In this latest post to his site Christian Weiske shares three PHP manual viewers he finds useful (besides the actual PHP.net manual) and can be used offline.

The PHP documentation is really good. It covers almost all parts of the language and is filled with examples that help you grasp a function's meaning and usage really fast. And since PHP is a grown language, it's function naming and parameter order are often confusing - requiring you to look up the manual more often.

The three he suggests are:

• pman - PHP manual pages
• the xCHM version of the manual
• Zeal, which also has support for lots of other docs from other languages/tools

Klaus Silveira has submitted a project he's been working on to make browsing through git repositories a bit simpler with a local tool - gitlist.

GitList is an elegant and modern web interface for interacting with multiple git repositories. It allows you to browse repositories using your favorite browser, viewing files under different revisions, commit history, diffs. It also generates RSS feeds for each repository, allowing you to stay up-to-date with the latest changes anytime, anywhere. GitList was written in PHP, on top of the Silex microframework and powered by the Twig template engine. This means that GitList is easy to install and easy to customize. Also, the GitList gorgeous interface was made possible due to Bootstrap.

Since it's just a PHP-based application, installing it is as easy as cloning the source to a web-accessible directory and setting up a "config.ini" file with your settings. You can find out more about this project based on the popular Silex microframework on its GitHub page.