Second first impressions :-)

A while back, about a year ago, tired of Zend's Java slowness, I was on the hunt for the ultimate PHP editor. I tried them all. I really liked VS.PHP but ended up with Komodo due to Visual Studio's heavyness on my old system. I've been using ever since.

But in the past 3 weeks I got tired of some of the quirks of Komodo, and felt like experimenting. I've been downloading and installing literally dozens of editors, from basic Notepad replacements, to full blown IDEs. I made a list of must-haves and nice-to-haves. I did not find a SINGLE EDITOR that satisfied all of my requirements. Some came close, but something always blew it: from simply not having single key bookmarking to no intellisense or code folding.

So I decided to try VS.PHP again, this time with Visual Studio 2005. First, Visual Studio 2005 is leaner and meaner and runs way better than VS 2003, so performance was no longer an issue. Once I loaded it up and started typing PHP code, I knew I had a hit on my hands. It satisfied ALL of my must-have requirements:

• Code folding
• Auto indent/outdent
• Tab/Shift-tab indenting
• Code insight (parameter hints)
• Language Keyword Completion
• Bracket matching
• One key bookmarking
• Find in files
• Keyboard mapping
• Configurable syntax highlighting
• Jump to line (CTRL-G)
• MDI (Tabbed interface)
• Line numbers
• Auto complete for known variables/functions

Plus, it also fulfills some of my nice-to-haves:

• Class/function browser
• Macros
• Source control integration
• Language help file integration
• Plugins
• Projects
• PHP Debugging

I am very impressed! Not to mention how responsive the devs are on these forums! A++!