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24 Replies Last post: Feb 22, 2013 7:40 AM by Jeff Simon  
Jeff Simon Newbie 34 posts since
Nov 18, 2012
Currently Being Moderated

Feb 4, 2013 6:46 PM

Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

Before posting about the issues, I will say that I generally like PHPStorm and am delighted by many of its features.

 

The following is a list of issues that I have discovered, in more or less the order which I found them. Some a really minor; others practically show stoppers. Some might be caused by my lack of familiarity with the product. Some have even been opening the your bug tracker. But I am submitting them now in the hope that they will help the developers.

 

1. Help System is hard to use. The topics are not arranged in nice logical fashion. They are jumbled together. Might be nice to read as a book, but terrible for looking things up. Using Search function gives 100's of unrelated items. You must have taken inspiration from the search tool in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. I normally flounder about, finding items which are vaguely related to what I am looking for.

 

Some examples of things I wanted to get help on that did not succeed:

- diff tool: says "this tool is displayed every time you …" But I still have no idea how to invoke it. I don't know what it means to do any of those things

 

2. Many built-in features remain unusable to me.

-  SVN kind of works, but trying to use merge is a complete fiacso, giving me various inscrutable errors. TSVN "just works". Or trying to commit results in "no differences."

- built-in diff tool: see above

 

3. in db result pane, cannot easily view wide column contents. Workaround: copy to clipboard; paste into textedit

 

4. When debug session starts have to manually click to Debugger window. It defaults to Console.

 

5. Many keystroke assignments do not work. I have my Mac set to use standard function keys. But F9 for example does not resume the program. Instead it does mission control stuff. Sometimes adding Opt makes it work; other times not.

 

6. Preferences: Project Settings and IDE Settings: while this makes sense to a certain degree, for me it is a mystery where to find anytning. In my mind, to use this taxonomy, you have to first decide "project" or "ide". But there is no way to make that decison. I don't know which it is. So I just flounder through both. And know from experience that this will not improve over time. Therefore having to first decide "project" or "ide" is futile. So I just flounder.

 

7. After a find operation, when clicking on a found location, the window is often not position accurately, but rather a bit away from the location. Sometimes clicking a second time then positions it exactly as it should have the first time.

 

8. Trying to set up a bookmarklet to start debug fails. The code generates the following:

 

javascript:(/** @version 0.5.2 */function() {document.cookie='XDEBUG_SESSION='+'PHPSTORM'+';path=/;';document.location.reload();document.cookie='XDEBUG_SESSION='+''+';expires=Mon, 05 Jul 2000 00:00:00 GMT;path=/;';})()

 

9. In debugger, when looking at variable values, if it is a long value there is a "click to view entire value". But that overlaps the Watches window, and when you try to point at it, that part gets hidden by the Watches window. You have to make the Watches window narrow to enable clicking on that link.

 

10. After debugging, it is very difficult to get the debugging stopped. What I generally do is turn off "listening" and click on the red stop block until it is no longer red. Sometimes quitting the browser helps. Sometimes not. Any time I go to the development site, it starts up the debugger again.

 

11. When searching, it continually defaults to "Directory". I would like it to default to "last used", or at minimum to "whole project".

 

12. Certain files, perhaps with certain heredocs (but only send-mail-inc.php so far) behave erratically. A ticket has been opened for this.

 

13. Certain keystroke sequences do not work:

- ctrl-arrow to move to different tab

 

14. regex replacement strings \$ for literal dollar sign does not work; must use \\$. In the past various tools I have used work with either $ or \$ in the replacement string. Not sure why \\$ is felt to be the way to handle this.

 

15. Documentation often out-of-date. For example, http://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/webhelp/project-and-ide-settings.html gives .WebIdeXX (note leading period) as the location of caches, etc. On my system, the leading period was missing and the directory was WebIde50.

Maxim Makhankov JetBrains 61 posts since
May 31, 2012
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 5, 2013 1:52 PM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

Hello, Jeff.

Thank you for the feedback!

It's a bit hard to understand all mentioned issues because of incomplete description. Don't you mind to continue discussions for some issues in our tracker (in a separate ticket per every problem)?

 

1. I agree and created a ticket in our tracker: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-16515. Please, vote for this issue.

As for the problems with diff tool, what is your workflow, the difference between files under version control or the difference between local and remote files?

 

2, 3, 7, 8. Could you please file a new issue per every problem?

Use the following form, please:

 

  • What steps will reproduce the problem?
  • What is the expected result?
  • What happens instead?
  • Any additional information is welcome: build version, operating system, screenshots, etc.

 

4. Please, right-click on the Console tab and uncheck "Focus on startup". See the ticket: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-7657

 

5 & 13. What is the build version of PhpStorm you're using? Would you please try the latest EAP build and "Mac OS X 10.5+" keymap (Settings | Keymap)?

 

6. It's much more convenient to use the search field in the Settings. As you can see the IDE is very customizable. So the search in Settings is the best way to find preferred settings quickly.

Untitled.png

9. Do you mean this: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-14452 ?

 

10. http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-8002 ?

 

11. Could you please file a new issue?

PhpStorm 5.0.4 and EAP # 126.92 defaults me to the whole project.

