Magento development environment on windows with debug capability

Question

I have seen hundreds of post on how to setup an Magento development environment for Windows. But nowhere i could find a good tutorial on this works with proper debugging enabled. I have tried many IDE's and debugging frameworks (Zend, Xdebug) but i can't find a way to actually get this to work.

It would be great if i could set a break-point in an .phtml file so i can see what is going on and check all variables/objects.

Any (experienced) Magento developers who can explain on how to setup a proper development environment for Magento on a windows machine.

Hope to get some feedback....

Answer 1

Here is a simple step-by-step

1. Download the latest version of Z:WAMP
2. Extract Z:WAMP wherever you like.
3. Download the XDebug DLL
4. Copy the XDebug DLL to {zwamp directory}/vdrive/.sys/php/ext/
5. Add the following text to the bottom of the {zwamp directory}/vdrive/.sys/php/php.ini file

   [xdebug]
   zend_extension="/.sys/php/ext/php_xdebug-2.1.0RC1-5.3-vc9.dll"
   xdebug.remote_enabled=1
   xdebug.remote_connect_back=1
   

6. Run {zwamp directory}/zwamp.exe and accept the security messages for Apache and Mysql.
7. Delete everything under {zwamp directory}/vdrive/web/
8. Copy your magento project into the {zwamp directory}/vdrive/web/ directory
9. Download the latest version of NetBeans PHP and install it.
10. Start netbeans and click File > New Project
11. Click the PHP Category, Select the PHP Application with Existing Sources option
12. Click Next
13. Click Browse on the Sources Folder option
14. Select the {zwamp directory}/vdrive/web directory
15. For PHP Version, Select version 5.3
16. Click Next
17. For Project URL enter "http://127.0.0.1/" (Magento had/has a problem with names that do not have a TLD)
18. Click Finish
19. Wait for the Scanning Projects.. to finish (bottom right status bar, it takes a while)
20. Open a code file, add a breakpoint, and run in debug mode (Ctrl-F5).
21. Profit!

To turn off the 'break on start' option

1. Select Tools > Options
2. Select PHP
3. Select the General tab
4. Under Debugging, un-check the Stop at first line option
5. Click Ok