Is there any good PHP editors that are any good? Or do you need to buy one in order to get a good one? I need to do some PHP coding on my website and would like to know if there are any free PHP editors that are worth a look at.

Notepad++ works perfectly well for me, as does Arachnophilia

http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit Is what I use.

I must say I cannot recommend NetBeans highly enough. I've used it for a few years, and last year standardised my whole company on it. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, it's free and open source, comes with lots of plugins and has SVN support, FTP and SFTP. Best of all it has EXCELLENT code completion, phpDoc support (which is AWESOME once you figure it out), and a great "code templates" function for regular boilerplate code which you can customise yourself.

Google for NetBeans PHP

I must say I cannot recommend Far editor highly enough.

Recently I've been using Eclipse with its PHP IDE and so far I have only good to say about it.

A lot of my colleagues use sublime heard it's pretty good

Bluefish rocks...the best i have ever used. I am a Bluefish junkie =)

Notepad++. It's the best especially if you are a beginner. Because it has no intellisense so you have type everything which means you will be able to master the syntax very well.

Originally Posted by febrarian

Notepad++. It's the best especially if you are a beginner. Because it has no intellisense so you have type everything which means you will be able to master the syntax very well.

master with just notepad then

Originally Posted by jim1228

master with just notepad then

At least it has colors.

It's not all about colors and highlighting.
What happens if you have a bunch of php files and you need to upload each of them separatelly after editing?
For that it's best to use editors that can maintain synchronization with server, over FTP or SFTP.
Im using dreamweaver for that purpose and as soon as i save the file it automatically goes to the server.

Maintaining a synchronization has one other advantage.
If your files are edited or if new files are uploaded, like malicious scripts, you can detect them.

List of editors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PHP_editors

Or evan better, run a local server where you can develop your site, before uploading it to your live server, thereby eliminating the need to upload your files anywhere and once again making simple editors (like Notepad++) viable

EDIT: Besides, Dreamweaver isn't free

Hey im all in for Notepad++, wiki says that it's supporting FTP/SFTP via plugin, never tried it though.

What about remote group development? Local server is "not" an option.

Originally Posted by lizciz

Besides, Dreamweaver isn't free

Yes it is
Infinite trial can do the job.

Remote group development?
You mean if there are multiple people working on the same project? Then I'd say you'd be better of using some configuration management tool like CVS, SVN, Git etc. and still use a local server for your own development.

Oh, I didn't think of trials . But wouldn't that only work for 30 days or so?

Yes if several people work on one project.

You missed the "Infinite" part

Originally Posted by miki86

Yes if several people work on one project.

You missed the "Infinite" part

Unfortunately, I can confirm this. I used (cough) to use infinite trials for Adobe programs. All it is is a .dll that you replace in the program files before first launch. All it does is disable the trial day counting. You still get all the limitations of the trial, though, it just saves you the trouble of clearing your registry of certain keys and redownloading.

You can Google around for the files, there are lots of places to get them. It's probably illegal, so I wouldn't recommend it though.

I had big problems with Dreamwaver (long time ago) - somehow, after some save, the file was re-written with just a part of the actual document (not only once). Couldn't recover... I just had to rebuild the entire file.

I'm using Netbeans now for the method-to-method navigation (CTR+click on methods will open class file). It "understands" autoloads and most of the includes but, the bad part, it needs lots of resources.

Notepad++ is a great tool but without file search and method navigation.

Good luck!

Nothing beats Notepad++. You just need to be patient.

I have a list of editors which i have got from wikipedia

Windows
Alleycode HTML Editor — Freeware editor with syntax highlighting for both php and html.
CodeLobster - Free PHP IDE
ConTEXT — Freeware editor with syntax highlighting.
Crimson Editor — Lightweight editor. Supports FTP.
Dev-PHP IDE — Lightweight IDE. Supports FTP & SFTP, CVS & SVN, Multiple languages with highlighters, Xdebug, etc.
EditPad Lite - A freeware and simple editor with auto text indent.
Gizmo Editor - Freeware editor with syntax highlighting for PHP, HTML, CSS, Java, and much more.
HAPedit - A free PHP Editor with intellisense support
HTML-Kit — Syntax highlighting, Supports FTP.
Intype — Lightweight editor. Alpha version.
Microsoft WebMatrix - A combined editor, server and publishing environment, syntax highlighting for HTML, PHP, Razor, c# and JavaScript and publishing through WebDeploy and FTP. Supports utf-8 only.
Notepad2 — Simple editor with syntax highlighting
Notepad++ — Supports FTP & SFTP via plugin; syntax highlighting.
NoteTab — Broad editor, allows you to have multiple tabs open for different files, has FTP support, comes in two trial versions (NoteTab Standard, NoteTab Pro) and one free version NoteTab Light. NoteTab Pro highlights tags.
PHP Expert Editor
PHP Tools for Visual Studio - PHP syntax highlighting, real-time checking of syntax errors, code outlining and navigation features for Visual Studio 2010 and VS11.
Programmer's Notepad
PSPad — Supports FTP; syntax highlighting.
Rapid PHP - Not free but has 30 day trial
tsWebEditor - Syntax highlighting and code hints for PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, (all in the same file even) and many more languages. Supports FTP; powerful user-defined keyboard for UTF, and so much more. Completely free.