Davor's PHP Constructor - User Documentation
Working With PHP Projects
Any serious application development which involves maintenance of bigger number of
separated programfiles (scripts or HTML pages) requires some kind of grouping and organization
for simpler access and easier handling. Davor's PHP Constructor makes such things possible
by allowing creation of projects.
A "Project" is a special file which holds information on all assigned files, their properties and
all additional information such as running URL, FTP connection parameters etc.
Beside project's physical file name, you can also assign it descriptive name.
Each project can be assigned unlimited number of files. Not only editable files can be added to
projects - you can add also files that are part of your complete web site project like images; these
files can not be edited inside IDE, but can be uploaded (deployed) to your FTP site using FTPclient,
so you get all project information in one place - displayed in Project Manager
or Project Files Window.
An IDE allows you to load unlimited number of projects at the same time, but only one project can be active
at a time. You can change active project using combo box in Main Window
or Project Manager.
Many IDE commands and buttons such as "Files in Project" will respond depending on currently active project.
To create a new project, use "File/New Project" command or buttons on main window or Project Manager
toolbars. You will be asked to enter following information about a new project (which can all be changed
later through Project Properties Dialogue):
- Project Name - Project's descriptive name; this name has no tight relation to project's physical
file name, so you can enter any desired value, like "This is My First Project!"
- Description - Additional project description, if you like to create it
- Project Path - This is actually physical directory where project files are expected to reside;
it is usually used when new files are about to be saved and for some other file operations, but
does not affect any other project behaviour
- Server URL - this is an URL which will be used to run your project from the IDE; it can point
to local server (like "http://localhost/myproject", or "localhost/myproject/myfirstfile.html")
or any other valid URL
(check "Leave... As-Is" check box to avoid IDE try to correct URL structure)
- Default Target Dir - Subdirectory on FTP server which will be used while file synchronization;
please note that every file you add to the project will also be assigned this directory by
default. For more information see FTP Client (Deploy Project Files)
(check "Leave... As-Is" check box to avoid IDE try to correct URL structure)
You can change any of project properties
After you create a project, you can save it under desired physical file name.
You can add any file type to the project (normaly only textual files can be edited inside IDE)
to keep control and easily upload to your web site. Use "File/Add File to Project" or appropriate
toolbar buttons in main window to add files to your project. You can also drag and drop files to project
node in Project Manager. Each time you add or remove file from/to the project,
or change it's properties, it becomes "changed" and needs to be saved. You will be prompted to save any
changed but not saved project files when exiting IDE.
Press Ctrl+F9 to preview single file while editing it. IDE will attempt to save changes before preview.
There are two ways of previewing single files (see Setting System Options
for instructions on how to select preview method):
- Just as a file - If the file is not part of active project, it can only be previewed when
"Preview Single Files (Ignore URL, use physical directory)" option in
System Options is checked.
- Through specified URL - Program will try to open file for preview through it's own specified URL,
or project's server URL (default).
You can check syntax of edited PHP script "on the fly" if you have properly specified location and name of
your php interpreter .exe file in System Options. Simply press Ctrl+F5 or select
"Run/Check Syntax" from main menu or "Script/Check Syntax" from editor's popup-menu.
A message window appears at the bottom of Code Editor with syntax checking
results.
Same conditions must be satisfied to interpret edited script. You can press F5 key or select appropriate
menu commands to force IDE to call PHP interpreter on edited script and display results in separate window.
That window has two pages; one displays result of script interpretation, pure generated HTML;the second one
shows visual layout of generated HTML as it would appear in Web Browser.
This operation is useful for quick debugging of script HTML generation and direct insight into execution
results without actually invoking previewer or running complete project.
You don't need to close interpretation result window if you need to keep results for further comparisons.
Number of active interpretation result windows is not limited.
If you set project's run URL, it can be started through "Run/Run Project" main menu command or pressing
F9 key. Defined previewer will be started with project's URL showing the first page of your project,
regardless of which script you were currently editing.
Only active project can be "run".
Debugger is currently in development phase.