 

14. This is: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-83769. Feel free to vote for the ticket.

 

15. Please, vote for the issue: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-16514

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 5, 2013 2:35 PM in response to: Maxim Makhankov
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

10. Rather http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-10447 ; http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-3815 , since it is web debug, not CLI mode.

 

Debug cookies are still there -- you have to use "Stop Debugging" bookmarklet to properly stop it .. or remove xdebug cookie manually (e.g. using FireBug in Firefox or similar tool in your browser).

 

5 & 13. In v6 "Mac OS X 10.5 +" will be default one (for new installations): http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-13522

 

9. Possibly this one: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-6423

 

11. http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-87037 ? There are more that this ticket for sure (I do remember at least one), but they were closed as "works as expected" or something (don't remember). As far as I remember the logic was -- IDE decides what option/scope to choose based on your actions that you have made on previous search results. Could be completely wrong, though.

Maxim Makhankov JetBrains 61 posts since
May 31, 2012
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 5, 2013 2:58 PM in response to: Andriy Bazanov
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

11. http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-87037 ? There are more that this ticket for sure (I do remember at least one), but they were closed as "works as expected" or something (don't remember). As far as I remember the logic was -- IDE decides what option/scope to choose based on your actions that you have made on previous search results. Could be completely wrong, though.

 

Andriy, thanks!

Yep, the logical is the behaviour you described, but for me the "Whole project" is default for now (since PhpStorm 5.0.4), while the "Find in Path" window remembers my last choice if it was "Scope" and doesn't remember if it was "Directory".

I asked Andrey in the tracker to clear the situation about this request.

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 8, 2013 2:47 PM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

Hi Jeff,

 

4. You were given the answer in original response -- such setting already present.

 

5. If it is about wrong keymap then it does not depend on PhpStorm version -- just choose another keymap at "Settings | Keymap" or setup your own keys (the same settings page). If it is about "OS intercepting certain keys" -- well, you will have to use another key either in PhpStorm or Mac OS (same applies to Linux and even Windows, when some program that uses global hot keys can intercept them before they reach actual program -- that's the idea of "global hot keys").

 

8. I've commented there: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-16598

 

11. Extremely likely this new ticket will be marked as duplicate of existing http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-87037

 

13. So what it does instead?

 

15. I strongly believe the same. Changes should be visible when v6 will be released (but hopefully they can publish it early as it applies to v5 as well).

Created by Maxim Makhankov
3 days ago (04 Feb 2013 15:37)

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 14, 2013 5:22 AM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

13. Try Cmd+Shift+]  / Cmd+Shift+[

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 14, 2013 1:46 PM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

Well .. that shortcut was mentioned in this recent blog post, so I assume it should work: http://blog.jetbrains.com/webide/2013/02/navigating-between-files-in-the-ide-best-practices/

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 14, 2013 10:57 PM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

Yes, that's what it does on Linux/Windows.

 

Have a look at this comment -- maybe you have different keymap selected? -- http://blog.jetbrains.com/webide/2013/02/navigating-between-files-in-the-ide-best-practices/#comment-29162

 

I have no Mac to check this out -- maybe you have to disable those shortcuts in your OS for them to work in PhpStorm -- don't know. I think -- I do not see any major complains about this combination not working from other people, so it is either specific to your setup .. or other people just reconfigure OS (or IDE) to use different shortcuts.

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 15, 2013 2:43 PM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm
I might have tried to add a keystroke, so I guess that's why it made a copy.

Correct -- you cannot make changes to bundled keymap -- IDE will make a copy  which you can edit.

 

The selected keymap is OS X Copy.

I think this is the problem. For modern Mac OS you should be using "Mac OS X 10.5 +" keymap instead.

 

I thought I might have added a keystroke for Subversion Commit. But I cannot find where the keystoke is added.

Use search functionality (on that search page on the right) -- you can search by assigned keystroke as well

screen01.png

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 16, 2013 3:46 AM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm
Perhaps it should default to the newer keymap, as 10.5 is really old now.

It is already "fixed" for v6 -- see my first comment:

5 & 13. In v6 "Mac OS X 10.5 +" will be default one (for new installations): http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/WI-13522

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 15, 2013 5:10 AM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm

Possibly because of soft wraps. Try turning them off and check if this will help.

Andriy Bazanov Master 2,623 posts since
May 28, 2010
Currently Being Moderated
Feb 16, 2013 1:55 PM in response to: Jeff Simon
Re: Various issues found during evaluation of PHPStorm
And where do I find that setting?
  • View | Active Editor | Use Soft Wraps -- for current file only
  • Preferences | Editor | Use soft wraps in editor -- to set the default behaviour for all files

 

By the way, any time anyone suggests "change setting X", it would be _vastly_ superior to rather say, "change setting Code Style > PHP > Wrapping and Braces > Soft Wraps".

Sure. Let me introduce to Help | Find Action -- it can find any action or settings from one  place and allows you to use it directly from there or will take you to  the correct settings page.

 

Since you are still new to PhpStorm and still learning it .. I would suggest checking the blog -- it has quite a few articles dedicated to a specific subject. Many people that use this IDE for a long time very often find feature or two that they were unaware of .. or simply did not used at all.

 

Since it is a blog, such articles mixed with other news/posts (like EAP build announcements etc), so it will take a bit of time to go trough to find interesting for you article. They are working on a proper tutorials/how-tos page, so hopefully this situation will change soon.

 

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