Hello dear readers, it is with this advertising title of the article I decided to start another review issue. In the previous post we reviewed the excellent and at the same time free code editor Sublime Text 2, and today, as promised, we’ll consider its alternative in the form of a paid editor with a talking name – phpDesigner.
On the site you will be offered two versions: with a full installer and a portable version. For today’s review, I will choose and install the full version. By the way, since the last time I worked with phpDesigner 8, it has already been updated to a new version, which means it must have gotten a little better 😉
phpDesigner 8 is a paid code editor (+IDE) specifically for web development, with which you can create Internet projects in PHP, CSS, JS and HTML, and improve your skills with a built-in library of functions. It supports all PHP frameworks (Zend, CodeIgniter, Yii, Symfony and Prado) and JavaScript frameworks (jQuery, Ext JS, Dojo, MooTools, Prototype and others).
Before you learn the main advantages and disadvantages of this editor, I suggest you watch the following video, in which the author shows the basics of working with his work:
Advantages of phpDesigner 8
Despite its shortcomings, phpDesigner 8 is in some places much smarter than its competitors. For example, if we put an exclamation mark in the CSS code, phpDesigner will automatically add it without our permission and without any notification:
!important
In my opinion, it’s just brilliant, so convenient chip I have not seen anywhere else 🙂 After all, if we write an exclamation mark in CSS, it can’t mean anything else than !important. We put one single character, and it immediately gives us the right word, without any tooltips or other nonsense. I have been using phpDesigner only 21 days, but I was so comfortable and intuitive with this feature, that I long got used to its absence in other editors, where the word !important need to write a whole or using tooltips by clicking on the tab.
Now only PHP code is highlighted, and now:
Only HTML.
This is another one of the features of phpDesigner, after which all the other editors seemed like berries.
The benefits of phpDesigner 8’s highlighting don’t stop there. Even if we forget about the above-mentioned effect, its highlighting is much better and clearer than the one of Sublime Text 2. But there is a BUT. This editor was recommended to me by my colleagues who suggested me to download a special dark theme for it and I really liked it.
I will tell you how to install it at the end of the article, but for now I just want to say that the dark background of the code editor as well as the larger font (16px+) noticeably reduce the load on your eyes. Believe me, work is work and health should be thought of first of all, so I always recommend code editors with dark background instead of white one.
Maybe you, dear readers, have your own ideas and methods of eye and body work load reduction at your computer? I will be glad to read about them in the comments to this article and keep them in mind.
Disadvantages of phpDesigner 8
It’s time to list the disadvantages of the tool we are considering. I want to emphasize that both the disadvantages and advantages listed here are my subjective opinion and my personal impressions from using a particular tool, in this case the code editor. Let’s get on with the shooting!
Let’s start with the lack of comfortable vertical selection of code, in contrast to many free editors, including Sublime Text 2. It can be enabled in the settings phpDesigner8 but it is implemented so bad that you can simply credit its complete absence.
Where to download and how to install phpDesigner 8
So, to download phpDesigner, we have to go to Downloads section and choose the desired version (Portable or Full), then click on the “Free Download” link to start downloading the free version. We start downloading the installation package, initialize it to run and install it in any folder on your computer.
System Requirements:
- Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
- There must be 100 MB of free space on your hard drive.
The program is installed using the standard Windows installer, which has the familiar .exe extension
Summary
PHP Designer 8 is a powerful and versatile software for developers looking to create and edit PHP code. With a wide range of features and tools, it provides an efficient and streamlined workflow, allowing developers to write code quickly and accurately.
Its intuitive interface and customizable options make it easy to use for beginners and experts alike. Overall, PHP Designer 8 is a great option for anyone looking for a robust and efficient PHP development environment.