[MonoDevelop] PHP Language Bindings

[Lluis Sanchez]

Hey Baris,

> Hi; 
> 
> I'm working on PHP Language Bindings for MD. 

That's very good news!

> To make it useful enough
> for PHP developers, major features for this binding should be command
> completion and compiler integration. But before that some other MD
> editor enhancements/addition might also necessary. I just wanted to ask
> if those should go into Add-in part or the core part of the editor. Some
> of them are:
> 
> * Line wrapping: Currently MD does not have option to switch line
> wrapping on and off. From my discussion on IRC some stated that for
> developing C# it's not recommented to line wrap. But for PHP codes you
> ran into long lines very often, speciallyf or SQL queries. 
> 
> For that reason, line wrapping is a major UI enhancement for PHP codes.
> I know that it's trivial to implement, because of text editor widget
> already supports that. But should that go into MD or Add-in? 

I think this should be an option of the MD text editor.

> 
> * Replace in selection: PHP development needs lots of code copying and
> pasting, and mostly it's very easy to find/replace in selection.
> Currently MD find and replace dialog lacking "Look in selection". I'm
> not quite sure if it's possible to add that into Find/Replace dialog
> with Add-in but I also think that this feature might be usefule for C#
> coding. I remember needed that in past as well. So should it be
> necessary for Core or should go into Add-in? 

This could also be implemented in MD.

> 
> * Tips for bracket start: For this I'm not sure if it's a trivial thing
> and might need upstream changes for text editor widget, but as PHP Codes
> might go very long, it's easy to lost track of what closing brackets
> closes. Like, if you're closing a function, on the closing bracket it
> would be really helpful to show (on the top of editor) starting line of
> that block. (ie. you started a function foo (bar) { ... and on closing
> bracket of that function, not only it highlight the openning bracket,
> but also showing "function foo (bar..)" on top of the editor. (Zend PHP
> IDE has such a feature for example). That can also be useful for C#
> coding and other languages as well. or can it? Is that *only* useful for
> PHP?

This could also be an option in the text editor.

> 
> * Directory tree: Browsing the directories in MD is not very efficient.
> You can't point the sub directory, without changing the current
> directory. A directory tree in new nautilus list view would be really
> helpful, to open sub directories in threaded view and choosing files
> from there. That might even reported as bug, have to admit that I
> haven't checked it. C# codes might need it, but big PHP projects
> definately need that. Because you mostly need to work with parallel in
> one directory you keep HTML Templates, and in one directory you keep
> sctipts, and you need to switch between them very often. For that reason
> do you think that it's just a PHP necessity or should go into Core? 

I'm wondering if you should use the solution view instead of the file
view. That is, if all those template and scripts belong to a project,
won't they be in the project directory?

Lluis.