I presently develop php-based websites and web apps in Dreamweaver. I paid for the upgrade to CS3 and was a bit underwhelmed. Honestly, if I had to do it over, I would've just kept with the version I had - all the bugs are the same, it doesn't recognize any new php functions that DW 8 didn't, and I even lost a handy extension that is no longer supported.
Anyway, this has me thinking that it may be time to abandon the Dreamweaver line altogether, and I know Zend is often touted by the experts here as a great environment. I downloaded the free trial of Zend studio, and I can tell right away that it'll take a while to learn all the features, but at first glance it seems powerful. Before I get too far into it though, has anyone made the switch from one to the other? Which was better?
If money wasn't an issue (it is, but for the sake of simplicity pretend it isn't) which environment would be better suited for the type of development I want to do? I use a combination of procedural and inline php scripting for small projects, as well as class and package-based scripting for larger ones. Most of the servers my clients use are running php 4, but my own personal server is php 5 and that's the language I really want to develop in from now on.
For courtesy's sake, I would appreciate if only experts who have experience in both IDE's would leave comments (I hope there's at least a few of you out there!). Obviously I don't expect just one person to "answer" this question. Points will be split among every expert who makes a good contribution.
This question was actually inspired by a question asked earlier today. Here's the link: http:Q_22923302.html
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Hi there,
In the last month I have been using Eclipse PDT build, this is (aparently) the framework Zend is going to move to (but just have some other bits and bobs so they can still charge for it). Grab it from here -> http://www.eclipse.org/pdt
It's very good!
Hi MasonWolf,
Unless you are just learning PHP (hah!) or don't want to write code, then Zend is the better choice. Dreamweaver is good for the beginner or the lazy developer who would rather pay for packaged code because they can't or won't develop their own.
DW does a better job with designing pages, but Zend isn't all that bad in that respect. Certainly its much better than it used to be.
Gosh, didn't think a consensus would start to form so quickly. I mean I hoped it would, but I figured there would be at least a few people telling me Zend wasn't worth my time.
I'm curious about windzero's suggestion though. Has anyone else had much luck designing with the Eclipse PDT product? Even though I said "pretend cost isn't an issue" if there's a free tool out there that beats DW for php development, I'm definitely going to be interested.
I'm actually downloading it now - 25 minutes to go last I checked. Man I wish my internet was faster!
>> Gosh, didn't think a consensus would start to form so quickly
I'm not sure why people think of DW as an IDE. It really isn't. It's a decent to very good visual editor for web pages and offers a lot of tools in that realm. But for serious programming, it can barely do even the most basic syntax checking. It has a tool to balance braces, which barely works and that's about it. Okay, it does some code coloring and can give tooltip help on common PHP functions.
And I think it supports PHP better than just about any other language with the possible exception of ColdFusion.
Hi MasonWolf
A few months back when CS3 first came out i was in the exact same position you are today.
The obvious choice zend studio. I gave that a try and i was impressed, i also tried eclipse , aptana and any other IDE you can think of. Every single one is better than dreamweaver.
After a month of experimenting it all came down to production , although all of them are better than dreamweaver .... i seem for some reason to write code faster in dreamweaver ... and i DONT use the visual editor .... the only time my hands get off the keyboard is to open a file from the file explorer.
I use Dreamweaver for some years now, and is the best text editor i ever used, zend disliked me alot and i think is a tool for beginners.
The things i like.
Easy to setup to run with a webserver locally and also to upload the files to the remote server, my sites are updated in few seconds.
You can replace a var in 1000 files with just one replace.
I use it to create all kind of scripts not only php.
I like the way dreamweaver display the code (colors etc..).
It has a html code validator.
But if you want only a PHP editor may ti's better zend studio.
If you have any last comments in favor of either Zend, Dreamweaver, or something different please post them now. I'm going to close this question tomorrow around noon. Thank you to everyone who's provided advice so far. You guys have been tremendously helpful.
By the way, one of the things I like most about DW is the ability to interact with the server. I know it's a little buggy sometimes, but it usually saves me a lot of time versus ftp. Does Zend offer that feature? Also, does Zend integrate well with any sort of online CVS?
MasonWolf:
Zend supports FTP, SFTP and FTP over SSL, connects very easily to any servers.
After connected it appears on the left side (i am sure you can customize) with an explorer-like interface, and you can use it as if it is another hard drive/folder on your computer. The difference being you are actually uploading and modifying files on the FTP server.
Hope this info. helps.
Now i think Zend Studio is mutch better than DW, i'd choose Zend Studio instead of CS3, the improvement between DW 8 and CS3 is poor compared with Zend Studio improovements.
Now it can interact with ftp server and also can be integrated with CVS or subversion.
Just a great IDE but for me DW is a text editor.
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by: nizsmoPosted on 2007-10-28 at 18:43:46ID: 20167185
hey masonwolf didnt' realise you use dreamweaver, i have been using Zend Studio from the beginning, it does have some powerful featues, its easy to use, provides good function and varaible hints (also ones you define yourself) and even member functions and variables. I have often referred to dreamweaver only to fix some layout problems in the design view of some php script with mixed HTML in there as well, as Zend Studio does not have a design view (nor do i think it needs one.)
In my opinion Zend all the way, I know you specialize in php, so you would probably (after some getting use to) find zend much more powerful than DM in terms of PHP development. In fact, it does not do a bad job of HTML and Javascript either :)