PHPDevelopmentPlanNB71

Contents 1 PHP Development Plan for NetBeans 7.1 1.1 Editor 1.2 Project 1.3 Refactoring 1.4 Frameworks 1.5 Debugger

PHP Development Plan for NetBeans 7.1

Author: Petr Pisl

Version: 0.1 - draft

This document is a collection of ideas that should be done in NetBeans PHP support area during NetBeans 7.1 time frame. Probably not every feature, item will be done, but it's mentioned to track it for next releases.

Editor

Priority	Task	Notes
P1	Stabilizing, decrease number of bugs. Increase performance.	There are 520 open defects in the editor area
P3	Fast import like in Java	When there is used an PHP Class though code completion, then should be automatically inserted use statement for the class
P3	Implement code folding for code statements	The current code folding works for classes and methods/functions. Users are asking for code folding of code statements like if, while.... . See issue 186731
P3	Support of PHPUnit tags in PHPDoc	Issue #189983
P3	Adding coding styles	There are many formatting options for PHP files. There should be formatting profiles, that can be saved per projects. See for example issue #188785
P3	Update PHP Parser	The current PHP Parser doesn't reflect some corner cases of PHP 5.3. The parser should be uptodate.
P3	Improve error handling	The current error handling is based mainly on the parser errors. Messages from parser are not very understandable for users. This situation can be improved through introducing a logic that will try improve the error handling.
P3	Improve finding code completion context in broken code	The code completion is based on the parser result if the code is ok. When the code is broken, then cc is based on lexer tokens. This can be improved to provide better code completion.
P4	Highlight pars for alternative syntax	Like for standard syntax there is highlight { and } for while, if etc, it can be also highlighted for alternative syntax. See issue #164347
P4	Improve sanitizetion of the code	Many ide features are based on the parser result (AST tree). Unfortunately the code in editor is the bulk of time broken, and the AST can not be build around the parser error. There is already used way to sanitized the code (correct virtually the code) that provides better ASTs. There can be added other cases to improve it.
P4	Improve handling of long strings	When there is pressed ENTER key inside a string, then the string should be concatenated like in Java editor.
P4	Allow to customize PHP Documentation generation	The current generating of PHP Documentation before classes and methods / functions is hardcoded. According the user requests, this should be configurable.

Project

Priority	Task	Notes
P1	Regenerate PHP runtime signature files	Provide new signature files for binary libraries. The current collection of signature files is almost three years old and should be refreshed.
P4	UI for PHP turn on/off signature files	Provide ui, which allows to exclude and add the signature files from include path.

Refactoring

Priority	Task	Notes
P2	Extract Method	It's highly requested feature, see issue #183807

Frameworks

Priority	Task	Notes
P3	Provide a possibility to add simple code completion for a PHP framework	This feature should allow to simply define an items for code completion though an simple configuration file. See issue #182655(16 votes)
P3	Support Yii framework	issue 181301 (244 votes)

Debugger

Priority	Task	Notes
P2	Zend Debugger support	issue #168275 (19 votes)