Martin Hujer has put together a new post to his site sharing some of the PhpStorm plugins he considers essential for Symfony development, making your life easier as you create applications with this popular framework.

I've been using PhpStorm for quite a while and I'm still surprised now and then when it suggests an auto-completion for something I thought that's not possible.

But there are still many things - usually framework- or library-specific - that PhpStorm cannot do on its own. But there are plugins that can step in place and do the magic for specific framework or library.

Several of the plugins are more for improving PHP development in general but others are more Symfony-specific:

• PHP Annotations
• PHP Toolbox
• Symfony Plugin
• PHPUnit Enhancement
• PHP composer.json support
• Php Inspections (EA Extended)
• Twig Support
• .env files support
• .ignore

Each item in the list comes with a brief introduction to the plugin, links to find out more information, and, in some cases, animations of it in use in the editor.

On the Codewall.co.uk site they've posted another tutorial that will help you set up a part of your PHP development environment: XDebug and the IDE NetBeans.

NetBeans is a fantastic free IDE for not just PHP, but other languages like HTML, JavaScript, C++ and more. For PHP it comes highly prepared for being your predominant development environment. It has a whopping list of features that turbo-charge your programming like it’s auto-complete ability to name just one. A PHP development environment isn’t complete unless you have the power to debug the code you write, in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to correctly set that up.

After covering some of the prerequisites they break down the process into a few steps:

• Download XDebug
• Configuring XDebug in the PHP.ini file
• Checking configuration has been activated
• Configuring NetBeans to use the xDebug module

The last step in the process is an example of actually running the debugger and debugging some code with a breakpoint (and the resulting output)

In a new post to his site Tomas Votruba goes into a "deep dive" of the functionality that the Symfony plugin for PhpStorm provides and some of the functionality it provides.

After very successful PHP 7.3 diffs post, let's dive to gifs of Symfony Plugin. You might know them, but they might surprise you like they did surprise me. Let's go!

He then walks through the installation process and some of the features the plugin includes:

• Enabling the plugin (via the PhpStorm configuration)
• Faster Translation Autocreate (TWIG)
• Autocomplete Translation Key (TWIG)
• Instant Service Autocomplete in YAML (YAML)
• Forget The Tag (YAML)
• Jump from Href to Route (TWIG)
• Instant Route in Controller (PHP)
• Faster Queries in Doctrine Repository (PHP)
• Template Autocomplete (PHP)

For each item in the list, there are animated gifs provided showing it in action. You can find out more about the plugin on the JetBrains site.

PHPStorm users out there might want to check out this list of helpful hints from the Stitcher.io blog covering some "lesser-known-yet-powerful features" of the IDE that could help improve your daily workflow.

Their list includes:

• binding keys to pane display preferences (ex: floating, windowed, etc)
• namespace auto-importing
• "copy path" of the current file
• defining custom JVM options
• inspection of why a term/word is syntax highlighted

Each of the items on the list comes with a description of where to make changes and animated GIFs of where to find it in the interface and what it looks like. If you're not a PHPStorm user and want to find out more about this IDE offered by JetBrains, check out this page on their website.

Caleb Porzio has put together a post for those out there either considering using Microsoft's Visual Code Studio IDE or just want to see what it would be like for PHP development. In his post he shares his setup since making the switch over to the IDE full time.

I’m using VS Code as my primary editor these days and am really digging it. My setup is by no means perfect, but I've made lots of little tweaks along the way that you may benefit from.

I've set up these nifty categories, so feel free to jump around and try stuff out as you go, or come back later and use it as a reference.

Categories in the post include useful extensions, "must-have" settings, changing up the look and useful keybindings. There's plenty of links, output examples, screenshots of the IDE and the configuration options you'll need to change to update the settings to match his.

On the Delicious Brains site there's a tutorial that shows you how to use Microsoft's VS Code IDE for PHP development. They focus more specifically on WordPress development but a lot of the environment setup could be used for any PHP project.

If you keep up with the many different text editors and developer tools available, you may have heard of a newer IDE called Visual Studio Code. VS Code is a free, open source code editor that is lightweight like Sublime Text, but offers many of the same features as bigger IDEs like PhpStorm or WebStorm.

