Bence Eros has submitted a new post from his blog that looks at the method he came up with to create an interactive debugger for PHP. It's just a prototype/proof of concept that lets you execute PHP code in the browser (using eval - a little scary, I'll admit).

Last night I created a prototype for an interactive debugger for PHP without the need of any IDE-plugin. In this post I'm going to show what I found. Unfortunately you will need some time to put the environment together, but I think it's worth doing it. My target was to create a way how you can view and modify your variables manually at runtime, only by inserting one line code.

He does mention that, because of the settings he uses, the debugger can only be loaded from a different domain than the application which can be restricted a bit simpler (i.e. its own https or .htauth). His setup uses an Apache2 web server and a few PHP/HTML scripts to get the job done. In the end you'll have something similar to this for you to run your code in.

Jordi Boggiano has a new post today looking at his PHP console script that works in your browser that sets up easily and works from your localhost web server - php-console.

Since I spend most of my days programming PHP I tend to need that a lot and a few years back I wrote a small script that would let me type php code in my browser and execute it. Nothing fancy, but quite useful. Over the years a few people got interest seeing me use it and asked for the sources, so instead of repackaging it every time, I thought I'd clean it up, polish a bit, add some features, and put it on github.

Setup is as simple as dropping the code somewhere in your local server's document root and offers a textarea for input and a expandable tree for the resulting output. It uses the Krumo tool to create this modified output. You can see a screenshot here.

In this recent post to PHPBuilder.com they spotlight a web-based tool you can use to write PHP code no matter where in the world you are - PHPanywhere.

PHP developers, just like most IT professionals, are often on the go, working from various locations. You could be working in your office one day, at a conference in a remote location the next day, and from a client's business office the next. [...] PHPanywhere is not just a stand-alone IDE, it's designed with project collaboration in mind. With a built-in FTP client and syntax editor built right in, it makes this tool uniquely appropriate for developer teams as well as individual programmers.

They look at how to get started with the tool and include a few screenshots to give you a preview of how the tool looks and feels. A short feature list is also included.

From NETTUTS.com there's a new tutorial they've posted showing you how to create a simple web-based chat application (real-time, not like twitter) with equal parts PHP and jQuery.

In this tutorial we will be creating a simple web-based chat application with PHP and jQuery. This sort of utility would be perfect for a live support system for your website.

Full code is provided, both in the post and available for download, and the end result will look something like this. Messages are just stored in a file on the backend, but it could be easily modified to use something like MySQL to keep track of the messages for that session.

This new post from Troels Knak-Nielsen on the SitePoint PHP blog shares a few helpful in-browser development tools that could come in handy in your day to day coding.

While debuggers exists, there isn’t much of a tradition for using them in PHP. People have largely come to rely on injecting debugging code directly into the program, for inspecting program scope.

Tools mentioned include traceers and error handlers (like XDebug), some debugging parts of the popular PHP frameworks and the set of *cachegrind tools to help you parse the output of XDebug for profiling your application.

Recently, the Springloops version control system made its debut on the web and was greeted with both skepticism and interest. One developer, Hasin Hayder decided to look at it from a different angle and worked to see how easy it would be to reproduce a similar service.

Springloops is a nice code management service recently came into focus. It helps you to manage the code base of your application, monitor the commit and deploy the final version easily to another server. So if you are wondering how to build such a system and how it actually works, this article is for you.

He breaks it down into the six main topics (as he sees it) that are the core parts of the system - things like payment gateways, setting up subversion and making it user friendly. He goes through each topic, explaining its place in the application and providing some links to resources to help you set it up (or at least learn more about it).

DevShed has posted the second part of their series looking at installing and using web-based file managers written in PHP. This time they look at PHPfileNavigator2.

We are going to continue with the installation and configuration of web-based file managers. We'll present another freeware, open-source PHP-based file manipulation utility in the same way we explained bfExplorer in the previous part. This time, it's going to be the PHPfileNavigator2 (pfn2).

They cover the basics - installation (on a pre-existing Apache/PHP server), configuuration and some example screenshots of it in action when correctly set up.

DevShed has posted the first part of a series looking at the installation, configuration and usage of two web-based file managers - BytesFall Explorer and PHPfileNavigator. This first part of the series focuses on BytesFall.

Everybody knows how to use a conventional desktop application that acts as a file manager. And we all know how useful these manipulation utilities really are. They give us a hierarchical view of the content of our folders. They also have dozens of extra functions. [...] We will present two freeware PHP-based file managers. You'll find out how to install and configure them.

Part one handles the first steps with BytesFall - the installation and configuration (you'll already need a web server with PHP installed for this one).

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.

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.