Recommendations for PHP programmers editor

kwikbreaks

Being an old mainframe dinosaur I've been using a program called Kedit for many years which is very close to the CMS xedit editor down to supporting a scripting language pretty close to REXX.

It has become increasingly buggy as windows changes arrive and running in compatibility mode doesn't seem to help.

So - I'm looking for recommendations for a free PHP programmers text editor. I've been trying jedit which sort of works for me but wonder what else is worth a go.

TIA

esuhl

I haven't done any scripting/programming for ages, but I remember PSPad being pretty good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSPad

paddyrg

Notepad++ (free - a great text editor which can highlight syntax for pretty much any language)
You could also try an IDE like Eclipse - they're not ideal for a weakly tied language like php as some of the benefits come from checking types, but may give you some debugging options with breakpoints, let you watch variables, etc. Personally I'm not fond of Eclipse, but IDE's, when well set up, can make life a lot easier, certainly easier than mainframe programming

Fightsback

Could try Vim or EMACS which are old school editors; there are Windows builds of them. If you want something more sophisticated how about netbeans, only used it for Java though.

onomatopoeia99

Not much of a php enthusiast but do it when I have to (I prefer assembly language or 'C'). I use pspad for editing, but only because the syntax highlighting is useful and being able to match block start and ends is very useful when you have a lot of conditions and / or loops.

I don't do regular expressions (something some people seem to look for in editors), because as Confucius said "Man who thinks he solves problem with regular expression now man with two problems".

tavernman

Don't know if bluefish may do what you want I ain't no fan of new fangled editors either (I still have my REXX/CMS/xedit cards) but I use it for basic HTML stuff (albeit on *n*x) http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html

Mr_Toad

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Being an old mainframe dinosaur I've been using a program called Kedit for many years which is very close to the CMS xedit editor down to supporting a scripting language pretty close to REXX.

It has become increasingly buggy as windows changes arrive and running in compatibility mode doesn't seem to help.

So - I'm looking for recommendations for a free PHP programmers text editor. I've been trying jedit which sort of works for me but wonder what else is worth a go.

TIA

I feel your pain. I too was a VM/CMS REXX programmer and XEdit user. I've used countless text editors over the years and my editor of choice was Vi, I moved from mainframe to Unix/Linux/Solaris.

For Windows I also used Kedit but gave up with it years ago. These days the editor I really like is Notepad++ I did try PSPad but prefer Notepad++

In recent years I've found myself using it more and more due to working on so many remote servers and needing to keep a copy of shell programs on my PC for upload to whichever server I was working on. I now only use Vi for quick or simple server side changes.

Have you had a look at Bluefish? It's supposed to be pretty good although I've never tried it.

John_Gray

onomatopoeia99 wrote: »

Confucius said "Man who thinks he solves problem with regular expression now man with two problems".

O so true...!
But why did Confucius always speak in broken English?

I used to use the IBM PC/DOS editor E, but it never got updated beyond being a 16-bit program...

+1 for XEDIT / REXX, BTW

DoaM

Another Notepad++ proponent here.

You can also get a version that will run from a memory stick, so it doesn't even need to be installed.

kwikbreaks

Thanks all.

I haven't looked at any yet but will look at them all. I persisted with jedit yesterday but have lapsed into using Kedit. One thing I love in that is the ability to show just lines containing a particular string.

I'm used to no syntax checking or even highlighting in the editor and certainly have no use for an IDE. It's really a case of idleness on my part in not wanting to learn to use something new when I've had 40 odd years of experience with Xedit (and TSO which is very similar).

I'm wondering if the new bugs I'm seeing with Kedit are down to something new I'm using - possibly MalwareBytes anti-exploit which I've only recently installed and have now uninstalled as a trial.

Mr_Toad

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Thanks all.

I've had 40 odd years of experience with Xedit (and TSO which is very similar).

Egad!

MVS TSO and ISPF that's a real blast from another age.

I can still remember going to IBM in the USA to do a TSO for programmers course, I thought I was so grown up :rotfl:

You do realise that I am now going to have to make a foray into the attic here at Toad Hall to see if I can find my old Bachman diagrams for my first major IDMS database.

Before you know it we'll be reminiscing about CICS and JCL too