Well, since you didn't say it had to be free (most seem to do so, when they ask ), I'm going to highly recommend Dreamweaver (exp. Dreamweaver MX 2004). I used to use MX to do all my PHP programming, but have been using the demo of MX 2004 for about 2 weeks, and will upgrade to that soon (probably as soon as my demo runs out, and I'll be wondering why I didn't order it sooner... )
I use MX for the bones of all my php code, and then I hand code in the little extras and crap that mx won't do. How is MX 4 in comparison? You seem to like it - what are the new features, etc? Why so good? Why do I ask so many questions?
If by "visual" code editor you mean something that highlights PHP code, there are quite a few out there that do that. A short list of the few editors (not IDEs) that I have used:
- EditPlus (free trial, $30)
PHP code highlighting
FTP support
Site/Project support (ala DWMX)
Lightweight
Multiple file search and replace
- vim
syntax higlighting
almost standard on Linux/Unix
windows port available
quite a learning curve
free
- SciTE
Unix/Linux editor
Excellent windows port
Free
Function/block folding functionality
Syntax highlighting
"Intellisense"-style lookups
Very lightweight
Natively exports to PDF (great plus)
Can edit just about any file you can think of
There is an excellent listing of php editors that you can have a look at.
I don't have any problem doing anything in PHP in MX or MX 2004, as I hard code everything I do. I've never used any of the prebuilt tag handling, etc, so I can't tell you if 2004 is better or not (except for one little difference that I noticed, which is that 2004 has support [aka. syntax highlighting and intelliText] for the preg_split() funciton ).
If you don't mind spending a bit of money and just want syntax highlighting rather than using a WYSIWYG (like DW) then I can thouroughly recommend Zend Studio, the Ultimate PHP tool (it was written by the guys who came up with PHP to start with)
I personally like jedit simply because I do a lot of "traveling" between windows and linux. I used to use MX, but had some problems with it slowing down after I added several sites (I do some upkeep on some pretty big sites). It has it's pluses and negatives that's for sure.
And if you're like me you like the "$variables" in quotes like this to be colored. MX didn't do that. I have heard recently that their was a way, but I've already converted to the Dark Side .
So whatever you like....there are TONS of free editors with syntax highlighting, and also others which aren't free.
Originally posted by piersk If you don't mind spending a bit of money and just want syntax highlighting rather than using a WYSIWYG (like DW) then I can thouroughly recommend Zend Studio, the Ultimate PHP tool (it was written by the guys who came up with PHP to start with)
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), I'm going to highly recommend Dreamweaver (exp. Dreamweaver MX 2004). I used to use MX to do all my PHP programming, but have been using the demo of MX 2004 for about 2 weeks, and will upgrade to that soon (probably as soon as my demo runs out, and I'll be wondering why I didn't order it sooner... 
)
).
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