As I have been programming more towards a total object oriented way I have found the need for a better editor than the old phped which I have used for many years.  I required a new PHP editor (maybe IDE), so I setup to find one and as I use both Windows and Linux it had to run on both platforms.

Requirements: MUST have autocomplete for variables, functions and classes (when you have a large app its impossible to remember all the associated variable names), and run on Windows and Linux.

Here are the ones I tried:

these FAILED to meet the requirements:

• Netbeans – Java, so no thanks (dont program in Java, dont like Java, and Java is often the root of the issue if my development machine crashes!)
• Aptana -  good but would not run at ALL on Ubuntu!
• Codelite – basic*, no autocomplete (for pre-defined vars, functions, classes).
• gPHPedit – OK, but no autocomplete (for pre-defined vars, functions, classes).
• Bluefish – OK, but basic,* but again no autocomplete (for pre-defined vars, functions, classes).
• vim – too basic*
• FCKEditor – setup docs useless, took too long to work out how it worked!
• mped – so uneventful I fail to remember anything about it….

*for some of the “basic” editors above you can spend your life adding plugins to attain required functionality.

DID NOT try – although I had them on the list:

• Zend Studio – seemed to be too bloated (the bloated framework drove me away from Zend, in favour of Kohana)
• geany – installed it, but where and how to use who bloody knows….

The WINNER:

• Komodo edit – brilliant, runs on both platforms, and its open source, hooorahhh.
  Runs fast, and seems to be well supported.  So thank you to Activestate for providing a great PHP editor.
  Download here: http://www.activestate.com/komodo-edit

  (its the “Komodo Edit” which is open source – NOT the IDE which is a commercial app)