Install a PHP IDE editor

There are many different options when it comes to setting up a PHP editor. PHP is so simple, you can even use a plain text editor such as Notepad, TextEdit, or command line!

Even though I still use command line and VIM to edit files a lot, I’ll almost always coding in a full-blown editing program. In order to gain syntax highlighting, real-time error notifications, suggestions for code fixes, or many other benefits, you’ll need a real IDE, or integrated development environment, for coding up your PHP programs.

The two most popular editors in the PHP world are VSCode & PhpStorm

VSCode has been really making ground, and seems to be preferred by many new PHP developers because it loads very quick, and best of all, it’s completely free! You can go to code.visualstudio.com to download & install it for your platform.

I still much prefer PhpStorm though because it’s so fully-featured. As soon as you get into more complex PHP code and need to debug code with Xdebug, step into parent classes, plug in some advanced editor configuration or some other plugin, PhpStorm is without a doubt the best-in-class PHP editor.

Once that is done, go ahead and set up a new project in your appropriate IDE. I always store sites within subfolders of the ~/Sites directory in my home folder. This has always been the folder that mac’s used in the past for storing local websites. I’ll create a folder named myphp.

After that’s set, you’re about ready to start coding!