On the Adobe Developer Connection site Richard Bates has recently posted a tutorial covering the integration of PHP and Flex as developed in Zend Studio/Flex Builder.

Tight integration between Flex and a server-side language means that your users will have an intuitive, engaging user experience with all the functionality they need. For developers, tight integration between PHP and the Flex development environments can provide big benefits by ensuring a smoother workflow for coding, debugging, and managing a project. You can make the most of such a unified environment by using Adobe Flex Builder and Zend Studio for Eclipse together.

He starts with the basics - installing everything and getting it all up and running, then making a sample "Hello World" application on both the PHP (backend) and the Flex (frontend) sides. Included in the tutorial is a look at sending XML out to the Flex application from PHP.

Michelangelo van Dam has put together a book review of the Addison-Wesley/Pearson book "Zend Studio for Eclipse - Developer's Guide":

This book is in my opinion a beginner's guide into using ZSE, aiming at PHP developers that have a knowledge of general concepts like versioning, debugging and refactoring. I personally was hoping to see advanced settings to tune the IDE into a powerful developer's tool, but it was merely a basic explanation with the correct terminology for a product that I've been using well over two years now (yes, I was also beta-tester for it).

He keeps it short but does note that the book can be a good asset for those just getting into Eclipse but if you're already past that level, it wouldn't hold much for you.

As Roy Ganor noted in a recent tweet - the long-awaitedversion 2.0 of the PHP Development Tools (PDT) extension for Eclipse has been released:

PDT 2.0 was designed based on principles different to those of Eclipse PDT 1.0. For example, different techniques were used to model workspace projects. PDT 2.0 now uses an indexing and caching mechanism for improved performance and experience with code assist and navigation. Moreover, since PHP provides enhanced Object-Oriented features like inheritance and polymorphism, PDT 2.0 provides enhanced features such as type hierarchy, override indicators and type navigation for programmers who utilize these language properties.

The extension is now lighter and faster, making better use of the Eclipse framework for caching/indexing language elements. The release also includes a method for configuring your buildpath, a "mark occurrences" feature, an icon that notes overrides, improved code assist and much more.

You can grab this latest download from a Eclipse PDT page off of the Eclipse site.

On the SitePoint PHP blog today Kevin Yank takes a look at a recent version of the NetBeans IDE (version 6.5) that comes bundled with improved PHP support.

Long dismissed as a "toy Java IDE", NetBeans - Sun's open source Integrated Development Evironment (IDE)-has really grown up in recent years. No longer is it just for Java, either: for web developers, NetBeans 6.5 now supports Ruby and PHP out of the box. Surprisingly, that support is so good that it now compares favourably to more established competitors like Eclipse, Komodo IDE, and Zend Studio.

He mentions the built-in/user-defined auto-complete the has built in as well as code templates, support for phpdoc documentation blocks, and other functionality for helping with Javascript, HTML and CSS.

Chuck Burgess has posted a discovery he made while working with Eclipse PDT and a command line script that he needed to debug:

This week, I found a need to do this same kind of remote debugging, but for a command-line PHP script. This seems to be something that Eclipse is not already designed to do, as there is no "perpetual listener" available for its debug client. Instructions for remote CLI debugging are available, which showed me that environment variables might be the missing link to getting it working with Eclipse. It turned out to be one of two missing links. The other link was tricking Eclipse into keeping a debug session open (and therefore "listening").

He found that by loading up the PHP file in a shell script with the XDEBUG_CONFIG and XDEBUG_SESSION variables defined, it allows the Eclipse listener to connect and work through the file like a normal web page request.

Jani Hartikainen has posted a review of the latest release of the NetBeans IDE with an updated version of their PHP support:

During the weekend, I tried out NetBeans 6.5 and its new PHP related functionality. I had earlier seen some quick shots of how the support was, and it seemed like a good contender for big names like Zend Studio. What features does NetBeans 6.5 have for PHP developers? How does it compare against Zend Studio for Eclipse?

He looks at some of the basics it includes (PHPDocumentor support, autocomplete, etc) and gets a bit more in depth by comparing it directly to Zend Studio, a look at the project view and the integration of debugging support and version control. He also points out the HTML, CSS and Javascript support that comes bundled in too.

New on the DotVoid blog Danne Lundqvist has posted about the experience of two weeks with the Zend Studio for Eclipse software as a primary editor.

After more than ten years with Emacs and terminal flipping as my primary development environment, whether for C, PHP, WSDL, HTML/CSS or javascript, I decided to try (I mean really really try) an IDE for a while. As PHP is my main focus these days I have been looking towards Zend Studio for Eclipse. I figured Eclipse with it's maturity must work well enough on linux.

Danne talks about the transition from editor to IDE (shortcuts? features? where is everything?) including importing a project in from a subversion repository. He had a few issues as he started out - technical glitches, problems with subversion integration and encoding support - but lots of other good things too (phpDocumentor support, code folding, inline errors/warnings).

Justin Carmony has submitted a post from his blog today that looks at to of the major PHP IDEs - Zend Studio 6 and Eclipse PDT - and compares them on features and functionality.

I've been using Zend Studio (ZS) for the last two years. It is developed by Zend, the company behind PHP. The very first time I used it and it was able to auto-complete my custom PHP classes I was sold. With version 6 of Zend Studio, they integrated Zend Studio with Eclipse, a popular IDE framework. I've been mostly happy with the new version, where as in some areas I felt that things were took a step back.

He compares their ease of installation, how easy they make it to refactor your code, debuggers included, the editor environment itself and, of course, the integration with Zend Platform/Zend Framework.

On the Zend Developer Zone there's a new post detailing some of the new features (a sneak peek) of the upcoming Zend Studio for Eclipse version.

I am very excited to announce that Zend Studio for Eclipse 6.1 has been released, and would like to share with you some of its new features. This release is a "Complete Web Development Environment for PHP Developers", as it provides significant improvements for Web developers who utilize a rich code base that includes PHP, JavaScript, and CSS.

Major updates include the ability to edit the source of Javascript, Dojo and CSS, more Zend Framework integration, improved management tools and lots of bug fixes and security improvements. Screenshots of each of these improvements are in the post, including a look at the SQL query builder tool.

In a new post today Alex Netkachov shows a handy little tip for the Eclipse users out there that want to use the @var type hint in their code.

@var variable type hint is very useful, but adding it a little bit complex: usually you need to type the class name or copy/paste it from somewhere. But with Eclipse PDT templates you can simplify this and add an autocomplete for variable name and class name.

It's a simple one-step process - you just add in a new template to your Eclipse application and it will prompt you to select the class name from a list and drop it right in. No more cut and paste needed!