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VS.Php 2.6 is out but there is more

Mon, 2009-01-26 19:49

Wow, it's been quite a ride... VS.Php 2.6 was quite a challenge. It took over six months to build the new features, fix some old features and try a few things that didn't make the cut. I'd wish there were a few more fixes and a few more features in the release but at some point I had to release it :) I really hope you guys like the new release and find it more useful and make you more productive.

I'm going to be working on about 10 bug fixes I want to get to in the next week or so. The goal is to release 1 or 2 minor releases in the next 30 days with bug fixes. I have a long debate with myself on how many releases I should do every year. I've settle for 2 a year but wonder if more releases with less features is better. I'd like to hear your feedback.

So you may wonder what is in the next release? Should I spend time upping the debugger? Or should I improve further the intellisense engine? Add Silverlight support? Refactoring? Or just focus on getting the existing features to work better?

Well, my goal is to make you more productive and enjoy the tool, so tell me what do you want in the next release. I have my own ideas on what to do but I'll share those in a later post.

One more thing, people ask me a lot about more screencast explaining how to do things like configuring php.ini or xdebug, or how to get a framework working on VS.Php. I'll like to extend an offer to anyone interesting in contributing screencast on anything related to VS.Php.

Finally, I'll like to hear your success story with VS.Php. I get countless emails of people thanking me for the tool. This is what drives me to work long late hours on the product. Knowing that in some way I helped you become a better programmer, that's a great feeling.

Thanks and off we go to the next release!!!

Juan

langdon says:

Sat, 2009-01-31 22:49

First off, let me tell you that VS.Php has been paramount in aiding me in my current work. Over the past 6-8 months I've been able develop faster, organize better, and visualize my entire project/framework more easily. Thank you 1000 times for your efforts.

I'm extremely happy to see that a few things from my wish list here (http://www.jcxsoftware.com/jcx/node/2333) were addressed in 2.6! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

My desire for a true Allman style auto-formatting is still there. If I'm not mistaken, the auto-formatting feature has improved since 2.5, but I still find myself typing a bit more than I'd like to (retabbing close braces/tags, and clearing lines with only tabs on them).

As far as the next release and the future of VS.Php, I'd love to see some of the following:

  • Common $_SERVER variables (HTTP_HOST, SERVER_ADDR, REMOTE_ADDR, etc) show up in auto-complete. Right now I have a dummy file referenced that pulls this off.
  • Include the preg_* functions in auto-complete (http://www.php.net/preg).
  • I'd like to see a Find All References feature. C# has this, it's kind of like the inverse of Go To Definition. It's extremely helpful when either simply navigating your code, or in refactoring. This would also be helpful (on variables, not only functions/methods/classes) because doing Go To Definition on a $variable in a function that is global is kind of useless (for obvious reasons).
  • I'd love to see some simple refactoring options. You could look at Resharper for some inspiration, but I'm most interested in a rename option for variables, functions, classes, etc. Right click a variable, click rename, type, and done! All references are fixed.
  • It's not a big deal, but a minor annoyance is that VS.Php doesn't seem to know when NOT to display the auto-complete box. For example, if I'm defining a function or class, it shouldn't prompt me with the auto-complete box after I've typed "function a", because I'm creating something completely new.
  • Another minor thing, I was thinking that the auto-complete feature should only take into account variables that have been defined above the current line. If I'm in a 30 line function, and I go back to the top of it to modify something, typing $ shouldn't show me variables defined later in that function.
  • I still would love to see regions be able to cross script tags as well (http://www.jcxsoftware.com/jcx/node/2459). I don't remember if I ever opened a bug, and I know you said it would be difficult, but I'm holding out hope that you can do it! Functions with HTML in them can be collapsed, so why not regions? :) :) :)