I blogged a while back about trying out komodo 4.0, the development IDE from ActiveState. In the end, to be honest, I just couldn't really get into it. One of my biggest reasons for not sticking with it was performance: it's tough to learn a new app if it's routinely slow and unresponsive. However, JeffG pointed out in a comment that Komodo worked much better on Intel Macs than PPC. So, I thought I'd give it a whirl on the new macbook pro.
The difference in performance is amazing. I can actually use this tool now as it was meant to be used! With apologies to Sacha and all the emacs people, I've been using Komodo IDE for all of my Drupal development for the past 2 weeks and I like it. I know it's some sort of lost geek cred, but function name completion (not just for PHP functions, but Drupal internal functions as well!), integrated debugging and all that stuff really can make your life easier when it's working well.
But, naturally, wouldn't be a blog post if I didn't have a gripe or two - although these ones are minimal. So dear lazyweb:
I love the 'open/find toolbar' - but I can't for the life of me find a keyboard shortcut to focus the open file box there. (i.e. ctrl-i works for the find part, but what's the equivalent for the "open" box?). The one adjustment in moving from emacs is actually having to use a mouse. :(
The other one I actually asked in the support forum (which runs drupal, of course), but the issue is for all of my client work I have drupal checkouts from CVS managed in subversion repositories. I actually, in these cases, would like Komodo to ignore the CVS meta-files and treat the project as using SVN. Any hints?
Anyway, Shane, Jeff and the whole Komodo crew: I just might be a convert. Congrats on your great work :)
Open/find toolbar shortcuts
You can use the access keys to focus on the open or find textbox in the toolbar. On a mac, access keys do not get shown on the UI, but on a Windows and Unix machine, if the UI label contains an underlined character, then that is the access key.
On the Mac the access keys are driven using the Ctrl key:
Ctrl-N => Open textbox
Ctrl-I => Find textbox
On Windows/Linux they are driven by the Alt key:
Alt-N => Open textbox
Alt-I => Find textbox
Cheers,
Todd
Thanks Todd!
I knew there had to be one :) I'd skimmed through the keybinding editor but didn't see it right away.. but thats exactly what i was looking for. Rock!
Mini Drupal-KomodoIDE tutorial?
Hi,
It would be great if you could put together a "mini" tutorial for setting up a very basic Drupal project with Komodo IDE to cover basic developement-deployment-debugging tasks.
What other alternatives for the developement-deployment-debugging (local) activities (i.e. other developemtn tools) would you recommend trying?
Thank you.
2nd that!
I would also love to learn how a developer's workflow happens while coding modules, as I'm planning on starting my own sometime soon!
Thanks
;)
It's just simple
It's just simple organizational skills. You'll get the hang of it!
Performance
I tried Komodo recently as well on their trial period. The main issue I have is that I use Zend Studio at work, and there's just no comparison. :-) Zend's completion is a lot more reliable IME, and I far prefer its project management. Also, on the same Athlon 2100+ Linux computer Komodo was dog slow while Zend Studio, which is written in Java, is nice and speedy. And both cost about the same.
That said, Komodo is the only other program I've gotten real time PHP debugging working with, which is one of the best things you can do for yourself to improve your productivity.
Right now I'm still using the Zend Studio demo at home, and trying to talk myself out of spending the money on it. :-)
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