Adam Culp has followed up some of his previous posts about the setup and configuration of remote debugging in PHP applications (more specifically in Zend Studio) with this new post. In it he shows how to use a SSH tunnel to allow debugging to happen through a firewall for those cases when direct access isn't possible.

In a previous post I covered how to set up step debugging in Zend Studio. But if that doesn’t work there may be a firewall in between the server and the debugging client, or IDE, preventing the connection. Here is a possible way to get around that.

He assumes that you already have the SSH server and connection available to you (he doesn't cover the install of that part). He then steps you through the setup of Zend Studio to add a new server, configure the SSH tunneling and remote/local ports to use. In his case he was using Zend Server so switching on debugging was as easy as turning in debugging via the toolbar. It's also worth noting that another popular PHP IDE can handle SSH-based debugging as well - PHPStorm - as seen here.

Adam Culp has posted a guide on his site showing you how to set up debugging in Zend Studio, the PHP IDE from Zend. In it he walks you through the setup on both the server and client side to get them working happily together.

Recently I was helping someone set up step debugging in Zend Studio, and had some difficulties. Therefore I decided to create a blog post to remind me later, and perhaps help others get it set up.

I was doing this on an Ubuntu laptop, so while menus may vary slightly the process should be very similar. Also, I did this using a local virtual machine in VirtualBox, but using Bridged networking mode to simulate a remote server. In Zend Studio I had a project created with the Zend Framework Skeleton Application, and created a virtualhost in the virtual environment that mirrored that.

He starts with the server, pointing out that the only thing really needed there is an installed and working version of Xdebug. He then goes through each step in the IDE, complete with screenshots:

• Configuring the server in the Preferences
• Testing the connection between the two
• Enabling debugging on the project
• Ensuring the server is configured correctly to use debugging when specified

While some of his instructions are more specific to a Zend Server installation, they can still be mostly applied to any kind of system. You can also check the Xdebug documentation for additional help.

In a post on the Zend Developer Zone they've introduced a new offering from Zend as a part of their Zend Studio IDE - PHP 7 Express. This tool makes it easy to migrate your code to a working state with the upcoming PHP 7 release.

The PHP 7 revolution is well upon us and at the end of the year we should be seeing an official release. To help you prepare for the expected changes, the upcoming version of Zend Studio – Zend Studio 13, includes a new migration tool called PHP 7 Express. PHP 7 Express scans your PHP code for potential compatibility issues with PHP 7 and supplies you with all the information you need to get your projects ready for migration to PHP 7.

They give an example of refactoring as it relates to the uniform variable syntax changes and removing deprecated function calls. They walk you through the use of the tool (inside the IDE) and show an example of the results, how you can jump to the code for each of the issues listed and the recommendations it provides to correct it.

On the SitePoint PHP blog they've posted a new tutorial from Daniel Berman about using Zend Studio to create mobile applications in the same interface you're using (if you're a Zend Studio user) to create your PHP applications.

The world has turned mobile. This is not new, and it should therefore be no surprise to anyone that the results of the 2015 DevPulse survey by Zend show that a vast majority of PHP developers are working on, or intend to work on, mobile apps.

Mobile app development poses many challenges for developers, one of which is tying in the front end of the mobile application with the back-end web service APIs. This tutorial describes how to simultaneously create, test and modify both the front and back end of a modern mobile app using Zend Studio’s mobile development features.

He breaks the rest of the post up into several steps to help you get a simple mobile project up and running, complete with a basic Apigility API backend:

• Creating a Cloud Connected Mobile Project
• Previewing your App
• Developing the Back-End APIs
• Developing the Front-End
• Testing as an Android Native App
• Exporting a Native Application Package

The end result is a simple "cloud connected" application that can be installed directly on an Android device as a ".apk" package.

At this year's ZendCon conference a new technology was introduced (well, and upgrade to an existing product) that allows PHP developers to create Android applications from Zend Studio 10.

ZendCon, the annual trade show for Zend, the PHP company, announced that Zend Studio 10 (Zend’s IDE) will include functionalities that will let PHP developers prototype and build native mobile apps using PHP. The new capability includes a drag-and-drop mobile interface builder, integration with the Apache project’s Cordova to access native mobile APIs such as those for cameras and accelerometers, and built-in PhoneGap integration for developers to publish native app packages to the various app stores.