In this article I’ll review some features and extensions of VS Code that I really appreciate, and show you how to make the most out of it for WordPress and general web development.

The tutorial walks you through the installation and integration of various PHP development tools including an "intellisense" extension, XDebug support, a Javascript debugger and a few other helpful extensions. Install instructions are included as well as screenshots/screencasts showing the end result.

On the Delicious Brains site there's a tutorial posted that shows you how to use XDebug for advanced PHP debugging versus some of the usual practices of var_dump or print_r-ing your way through your testing.

You could just debug your PHP code using functions such as error_log, print, and var_dump, (and to be honest we’ve all done it, a lot!), but sometimes they just aren’t enough, and can actually slow you down while developing.

There must be a better way, surely?! Enter Xdebug, the rather awesome debugging and profiling tool for PHP.

In this post, I’ll take you through why Xdebug is amazing, getting it setup, how to use it, get the most out of it it, and some neat advanced uses all to make your life easier.

He starts with some background on his previous debugging practices and how discovering XDebug revolutionized his workflow. He then talks about breakpoints for debugging and what he calls "debug driven development". The article then walks you through the installation process and the integration with IDEs, specifically PHPStorm. The rest of the post shows examples of how to use XDebug along with breakpoints and IDE features to get more information about the current application state and where things are failing. He also includes sections about using XDebug for profiling and performing remote debugging via an SSH tunnel.

On the Hackernoon site there's a recent tutorial showing you how to hook the PHP-CS-Fixer tool into PhpStorm for easy execution during development rather than after.

The PHPStorm IDE by JetBrains is probably one of my favorite editors. It has its flaws (constant indexing…) but overall its a great tool for me. However, my focus today is not on PHPStorm per say but rather how to add the awesome functionality of using project page. Depending on your platform you will need to make some decisions, namely how you configure the rules of PHP-CS-Fixer. I am currently on Windows but I will try to make sure these instructions work in both *nix and Windows environments.

He then walks you through some prerequisites (both pieces of software installed basically) and the decisions to make based on your platform. He then provides screenshots and descriptions showing where to go in the PhpStorm IDE to add the PHP-CS-Fixer as a new "Tool", the working directory to use and how to set up a keymap to execute the tool. He includes an example of the output when things are correctly configured and working together.

Alejandro Celaya has a tutorial posted on his site showing you how you can improve your PHP workflow by running your unit tests in a Docker container from inside of PHPStorm.

Docker is, without any doubt, the trending tool these days. Everybody wants to use it, because it is very useful, allowing to easily generate development environments for any kind of application.

A couple months ago I started working with docker myself (it has taken me a while, I know), and now I can't imagine working without it. I started using it at work, but now I'm migrating all of my OSS projects too.

With Docker involved things get a bit more tricky when it comes to running your unit tests directly from PHPStorm (unlike local where it's just a few clicks away). Thankfully recent versions of PHPStorm come with a feature in the "Build, Execution, Deployment" that lets you define the location of the Docker executable. Then you'll need to set up a remote interpreter to link to the PHP binary then take that and link it back to the Docker installation. He ends the post showing how you can ensure it's working complete with a screenshot of the console showing the test results.

Thijs Feryn has posted his latest in his series of video interviews with members of the PHP community. In this latest episode he talks with Gary Hockin of JetBrains about developer evangelism, the PHPStorm IDE and community conferences.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Las Vegas for Zendcon where I had to opportunity to chat with a lot of friends from the PHP community. This week’s episode features Gary Hockin, developer evangelist at JetBrains. Gary advocates the PHPStorm project and is a proud Welshman.

Because Gary and I are both evangelists, one of the central themes of the interview is developer evangelism. We talk about the life, the travel, the public speaking, but also about the not so glamorous parts of the job. Throughout the conversation we also talk about PHPStorm and PHP community conferences.

You can watch the video either through his in-page video player or over on YouTube. If you prefer the audio-only route, you can also listen on SoundCloud. You can also check out previous interviews Thijs has done in this category on his site.