Hello all,

I've been demoing the PHPed app for the last few days, and above all it is the closest IDE to what we are looking for in terms of features and ease of use. However there are still some serious problems that, despite being the best PHP IDE I've come across in almost every way, are deal-breakers in terms of committing to purchasing licenses for our team.

-- Inability to Open Multiple Instances --
This is very difficult to swallow. Everyone in our office has multiple monitors, and having multiple code windows open at a time to view multiple files (or multiple spots in a single file) is key to our productivity. The ability to open multiple instances of PHPed at once, with one instance on one monitor and the other instance on another, is *essential*. I cannot for the life of me figure out why NuSphere would artificially limit how many instances of the editor can be running at once - it would be a simple toggle for developers who are used to this feature, and would make the program *infinitely* more useful to me and many other developers I'm sure. The only possible reason I can think of is the license. However, the v4.0+ license (if I'm not mistaken) allows a user to install the program on as many machines as he likes, provided he is the sole user of the program on those machines. Since I am the sole user of this machine, I should be able to open as many instances of the program as I wish -- having two computers with two keyboards and two monitors would be the extreme equivalent (ludicrous as it sounds), and yet this horrid configuration is allowed while the elegant one is not. Why?

-- Lack of Multiple Simultaneous PHP Code Windows --
If the above issue isn't possible, then an acceptable fallback is having something similar to the following : Visual Studio .NET has something called "Tab Groups", which let you group files into separate editor areas and resize the editor used by that group as you please. If you stretch the window across both monitors, this allows you to have some files open on one monitor and some open on the other, and switching between them is simple. In PHPed, the floating code windows simply don't cut it. It's cute, and it might suit some, but having to drag them around is a pain and isn't something a decent editor should force the user to do when a better solution is possible. Please don't suggest using the floating windows -- I have tried; they aren't acceptable.

I expect I am not the only one who has these concerns. At this point I am 90% sold on the product, but these last issues are deal-killers. What is the likelihood of one (or both?) being implemented in version 5.0 (or in an update to 4.x)? If we can get reasonable assurances that the features are planned for v5.0, and that purchasing the 4.6 license would come with an upgrade to 5.0 when it is released (soon?), I can in good conscience recommend PHPed to my manager -- otherwise, I cannot.

Oh, and if either of these features already exists and I simply overlooked it, I wholeheartedly apologize, and would appreciate any info I can get as to how to get it working!

Thanks for your time, and -- again -- PHPed is *truly* the best PHP IDE out there at this time! Hope to hear back soon!

Regards,
Jason

The first point does seem really wierd that they would limit the number of app instances you can open but that is not a major deal breaker for me. The second thing you said would be the best thing to add to the editor right now(well i would like the code folding a bit more but this woudl be my second biggest request if it does nto exist). I am just assuming that i am also missing how to open 2 windows at the same time becuase that just seems like a no brainer feature that i think any coding IDE should have.

Multiple open windows would indeed be great. Being also a Mac user, this is one of those things that Windows just kills my productivity with - there's simply no all-around effective way to get the kind of benefit from multiple monitors that you can get on a Mac. And no, multiple instances (itself a kludge) doesn't quite cut it, either, but, multiple instances would be a big improvement over what we have now. I agree the floating windows feature is not particularly helpful for this problem, though it is occasionally helpful in some very specific situations.

I suspect part of the problem is the debugger running in the background - NuSphere would have to do a bit of retooling to support multiple IDE instances. But, it should definitely be possible, and it'd most definitely be very welcomed here!

hi there. If you want to start multiple instances of PhpED start second (or any subsequent) instance with --mi parameter. That will start another instance even if there is one running already. Otherwise - w/o this parameter, second instance will not start but simply pass the parameters to the master instance.
Thanks!

Thanks yfaktor, that will be helpful once i get a second moniter. I was going to say that another way of opening up mutliple instance is to select to php file and right click and select open with PHPeD and as long as PHPeD is not opened with an instance yet, it will open 2 isntance(or however many file you selected) but adding the --mi to the shortcut it much easier.

Is there a list of these parameters somewhere? I'd like to look through and see if I can find some others that would be useful.

By Great Washington's Zombie!
That is, in no uncertain terms, FANTASTIC!!!

I'll finish my report on this fine program and hopefully we'll be purchasing a few copies for our department.
Thank you so much!

Oh, and I also would be interested in any undocumented command-line parameters (or any other
undocumented configuration treats that anyone knows about off the tops of their heads )

Thanks again!
-Jason

@bobwilliams:


There's a program called UltraMon (http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/) that has quite a few features that are really really useful - things like having each monitor's programs only show up on that monitor's taskbar, being able to bounce a window from one monitor to the other w/ a key combo, etc etc.

Take a look, I can't do work without it now, it's embedded into my brain

I also use Ultramon, and find it tough to work without it. It's an invaluable tool .

<bump>

I'm sorry for the delay. Just had no time to go there as I was working on 5.0 hard to get it released as sooner as possible


actually there is a reason other than license. (honestly I did never think from the licensing perspectives).
As you probably know IDE attaches itself to the debugger listener and waits there for debugger events. If you run 2nd instance it will attach to the listener as well and get all the events including ones intended for the 1st IDE. Listener has no way to realize which one IDE the even is intended for. It can't be solved easily and at least can't be solved right now. Some months I added code to make "current" IDE more eligible for the listener to send the events, but had no time to check it. Let know if you get any problems with this.
Finally, as Yury said, you can use --mi command line option and you'll be able to run 2nd, 3rd and so forth instances.


right click on the editor tab and make the window floating.
It's not the best ever solution but helps in some extents.
Later we'll improve this.


PhpED is a gui tool and command line things is not for heavily used, so the list is extremely short:
--mi - allow multiple instances
-w - force last workspace loaded. Useful if you run phped with a php file in the command line and want last workspace to be loaded too.
-RegServer - registers COM interfaces (do not use this)
-UnregServer - unregisters COM interfaces (do not use this)

Understandable!
I suggest just making it explicit. I've not done any Windows programming, but I assume it's relatively easy for one instance to spot any other instances and do some simple communications with them. So just have a command in the IDE, something like "Connect to Debugger", that the user can use to explicitly connect to the debugger while simultaneously telling other instances to disconnect. Perhaps add an option to have new instances automatically connect, and the problem is solved in a way that's not ideal but still extremely usable--and easy to implement.

Of course, all this will be a moot point in the upcoming Mac version, since we won't be stuck with the silly MDI paradigm. Can't wait!