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CodeLobster PHP Edition Review

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015

CodeLobster PHP IDE Review

CodeLobster is a light-weight PHP integrated programming environment (IDE). CodeLobster requires a PC running Windows and has two versions. The Free Edition can be downloaded and the Professional Edition can be purchased.

Stas from CodeLobster asked me to review their PHP IDE. I was frustrated with my current workflow for PHP web development on Linux and agreed to the review request.

CodeLobster PHP Edition IDE can be obtained from http://www.codelobster.com. The free download for Windows systems does not require a signup.

Test Tools

CPU: Intel(R) i7 2600 @ 3.40GHz.
Memory: 8GB DDR3.
Operating System: Debian Stretch Testing 64bit.
Desktop: KDE Desktop Environment 4.14
Virtual Machine: Windows XP

Remote file: Empty PHP file.
CMS file: WordPress index file.
Regex file: text with word “color” repeated.
Syntax file: PHP file containing HTML, CSS & JavaScript.
Media file: Smiley face JPEG file.
PHP: 5.4
CodeLobster: Version 5.5 32bit

Each feature with a minimum of two parts.
Editor was used by experienced PHP programmer.
The main focus on the PHP portion of the IDE.

Three bias elimination steps were utilized. The editor was used immediately after installation. Current workflow or editing remote files was attempted. Key web developer features were tested.

Installing The IDE

CodeLobster was downloaded from the developer’s website for portability. Let it associate with unchecked HTML and HTM files. Selected Standard version instead of pre-selected Portable version.

Chose Codelobster for the color theme. Selected English language. Left all components selected

Features

On the first open, the try version was selected. CodeLobter was always very fast to open.

For remote files, SFTP using IP address connects and disconnects immediately. FTP connections were not attempted.

PHP Code assist bubble on mouse-over or backspace. Line errors were marked with red indicators. Pleasant multi-line comment formatting because it only applies closing. Custom classes were detected and available.

HTML can be added in a PHP file. Tags automatically close. Closes quotes for defining rules. HTML can be previewed. Does not detect tags. Zen Coding works With CTRL-E

JavaScript content assist in a PHP file. Automatically detects jQuery. Does not detect JavaScript errors.

CSS content assist in a PHP file. Can pick colour or image for background. Does not detect CSS mistakes or errors.

Editor remembers cursor position on close. Zoom using the middle mouse button works. Does not remember split view after closing. Regular Expression format unknown or does not work properly. Missing Spellchecker for all languages.

CodeLobster touted features were tested. FTP/SFTP was not able to use SFTP. Created CMS Projects by selecting WordPress. Not able to create project from existing CMS projects. Compare files works if they are in separate views.

Source Code Management is available for GIT, Mercurial, SVN and TortoiseSVN.
Drupal CMS
Joomla CMS
Smarty template engine
Twig
JQuery library
CodeIgniter framework
CakePHP framework
Symfony framework
Laravel framework
Phalcon framework
Yii framework and WordPress

Results

CodeLobster is a very lightweight IDE with many features. The PHP editor is very good and is one of the best I have ever used. Some of the features included with CodeLobster need to be improved as they did not work as intended during this review. On PHP alone, the IDE gets an 8.5 out of 10.

Conclusion

The review focused on PHP editing and tested some other languages which are important for PHP developers such as HTML, JavaScript and CSS. As a PHP editor, CodeLobster is good that I would use on a Windows PC if SFTP worked. With error detection for the three web languages, this program can be great.

I was able to figure out how the IDE works without reading its manual or seeking help. It was really simple to start using immediately which was one of the reasons for its 8.5 score.