John De Goes (of N-Brain) let us know about a screencast he's posted on Vimeo of how he's set up the UNA Editor (Personal Edition - now free!) to work with PHP.

UNA Personal Edition includes full support for standard features of source code editors, such as syntax highlighting, auto-complete, regular expression search and replace, and external tool integration. [...] UNA Personal Edition allows developers to edit, compile, test, and execute files in any and all languages, and is a nice complement to heavyweight IDEs such as Eclipse and IntelliJ Idea.

The screencast lasts about five minutes and shows the creation of a new PHP project, how to set up a "launcher" to access the PHP online documentation right in the browser, use the built-in syntax checker PHP has (lint) and execute the current file.

Matthew Weir O'Phinney has posted a few handy tips for PHP developers fond of working in one of the most powerful command-line editors, Vim.

I use Vim for all my editing needs -- TODO lists, email, presentation outlines, coding in any language... everything. So, I thought I'd start sharing some of my vim habits and tools with others, particularly those that pertain to using Vim with PHP.

He includes tips for things like mapping keystrokes (to the PHP interpreter and linter), using the Project plugin to make setting up projects easier and a mention (again) of ctags.

On the O'Reilly PHP blog (ONLamp.com), there's a new post by Michael Ross with an overview of the popular PHP IDE from Zend, their Zend Studio for Eclipse:

Zend Studio for Eclipse is the company's latest update of its PHP IDE, and carries a version number of 6.0. As a foundation, it uses Eclipse, an extensible open source platform for software development that is growing in functionality and widespread usage every year. It also utilizes the PHP Development Tools (PDT) framework.

He looks at the product from all sides - the releases of the products, requirements, pricing, installation and an overview of the interface (complete with screenshots). He also mentions other features that come bundled with the editor like testing integration, file/version management and a built in debugger (as well as special support for the Zend Framework).

Brian Moon has posted today about his editor fo choice for PHP work - jEdit and some of the benefits he thinks it has for other developers.

I keep trying all the latest and greatest editors out there. I fought with Eclipse and have tried the newer more PHP centric offerings built on Eclipse. I recently tried out Komodo Edit for a week. I had tried the Komodo IDE when it came out for Mac a while back. But, I just keep coming back to jEdit.

He's broken it down into two (well, really three) different sections - the likes and dislikes followed by things that he "doesn't care about but you might" (including Subversion and CVS support).

PHPBuilder.com has a review posted today of a piece of PHP development software - RapidPHP 2007:

Of the many editors available for creating (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP pages, several combine a few different yet compatible languages. Some include support and a few manage to make it work seamlessly. RapidPHP 2007 belongs in the latter category.

They walk through the list of features (including a PHP syntax checker) and include a screenshot of the PHP function hints in action. The reviewer also talks about the support for other languages it has - the (X)HTML editor and CSS style sheet editor.

From the PHP in Action blog today, there's a new post that (briefly) shows how to run your tests directly from a popular unix text editor - vim.

I created my own test runner to run tests inside Vim, I can't remember how long ago. Must be a year or two. I never shared it with the world. It was too primitive for anyone else to use. Then, recently, I decided to try re-implementing it in a more serious way.

The "more serious way" meant using Vim script to its full potential, including the ability to work with objects and already has its own testing framework. He includes a screenshot but no download just yet. It looks promising and makes running tests as simple as hitting F11 and watching it go.

As mentioned by Elizabeth Naramore on the php|architect site today, Philip Olson has officially announced that he is now the editor of the PHP Manual we all know and love.

The request to take over as editor was not easy because it's a position that requires work and responsibility... and consistent time. [...] In these past years I've taken many breaks because breaks are good but today I'm required to do something, required to be responsible for being there. I happily accept this challenge and must confess... I love PHP.

He also adds in a note about the one thing the documentation team is in constant need of - "warm bodies to join the team". If you're interested, head on over and sign up to help - there's more than enough work to be done!

php|architect's Pro::PHP Podcast has released their latest show over the weekend - this week's latest news and information with plenty of special guests joining in (including Chris Shiflett, Wez Furlong, and Eli White).

Topics this time include the breaking of the HD DVD key, cross-site request forgeries, a discussion of various editors and much more. The podcast was recorded at this year's php|tek conference put on by php|architect

As always, you can either grab this latest show directly or you can subscribe to their podcast feed to get the latest shows delivered right to your podcasting client.

On her blog, Tiffany Brown has a review of an online editing resource she came across that can help you write code and work with remote files via a web interface - WorkSpace (including HTML, JavaScript, CSS, PHP, SQL, Java, and Perl documents).

WorkSpace - which currently is currently in limited beta testing - is an online text editing environment with an eye towards web development. You can create documents and save them in your hosted sandbox, or directly to your server via FTP.

She talks about her experiences with it - both the good and the bad. She liked the simplicity of it all but thought it lacked a few of the features it needed. She also mentions the lack of version control in the application.

I do like the idea behind WorkSpace. [...] The downside is that you're trusting a company with all of your web site data. I'm not sure the slight gain in the ability to work remotely is worth the trade-off of giving WorkSpace server access.

In a follow up to a previous post, Chris Hartjes asks once again "where are the good development tools for PHP?" This time, though, he thinks he's found just the tool he was looking for:

Cal Evans over at the Zend Developer Zone gave me a heads-up that he would be posting a tutorial on using Flex and PHP. I believe my exact words to him after about 10 minutes of playing with it was "this is FUCKING cool!". Which it definitely is.

He talks about what he needed to get started and how his first experience with creating an application went - a simple app up and running (from install to a finished app) in about 30 minutes.

For more information on Adobe's Flex, check out their website at Flex.org.