A good and convenient IDE is what you absolutely need while developing web sites. Nowadays, there are a lot of applications such as PHPStorm, Nuphere PHPEd and so on to achieve that purpose. In our review we would like to describe a free IDE, that is as good as paid applications. This IDE is Codelobster PHP Edition.
First of all we think it’s better to talk about the main features of this application:
- There is a code highlighting that depends on the code type. What is more, mixing code is also supported for example when one file has JavaScript or PHP code sections within HTML code. There is also a set of predefined color schemes, including ones from many other popular IDEs.
- Next is advanced PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript autocomplete, including CSS3 and HTML5. There is a special parser for PHP projects to detect their structure. It helps to form a complete list of properties and methods which are available for selection in any place of a code.
- All developers like HTML/CSS inspector provided in FireBug. Codelobster has a similar feature. This feature helps to match selected HTML elements with piece of code on a page and corresponding CSS style quickly.
- Next useful feature is a quick assistance (help) for PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript as well as for PHP and JavaScript framework such as Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Phalcon, Laravel, Yii, Symfony, JQuery, AngularJS and so on. Use F1 button to open a page with a complete description of a current function or property.
- We shouldn’t forget about a built-inPHP debugger. That is a very useful feature that allows developers to implement PHP scripts step by step, controlling values of variables in each executed string of code.
- Embedded SQL manager is necessary to control MySQL databases completely. It means to add, delete, edit table structures, to change records in the tables and so on. It is worth mentioning that Codelobster has a special autocomplete and highlighting for SQL files.
- Let’s notice that provided FTP client allows developers to edit files on a remote server directly and also to download/upload large projects and their parts easy and quickly.
- Use the portable option to be able to run IDE using any mobile device without pre-installation of the application.
- At last let’s list some other useful features: highlighting of the open/close tags and parentheses; work with blocks; code folding; tooltips for all languages including frameworks; navigation to a description of any function or plugged-in file; a convenient view of project structure and files representing all used functions; preview in all browsers; an especial control for bookmarks; advanced searching and others.
We would like to remind that this version of the application is totally free. But there are some special paid plugins for work with
- CMS: Joomla, Drupal, WordPress
- PHP frameworks: CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Phalcon, Laravel, Yii, Symfony
- JavaScript frameworks JQuery, AngularJS
- Twig, Smartytemplate libraries
- + a special extended support for Node.js
Thanks to the listed features, Codelobster is an ideal choice for both beginner and professional web developers.
You can download Codelobster PHP Edition from the official site:
- Codelobster PHP Edition – free PHP IDE: http://www.codelobster.com/download/CodelobsterPHPEditionSetup.exe