I have been reading the editor thread and checking out the various editors suggested by members. I have already downloaded the PHPDesigner, and although have the PHP Manual am lacking the simple help files to understand how PHP Designer works. It seems like it should be a great tool... and although I am a novice to php I am a self-taught and can usually catch on to at least where to start with a program!

Question: Is this program worth my efforts? What do you suggest for the novice? Although I am reading books and doing online tutorials, I do hope to find an editing program that I can use to interface with the sites I have already created and NOT redo each from scratch. I appreciate any help that you all can send my way...

Been looking at HTML Kit, Source Edit, EM Editor, Waterproof, Zend, and VIM, which I don't understand VIM at all....) Source Edit looks like I can 'recreate' my pages from scratch using php and use the FTP to upload????

Thanks for your help... I have to start somewhere!

Jennifer

    Is this program worth my efforts?

    I have heard good things about PHP Designer, but I do not use it so I cannot comment on it firsthand.

    What do you suggest for the novice?

    I think that just working from any text editor with support for programming in PHP is fine. You dont have to have an in-built S/FTP client if you have your own S/FTP client, and you might not even upload to an external server if you are testing on your local computer.

    I don't understand VIM at all

    The core of vim is vi, which is a text editor and a religion[1]. You could check out say, Vi Lovers Home Page, but the problem is that learning the editing interface would detract from your learning of PHP.

    [1] Yes, text editors are one area of software religious fanaticism.

      I am putting myself through the hell of learning vi. Now why does it upper case the previous letter to the one I've just deleted. Maybe I'm using the 'upper case letter after delete' key.

      I use Eclipse for developing PHP though.

        I use PHP Designer all the time. I've tried most of the free editors out there and its stayed my favorite for a while. The '06 beta seems to be buggy, which makes me wish sometimes that I stayed with the '05 version, but I've gotten quite used to the this one. Too late to switch now 🙂

        In vi, the x key should delete the character you're on. Doesn't change character case for me.

          Right x to delete, not delete. Makes sense.

          Guess this comes from the dark days when there was no delete key 😉

            I've been using phpdesigner for when I'm moonlighting doing PHP work on my office computer as it lets me install without admin rights. It's not too bad. If they sorted out the FTP feature, it would probably be promoted to "quite good".

              I am using Eclipse and I just installed the PHP Ide from Zend which might of been a mistake as now I have Two PHP editors in Eclipse which is confusing and they both do almost the same thing. I am not sure why Zend even made the ide.

                That's one the neat things about Eclipse, you have a set of files and a set of interchangeable perspectives on the files. Neato ones I have are PHPEclipse, Subclipse and Quantum DB, but there are alot more.

                  Shrike wrote:

                  Right x to delete, not delete. Makes sense.

                  Guess this comes from the dark days when there was no delete key

                  Here's a handy dandy link to some useful vi commands. http://www.chem.brown.edu/instructions/vi.html

                  many many other vi reference sites out there. google it.

                    I have a cheat sheet bookmarked, I was just poking fun really 😉

                      9 days later
                      Shrike wrote:

                      I am putting myself through the hell of learning vi. Now why does it upper case the previous letter to the one I've just deleted. Maybe I'm using the 'upper case letter after delete' key.

                      I use Eclipse for developing PHP though.

                      I couldn't get past using letters to navigate up and down lines. I do however think vim is an awesome editor.

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