Member Avatar for shasha821110

Hi, all.
I am learning Web Design now. And my course is about dynamic website and the script is php, xml, html, sql and so on.
So i want to have some idea about which software platform i should use to design my website.
I have dreamweaver, PHP Editor. So is there some other better suggestions??
Thanks.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Jen0608

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Good question . The replies here show the usual trade-offs: control versus convenience. and lean toward hand-coding; and prefer lightweight editors; mentions a Linux stack. Rather than picking a single product, focus on five capabilities you’ll rely on for dynamic PHP sites: a local development server, an editor/IDE with PHP support, a step debugger, a dependency manager, and version control.

Choose tools by capability, not hype. A modern, extensible editor that’s free and cross-platform makes learning smoother; a quick local web server helps you iterate; and a real debugger (not print-debugging) speeds up tracking logic and performance issues. Xdebug adds step-debugging and profiling to PHP. These pieces together make development faster and safer. (code.visualstudio.com)

Start with a minimal, repeatable workflow and build from there. Example steps:

  1. create a project folder, 2) initialize Composer for libraries, 3) track changes with Git, 4) run a local server and open the folder in your editor. Quick commands you’ll use often:
mkdir mysite
cd mysite
composer init
git init
php -S 127.0.0.1:8000 -t public

Composer and Git are the de facto tools for dependency management and version control in PHP projects. (getcomposer.org)

Practical cautions and troubleshooting notes: avoid relying on WYSIWYG/code generators for core PHP logic — they can make maintenance harder. Keep dev and production configs separate, enable error display only in development, commit frequently, and ignore vendor/ in Git. Always validate and escape input and use prepared statements (PDO or mysqli prepared queries) for database work to prevent SQL injection. If Xdebug needs wiring into your editor, say which OS and PHP version you’re using and someone here can post exact steps.

Recommended Answers

All 10 Replies

Member Avatar for Member #360561

I only use a text editor to produce my sites.
Currently I'm using Geany, which is context-sensitive.

I tried DreamWeaver a long time ago, but it imposed too many limitations. It's probably better now but I feel comfortable writing php, JavaScript and html directly. Gives you more control than a code generator can do.

Member Avatar for cfajohnson

I tried DreamWeaver a long time ago, but it imposed too many limitations.

DreamWeaver is the best of a bad bunch.

I agree with ingeva: use a text editor. Find one with syntax highlighting and automatic indentation; I use GNU/Emacs.

Member Avatar for jbennet

Notepad++

Member Avatar for phper

I would go for Notepad++

When you use Dreamweaver to write your php code, in my opinion, it looks very messy and some parts are just unnecesary.

Member Avatar for phper

What i mean by my last post is if you use the dreamweaver wizards to write the code.

Member Avatar for jbennet

yup exactly

thats why i like Notepad++

A plain text editor except it has handy things like Syntax Highlightning, Folding, Tabs...

Member Avatar for LostCause(c,b)

i have never heard of notepad plus until today, thanks!

Member Avatar for Mahen

I use Quanta Plus

Works only in a linux environment though, however i even have apache on linux and mysql and phpmyadmin.........

Member Avatar for shasha821110

Thanks, guys.
Learn a lot

Member Avatar for Jen0608

dreamweaver...

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