurrences in the same file, so you can easily see e.g. where a tag begins, or where a variable is used.
Unwind those long lines by search-and-replace ';' with ';\n' -- at least you'll get every statement on a line of its own. The pretty-printer mentioned above will do the same plus indent. But I find that going in and indenting the code manually is a nice way to start to get familiar with it.
Analyze the website's major use cases and trace each one. If you're a front-end guy, this might be easier if you start from the front-end and work your way back to the DB; if you're a back-end guy, start with the DB and see what talks to it, and then how that's used to render pages -- either way works. Use FireBug in Firefox to inspect e.g. forms to see what names the fields take and what page they post to. Look at the PHP page to see what happens next. Use some echo() statements to print out the values of variables at various places. Finally, crack open the DB and get familiar with its schema.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Good luck!
Could you get a copy of the original script version which was bought? It might be that that is documented. You could then use a comparison tool like Beyond Compare in order to extract any modifications that have been made.
If the functions names are only one letter it could be that the code is encoded with some kind of tool (I think Zend had a tool like that - Zend Encoder?) so that people cannot copy it. You should try to find an unencoded version, if there is one because that would save a lot of time.
I've recently gotten quite fond of netbeans for my php work because of the XDebug integration. It has made me all but forget about textmate (which imho still beats netbeans for the little things)
What do you think is the one awesome netbeans feature I should know about, and more importantly why and how do I use it?
I'm asking this to optimize my skills in the use of the IDE and based on the idea that what works well for others might just work for me (and hopefully others).
I've found another great snip of genius i wanted to share:
you can do custom code folding (not really related to php, just netbeans)
just put this into a code file:
// <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed" desc="getters and setters">
some boring code you don't need to see every time here
// </editor-fold>
That'll behave similar to #regions in visual studio or pragma marks in xcode. but unlike regions, it doesn't screw up the working of your code, it's really just a comment!
The Subversion Integration directly on the IDE and the Local History are of my must-use, favorite features.
I find the single most useful feature in Netbeans for PHP work is that it understands PHPDoc (in the same way that it understands Javadoc), and uses it for type hinting.
Type /** before a function definition, hit return and it'll create a PHPDoc template.
/** <-- I typed this one line
* #param <type> $otherObj <-- Netbeans added these 3 lines
* #return <type> <--
*/ <--
public function exampleFunction($otherObj)
{
$myObj = new MyClass($otherObj);
return $myObj;
}
Replace the <type> placemarkers with the appropriate types:
/**
* #param OtherClass $otherObj
* #return MyClass
*/
public function exampleFunction($otherObj)
{
$myObj = new MyClass($otherObj);
return $myObj;
}
And voila, you'll get type completion (and pop-up documentation) with Ctrl-space.
Awesome Vi bindings via the jVi plugin.
if ($x instanceof SomeClass) {
$x->.... // now it has code completion with SomeClass' methods.
}
Macros, and Code Templates with advanced input !
Parametrized code templates (try typing fnc in netbeans and then imediately press Tab, and then keep pressing Tab to see what happens, how it cycles through the function name and the function parameters - look inside the code template to see how this is done).
(Options > Editor > Code Templates )
Some easy examples (some I made, some come with netbeans):
[forek] expands to: [foreach ($array as $key => $value) { }] (This one comes with netbeans, the rest I made)
[arr] + Tab expands to: [array();]
[kv] +Tab expands to: ['key' => "val", ] (key and val are parameters that I canc cycle through and edit with tab. The code template looks like this: ['${key}' => "${val}", ] where [${something}] is a template parameter, it prints [something]. if you want it tio print [$something] I think you have to use three ]$] characters: [$$${key}])
EDIT: You can make a code template for the arrow with a single letter (like 'm' for ex) , but when you type in code you have to put a space before the letter, else it wont recognize it. Ex: $obj m[press Tab], expands to [$obj ->]. The space inbetween works ok and is not a sintax error.
/EDIT
Every time I wish there was a template for something, I actually insert the template and then use it imediately and continue with the rest of the php programming.
Macros with shortcuts as mini code templates ! (Netbeans >Menu > Edit >Start / Stop Macro Recording)
Best Macros I made for php are actually Code Templates (because ' + Tab doesnt work as code template for some reason, only if the template begins with a letter it works) ([shortcut] inserts [text]):
shortcut [Ctrl + ;] inserts [->] (no more
keybooard gymnastics, no more dot
sintax envy on other languages :))
shortcut [Ctrl + Shift + ;] inserts [ => ]
This link has a lot of keyboard shortcuts that comes in handy. I have a copy of it printed out and pinned to the wall next to my computer. Sadly, I don't see any special PHP shortcuts though.