You can see an example of the software in action here (video) and get a bit more information about the offering from this article from VentureBeat.

Pablo Viquez has a new post to his site today showing you how to debug your PHP code with the help of JMeter (an Apache project) that tests functional behavior and performance and the Zend Debugger.

Now, I think JMeter is awesome, no doubt about it, however what if I want to test something while developing a new API Endpoint? well I used to be accustom to the nasty var_dump(); exit; combination or if the API was already completed I used to do error_log() everywhere and figure out the results. [...] I love the easy integration that Zend Server has with Zend Studio for debugging and I though to myself, why not just change the client that triggers the debugging console so instead of the browser use JMeter, at the end both uses HTTP so it should work, well guess what, IT DOES, and It's awesome. No more print_r, error_log, var_dump in the API, lets do the Step by Step debugging with JMeter!

He walks you through the steps needed to get it all set up and working together, complete with screenshots. Really, you can use whatever debugger setup you prefer (with something like Xdebug) and have jMeter execute on top of that - there's no interface directly between the debugger and jMeter.

Andrew Eddie has posted a helpful tutorial for Eclipse users out there showing how to get the most our of code assist in Eclipse PDT/Zend Studio.

One of the powerful features of an IDE like Eclipse is the ability for it to "read" your code and give you some assistance about your API as you type. This could include things like class property or methods names, constants, functions, argument lists, and so on. Eclipse/PDT and ZendStudio do this by parsing a PHP class directly, but they also look at your docblocks and some other special comments where the raw PHP is not enough. This article is a bag of tricks that help you get the most out of code assistance using Eclipse/PDT or Zend Studio in those awkward corners of your code that you might have through previously inaccessible.

Among his tips are things like adding "@var" declarations to help with code completion, type hinting on methods/functions, using the "@property" annotation and using a "this" trick to override what class the IDE sees as the local object. ,/p>

If you're a Zend Studio user and have been wondering how to hook it directly into the phpcloud service from Zend, Kevin Schroeder has posted complete instructions in a new post today (complete with screenshots).

PHPCloud.com is the landing page for our new cloud offering. Using the Zend Application Fabric you can build your applications in the same environment as you will be deploying your apps to. The application is built on my.phpcloud.com and you can then deploy it onto any platform where the Fabric is supported. But how do you get started? Phpcloud.com has been built in a way where you can connect with any IDE. With Zend Studio 9 that connectivity has been built directly in to the IDE.

It's a simple six (well, technically seven) step process that involves setting up a new project, configuring some deployment options and hitting "deploy". Zend Studio makes it super simple to launch your application as many times as you need - a one-click deploy once things are all set up.

Kevin Schroeder has been working on a Zend Framework-based mobile application (Android) and ran up against a debugging issue that he would normally solve with features of his IDE, but since those weren't available on the device, he got a bit more creative.

The solution is similar to what I did with Debugging an RPC call in Zend Framework. What this does is set the cookies from the remote browser to debug on the local instance of the Zend debugger. To kick it off simply open up the URL to the debug kickoff page. That will set the cookies in your mobile browser. Then go to the page that you want to debug from your mobile phone and reload it.

He includes the code you'll need (a method to drop into your Controller) to make that debugging work. It sets up an array of cookie values and, when the page to debug is reloaded, those values will be set again and the IDE (in his case, Zend Studio) will catch them as a key to start debugging.

On the Zend Developer Zone there's a new post giving you five tips you can use to help speed up Eclipse PDT and Zend Studio if you happen to use one of those IDEs.

Eclipse Helios (3.6) includes an improved version of Eclipse PDT, labeled 2.2. It is also included in the current Zend Studio (7.1 and above). Among other enhancements, it dramatically improved the performance of code lookup-related tasks like searching references, creating a type hierarchy and even code completion.

Some of the recommendations have more to do with the system the IDE is running on, but they're helpful none the less:

• Disable virus scanners
• Use a fast storage device
• Keep your JVM up to date
• Delete the database if your experience problems
• Do not backup the database