InfoWorld/DeveloperWorld has posted a list of eight power tools (IDEs) they suggest to any PHP developer looking for something more than just the standard text editors.

In this article, we examine eight IDEs: ActiveState's Komodo IDE, CodeLobster PHP Edition, Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT), MPSoftware's phpDesigner, NetBeans IDE for PHP, NuSphere's PhpED, WaterProof's PHPEdit, and Zend Studio. All of these PHP toolkits offer strong support for the other languages and environments (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL database) that a PHP developer encounters. The key differences we discovered were in the tools they provide (HTML inspector, SQL management system) for various tasks, the quality of their documentation, and general ease-of-use.

There's a summary scorecard on the first page of the article if you want to jump straight to the good stuff, but the pages following that will give you much more information about each of the options - the good and the pad points. According to their overall scores, though, Eclipse PDT and Zend Studio tied it up for the highest rankings.

As mentioned by Elizabeth Naramore on the php|architect website, NuSPhere has announced the release of the latest version of their PHP IDE, PhpED 5.2.

Updates in this new edition include a PHP code navigator, code folding, support for custom headers, an embedded Mozilla browser and an improved manual (always a good thing). If you'd like to give it a shot in your development, check out the free trial or get the discount when you buy your own copy.

As mentioned by Elizabeth Naramore on the php|architect website, NuSPhere has announced the release of the latest version of their PHP IDE, PhpED 5.2.

Updates in this new edition include a PHP code navigator, code folding, support for custom headers, an embedded Mozilla browser and an improved manual (always a good thing). If you'd like to give it a shot in your development, check out the free trial or get the discount when you buy your own copy.

Hasin Hayder has posted a review of his own for the latest IDE offering from NuSPhere - the latest in their PHPEd series, version 5.0.

I am using PHPEd for couple of months and I've recently upgraded to their latest edition, 5.0. So I cant resist myself from writing a review of this product.

He breaks it up into "best of" and "worst of" lists and includes an overview of a lot of the features this editor has to offer (including embedded Firefox, integration with the shell and a built-in profiler).

Hasin Hayder has posted a review of his own for the latest IDE offering from NuSPhere - the latest in their PHPEd series, version 5.0.

I am using PHPEd for couple of months and I've recently upgraded to their latest edition, 5.0. So I cant resist myself from writing a review of this product.

He breaks it up into "best of" and "worst of" lists and includes an overview of a lot of the features this editor has to offer (including embedded Firefox, integration with the shell and a built-in profiler).

If you're a user of the PhpED IDE in your development work and have had a bit of a hard time with the CVS support, you might want to check out this new post from Richard Davey with a guide on how to get started - specifically with the CVSDude.com hosting service.

If you use NuSphere's excellent PhpED IDE then you'll know it has built-in CVS support for source control. This is a guide I wrote to using PhpED with the CVSDude.com service, so you can get your projects up and running in no time at all.

He talks about getting a new project set up, configuring the server correctly in the Project Properties, and running an import for all of the files in your application's directory.

With that all in place, he also helps you set up the reverse - a place to check the files back out to be able to work with them easily (in a few simple steps). There's even shortcuts you can assign to help make running the CVS functions simpler.

If you're a user of the PhpED IDE in your development work and have had a bit of a hard time with the CVS support, you might want to check out this new post from Richard Davey with a guide on how to get started - specifically with the CVSDude.com hosting service.

If you use NuSphere's excellent PhpED IDE then you'll know it has built-in CVS support for source control. This is a guide I wrote to using PhpED with the CVSDude.com service, so you can get your projects up and running in no time at all.

He talks about getting a new project set up, configuring the server correctly in the Project Properties, and running an import for all of the files in your application's directory.

With that all in place, he also helps you set up the reverse - a place to check the files back out to be able to work with them easily (in a few simple steps). There's even shortcuts you can assign to help make running the CVS functions simpler.

In her new blog post today, Ligaya Turmelle has a mini-review/listing of her look into the editor offered by NuSphere - PHPed.

I am normally a vim user when I code but I decided to pop my head out of my cubicle and try something new on the editor front. So I decided to check out NuSphere.

She breaks it out into the two lists - what she likes and what she doesn't like. Included in the positives list were things like an easy learning curve, built in CVS support, and its many customizable features. On the bad list, there were things like inconsistent syntax highlighting, irritation with "code insight" feature, and not having the option to use Firefox as the embedded browser.

In her new blog post today, Ligaya Turmelle has a mini-review/listing of her look into the editor offered by NuSphere - PHPed.

I am normally a vim user when I code but I decided to pop my head out of my cubicle and try something new on the editor front. So I decided to check out NuSphere.

She breaks it out into the two lists - what she likes and what she doesn't like. Included in the positives list were things like an easy learning curve, built in CVS support, and its many customizable features. On the bad list, there were things like inconsistent syntax highlighting, irritation with "code insight" feature, and not having the option to use Firefox as the embedded browser.

NuSphere has released a new version of their PhpDock software today - a way for deploying PHP aplication out into a stand-alone Windows desktop application.

NuSphere has released PhpDock 1.5! In a nutshell, NuSphere PhpDock is an innovative new PHP deployment solution that includes a Web server and browser, all combined in a single, small executable which runs your PHP scripts and renders it into HTML inside of a desktop application window. With PhpDock, you can deploy the same PHP or HTML application as a Web application, or as a stand-alone desktop application. See for yourself just how easy it is to build and run a PHP application as a Windows application by checking out the sample application that is supplied with PhpDock.

You can check out a trial of the software before buying by downloading it from their site or just buy it online for about $150 USD.