UPDATE: http://netbeans.org/project_downloads/usersguide/shortcuts60.pdf
UPDATE2: http://netbeans.org/project_downloads/www/shortcuts.pdf (for 7.0)
I would add Tasks integration. Don't have time to finalize something? Add a simple task which NetBeans will track for you. You can customize what gets tracked in Tasks in Options -> Miscellaneous -> Tasks, but I found the format below to be most useful, as it aligns well with PHPDoc comments (see therefromhere's comment):
/**
* #todo Create public setters and __toString() for this class.
*/
Ctrl + Space is my favorite and most used feature when programming in java, I think it is enabled for PHP as well. But if you like net beans you most likely know about it already, if not try it out discover what it does.
Also navigating to the relevant source code by Ctrl + Clicking on anything from variables, to method calls, to class references is a nice feature.
Additionally, the popup menus that are displayed when right clicking in source code contain many useful tools for everything from refactoring to code generation.
This is going to sound ridiculously trivial, but one thing I do in Netbeans is code formatting. Its code formatting (source->format) rocks.
Its SVN integration is great too, but that's already been said.
The ability to create quick on the fly macros.
For example , here is one that will put a semi-colon at the end of the current line and places your cursor back where it was before the macro started.
";" delete-previous caret-end-line ";" jump-list-last-edit jump-list-last-edit
(I know this is present in other language implementations by default. But it does not work by default in PHP Netbeans.)
As someone who tends to stick with IDE for a long time, I love being able to customize little things to make me more efficient.
If you consider Netbeans 6.7 it has a sync feature a bit like Dreamweaver
In the way that you can add a custom ftp, import it to the project and when you save the files locally they are also uploaded to the server so you have a semi backup system in place.
(trust me it's better than working directly onto a ftp tree and realizing that the transfer failed somehow between the current tmp file and the server file and you lost your work because you closed the file window :) )
NetBeans also allows you to completely undock individual windows.
How to:
Right-click on toolbar of the window which you want to move and select Undock window. The selected window becomes a floating one, which allows you to move it outside of the main NetBeans window.
Highlights:
you can pin floating windows to screen borders or to different floating windows (just the ones from NetBeans though)
floating windows can make themselves semitransparent if you move away from them (configurable via main settings in Miscellaneous/Appearance)
if you move a different application over any floating windows, they come back on top after you start using NetBeans again
your workspace layout is remembered, so all floating windows keep their respective positions between individual coding sessions (NetBeans restarts)
This is useful especially if you have a second monitor, as it allows you to maximize the space available for source code by moving any supplementary windows (the file browser, unit test results, etc) away from the main screen. The nice thing is that NetBeans works around most annoyances which are usually present in multi-window applications (e.g. different applications covering individual toolbars in GIMP).
Note: perhaps this is commonly known feature, but I managed to discover it just today. It wasn't on the list yet, so I added it even though I already answered with a different feature some time ago.
Squiglies under unused private class members.
maybe the search box, to find anything in the source code`?
Some features definitely worth looking out for, including the ones mentioned above:
Version control Integration, including Local History
IDE wide search box
Integration with Tomcat/Apache, GlassFish can be helpful when you are looking to work with PHP and other server side technologies, like JSP
Very good integration with MySQL- essential to wAMP/LAMP development
TextMate is a great slick little editor I use all the time on my Mac, but not an IDE. I haven't enjoyed Netbeans on Mac very much being so non-native, but on Windows or Linux I prefer it over Eclipse.
The Swing GUI designer with Java has been huge in getting projects done rapidly.
Other people have said it, but integrated Subversion is awesome. If I've been working with a project from the terminal in Linux it figures out I've got SVN checked out on that directory and handles it fine.
I love the code formatting (right click in the editor), especially when team members write poorly spaced/indented code with nano, xemacs, or something like that.
its amazing that no one has talked about this cool plugin.
http://code.google.com/p/zen-coding/
I have found it very useful for html. PHP developers do need it. It adds a lot of templates like this.
download zen-coding for netbeans and import zip file in tools>options>code templates>import.
I like this the most: phpunit + code coverage
I've personally used Eclipse a couple of years ago for Java development, and ever since i knew Netbeans at version 3.5, it has gotten really good with the integration of server technologies as TomCat for J2EE application deployment, subversion, uml and plenty of plug-ins for different tecnologies, not just java now.
Database integration (MySQL, Jdb, SQL editor).
Continuous progress in PHP integration and features.
Subversion integration...it does help A LOT!
Code indent, custom color highlighting.
If you are a PHP developer, Ruby on Rails integration can be of help too, if you want to expand your expertise on web apps.
Netbeans has always been known for delivering support for experimental (not-yet-released) technologies, such as Java 6 EE preview, JDK7 support, ...
And, subversion support out-of-the box. It's a great difference to Eclipse, where you have to use plug-ins. With Eclipse I had only problems under Linux (JavaHL problems, blabla...). I don't remember who said it, or where it is written, but "out-of-the-box support is much more relevant to a user than the ability to use some plug-ins".