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.

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.

In this recent post to the JetBrains blog they show how to set up and configure the Docker support the latest version includes built in to the IDE.

Docker is an open platform for building, shipping and running distributed applications. It gives programmers, development teams and operations engineers the common toolbox they need to take advantage of the distributed and networked nature of modern applications.

With the new Docker integration plugin for PhpStorm, you can add Docker support to existing projects, view logs, manage Docker containers, and debug PHP web applications from right inside PhpStorm.

They help you get the integration plugin installed and show you where the machine should be located and how to set it up under PHPStorm's deployment options. Next up they include the steps for getting the Docker machine up and running (again, inside the IDE) and managing the containers related to the machine.

On the JetBrains blog Gary Hockin has just posted the latest "PHP Annotated Monthly" edition for September 2015. These posts cover recent happenings in the PHP community, linking to more information and the people involved.

As the autumn conference season begins to ramp up, it’s time for the September edition of PHP Annotated Monthly – bringing you all the news, tips, tricks and tutorials from the PHP community.

He touches on three main topics - the PHP language itself, news about various frameworks and tools talked about over the month and happenings in the community itself. Some of the topics mentioned include:

• the RC1 release of PHP7
• articles about hard-coding status codes and saving memory with generators
• New releases for Zend Framework, Symfony, WordPress and Drupal
• the new Expressive framework from the Zend Framework team
• the PHP Mentoring application

...and lots more. Check out the full post for more topics and links to plenty of others. You can also check out some of the back issues on the Annotated Monthly archive page.

The JetBrains blog has just posted their latest edition of the "PHP Annotated Monthly" series with their review for July 2015.

Our July issue of PHP Annotated Monthly is here, bringing you updates on PHP, frameworks, tools, tips for coding, community, and more. Read this month’s digest curated by Mikhail Vink, PhpStorm Product Marketing Manager.

In this month's article there's mentions of things like:

• New PHP versions released
• Work on PHP7
• Updates to various frameworks and tools
• Being able to order an elePHPant on demand (and the funding of the woolly mammoth
• PHP cheatsheets
• Information about contributing back to PHP

Check out the full post for even more topics and links to other great resources.

JetBrains has announced a webinar they'll be holding on June 11th at 4:00pm CEST (10am EDT) with host Rafael Dohms covering annotations in PHP.

Annotations are more than PHPDoc comments, they’re a fully-featured way of including additional information alongside your code. We might have rejected an RFC to add support into the PHP core, but the community has embraced this tool anyway! This session shows you who is doing what with annotations, and will give you some ideas on how to use the existing tools in your own projects to keep life simple. Developers, architects and anyone responsible for the technical direction of an application should attend this session.

Space for the webinar is limited, so if you're interested in attending be sure you sign up quickly. There's no charge for the event, you'll just need to provide a bit of information prior to signup.

On 7PHP.com today they've posted the latest in their series of community interviews, this time with Maarten Balliauw, a technical evangelist with JetBrains, maker of the popular PHP IDE PHPStorm.

In this edition I talk with Maarten Balliauw who is the technical evangelist at Jetbrains (the php ide PHPStorm is one its product you can recall). @maartenballiauw is of those few programmers who is indulged closely with both PHP and .NET worlds - meaning this interview will also have questions on both worlds. I now invite you to learn from his experience and get to know his personality.

They talk some about Maarten's background in PHP, some of the "good" and "bad" he sees in the language and some of the tools he uses daily to get his development done. There's also some suggestions of resources, tools and frameworks he finds useful. There's also a big chunk of the interview dedicated to his current work with JetBrains and some of his previous work with Microsoft and related technologies.

If you're a PHPStorm user, you already know some about what the IDE can do and the features it brings to the table. If you're not, though, the folks at JetBrains have put together a set of tutorial videos to help introduce you to this powerful tool.

A lot of PhpStorm users have been asking us to create a series of video tutorials. Today, we’re happy to announce the availability of about two hours of video tutorials around PhpStorm which Maarten has been working on for the past few weeks. JetBrains.TV and YouTube playlist are also available.

Videos already in the list introduce you to the IDE and its basic features, actions and navigations, several PHP-specific development topics as well as ones related to HTML-specific development.

On the dailylog blog from lenart.org.pl, there's a quick post talking about a feature of an up and coming PHP IDE - PHP Storm - that's based on the JetBrains platform. He talks about a handy feature that let's you find the difference between your code and what's out in production.

Previously I used ordinary text editor to write the application, but nowadays I thought there should be something better – we have the craft, so with the craft you must have THE tools. The first place I checked was The JetBrains site and they didn’t disappointed me - what I found was The JetBrains PHP Storm!

The feature he highlights is the "Compare with deployed version" that lets you, right in the IDE, find the differences between your current code and what's in the repository. No need to flip back and forth between a terminal window and the code. Plus you get a nice visual diff representation to make things even simpler.