This is my second attempt to use PhpED, this time version 7. I truly just do not see any benefit at all in this program over Dreamweaver, or just about any other HTML/PHP/CSS editor. I've spent the last hour trying to obtain a trial license (evidently the server was down), then installing the program, configuring it, TRYING to get the debugger installed on my remote linux box (still working on this), then create a project (very non-intuitive), configure the project, and finally open a file. It's a PHP file with a require_once command. I don't have easy access to the file that is required--in Dreamweaver, the file is opened automatically in a "sub-tab" under the main file (as is all of my included css and javascript files).

Maybe there is some huge learning curve that I'm not aware of. If so, I don't really have the time for that. I've been administering servers, programming in PHP and designing web applications for about eight years now....I should at least be able to stumble through a piece of software on the first night. Right now, PhpED looks like notepad with rich text.

Sorry, I just have to pass on this.

(I'm quite sure that this post won't last long, and a feedback form might be a better place for this....but the "contact us" page is down. Go figure.)

I would agree that the initial setup of the debugger on a remote server through me for a loop the first time I set it up, but once you get the it working, this software if the best you will find.

Maybe rather than just complaining about it you should post your specific issues with the installation and get some help. This may take a day or so to figure out your issue as working with hosted servers adds a layer of security that may need to be addressed, but it does work, and work very well.

IMHO, if you like Dreamweaver and it works for you, than use that and go away. I find the benefit of this software so much better than anything DW provides and it works great for me. Coming here and complaining will not get you any sympathy.

On the other hand, I am an ex-DreamWeaver user and I used to really like it.

These days I prefer almost any development IDE to DreamWeaver, which I've come to dislike for a very of reasons including its desire to muck around with my HTML and CSS. It's actually a lot of that automatic stuff that I don't like.

PhpED has by far the best PHP debugger and for me is its top feature. If you want a visual design tool, PhpED is not that tool. The only visual design that I need is for CSS and most browsers have their developer modes to help with that.

It normally takes around 10 minutes for me to install the debugger on a new Linux box. Drop the dbg-wizard.php into any web site and access it through a browser; it gives pretty good instructions. If you are using ioncube loader, ensure the debugger is loaded after that. Oh, that reminds me that NuSphere debugger happy running with ioncube than other debuggers that I've used (eg xdebug and zend). It won't debug ioncube (of course) but steps over protected code.

It takes just a few more minutes to create a remote project and be in there debugging.

* New Project
* Web server (Apache or another) on remote host
* Root directory c:\apache_htdocs\my-website
* Project files available locally (in my case) or create an FTP publishing account
* Enter the URL where the dbg wizard will be found http://my-website/
* Click Next to go through the dbg wizard check, which conveniently warns if you are using an unexpected NuSphere dbg version
* Web server root matches project root
* Click Next until Finished

Then I recommend having a look through all of the PhpED settings as there are a lot of things in there that I change to my personal preference. For example, I always turn off Break on start and sometimes turn off Debug sessions.

I don't understand your issue with require_once and a file that is not easy to access, but somehow DW can access it and PhpED cannot. Is it a file outside of the web project root? Do you want to explain more?

If you debug PHP code and PhpED does not have access to a local copy of the file within the project, it is able to pull a copy from the server and still show it in the IDE.