Best development IDE for web on Linux

Best development IDE for web on Linux

There are many tools available for developing web applications, but if you use Linux, the situation is dramatically changed. There are only few compared to other platforms.

First of all, I will only write about the tools that i use / have used, so that you can’t be upset if I haven’t mentioned great tool that you use. πŸ˜€

As any good IDE, it should contain at least the following features:
* Code highlight
* Code completion
* FTP support
* SVN support
* Some sort of “quick view” that will list all classes, methods, constants(,…) in a file

And as a commonly needed bonus:
* JavaScript support with at least code highlight and code completion

Personally, on Linux platform I used Eclipse for PHP, as primary IDE. It has almost everything you can imagine and could look for in IDE. If maybe something isn’t included in package, it can be downloaded / installed through included feature “Install new software”. To make a long story short – anything you wish you can find in software that has been developing for more than 6 years now (I really couldn’t find the exact date), and that overcomed all the “child diseases”.

On the other hand there’s new player in IDE world on Linux, it’s the PhpStorm (currently in version 1.0). I’ve been using it for a week now, and as somewhat experienced user, I find it much better than Eclipse. It’s just amasing how responsive it is. On all includes, no matter how deep, auto completion works flawlessly. And not only that – it has the best Javascript IDE I have ever seen already included. Work with huge amount of files (10000+) is quite pleasant as nobody would expect. It has only one flaw – it’s not free, it costs $149 for corporate license and $49, but in my opinion, it worths more than that.

Aptana Studio is the third tool that I’d like to mention, although I haven’t used it, I hear its great.

I didn’t go into depths of how and why, but I thought I’d rather give my view on the matter.

If anyone have an opinion, feel free to leave a comment.

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15 comments

  1. Hmmm, you’re right… Didn’t catch that detail while testing… I really don’t know… But will look into it… Thanks!

  2. Hi Mladen,

    The function(method) exists and its a core class from Magento. So the IDE should be able to “pull” it correct?

    All that I’m doing its testing PHPstorm with a fresh magento install with no custom code.

    It would be nice to have a fully working IDE, instead of having to keep a mental list of all the magento classes and files.

    Cheers

  3. Hi, if I understood correctly auto completion does not work for your undefined function (method). Well, you have to tell to the (any!) IDE what kind of object is it (by declaration or extension of already created class) so that ic can “pull” other methods that can be applyed to that object.

    I hope I didn’t overcomplicated things for you here…

    Cheers!

  4. Hi,

    By any change have you guys figure out how to make PHPStorm code completion work with Magento, as far I can see it works with most of methods and functions but it has problems with lines like

    Mage::getModel('catalog/design')->applyDesign($category, Mage_Catalog_Model_Design::APPLY_FOR_CATEGORY);

    Where applyDesign its marked as undefined function. Maybe I have to configure the project differently to add the necessary includes but I haven’t been able to figure it out.

    Cheers

  5. Netbeans 6.9.1 (and even 6.8) are really great with Magento. Once the initial source analysis is done it’s cached and subsequent loading of the projects is faster.

    I love how netbeans will allow you to jump to a class method definition in places you wouldn’t expect it to work.

  6. @anton – if you think of editing files directly on server – yes, it has that option… πŸ˜€

  7. Eclipse PDT and RSE (over 500 remote sitesΒ΄/clients configured) all the way , if phpstorm had remote editing like eclipse has i’d use phpstorm

  8. I tend to use Eclipse PDT as its the same on linux as windows. Not a huge fan of netbeans, tends to be 10 steps behind eclipse and a bit arse for magento sites (due to the stupidly large number of files). Zend Studios nice to have, its like EclipsePDT on speed. Aptanas quite nice as you can just install it via the plugin menu in eclipse (one less program to open).

  9. thanks for your article.
    I use Zend Studio 7, fork from eclipse, is very usefull ( completion / svn / debuggage ) .

    is payant but is very nice, A specially for development with zend framework (like magento).

    Sorry for my english .
    French Guy.

  10. @Toni – thanks
    @Lloyd – I completely forgot about Netbeans. But I never used it, same as Aptana. πŸ˜€

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