Which Eclipse version to install on Linux for PHP development

Question

I have Slackware 12.1 and wish to try out Eclipse for PHP/HTML/JavaScript development. However, it seems I'm facing myriad of possible options and I'd hate to miss the best thing and give up on Eclipse (I'm currently using Geany, but I'm missing some stuff like , for example, auto-complete for JavaScript)

I'm currently looking into just installing All-in-one PDT package version 1.0.3 from here:

http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/downloads/

However, that seems to be Eclipse 3.3. There's also Slackware package for 3.4 here:

http://repository.slacky.eu/slackware-12.1/development/eclipse/3.4/

But it says it a "Classic" version. I'm not sure how hard would be to add PHP, HTML, JavaScript support for it.

Note: I don't plan to run PHP through Eclipse's integrated web server or anything like that. I just want a powerful editor.

P.S. Also, recommendations for something better than Eclipse that is for Linux and free are also welcome. I already used Kate, SciTE, Geany, Emacs, Vi and Bluefish, so those are not interesting.

Answer 1

I second Aptana wholeheartedly. Since it is based very closely off of Eclipse, if you ever decide to do coding that Aptana will not cover, you are still used to the general interface of Eclipse.

I don't want to say it is cut down, because it is not. It just has what you need for the languages and technologies you will be using it for. You can still add other plugins to it as well for SVN, CVS, etc. The interface is a bit less crowded as well.

I don't do a whole lot of javascript coding, but man, that is where is stands out from the crowd. It does a fantastic job with Javascript.

Also, you don't have to use Aptana's built in Jetty server to run PHP; you can just tell it where you local Apache server is.

Answer 2

If you want auto-complete for JavaScript, in that case you should to use some plug-in for Eclipse such as Aptana Studio, but Aptana is more than auto-compete tool for javascript, it has included a lot of unnecessary things that you don't need for regular development. I have the same problem to find the right solution for JavaScript in Eclipse, Aptana was ok, but I hate the additional features that Aptana includes, I didn't find any good tool which could be added to Eclipse, for JavaScript :( For script languages such as JSP, Eclipse is like a song...nice,sweet and smooth...;)