NetBeans is a powerful free and Open Source IDE, which you can use for almost any language. We will use this IDE throughout this book. You can have a look why should we use it at http://netbeans.org/switch/why.html.
Get your copy of NetBeans from http://netbeans.org/downloads/index.html and install it. Make sure that you have installed the right download bundle, which is either PHP or All.
Now you should have everything ready and set up to create a Magento project in NetBeans.
Start NetBeans. When the IDE comes up, create a new PHP project (File | New Project | PHP | PHP Application with Existing Sources; PHP Application from Remote Server). Note that we chose the second one, that is, PHP Application with Existing Sources, as we have the Magento source code already at hand.
Then click Next.
In the Sources Folder field, enter or select the directory where you previously exported the Magento sources (
/var/www/magento.local.com
).Next, choose the Project Name (
magento
).Then click Next. The Run Configuration dialog will appear.
In the Run Configuration step, select Local Web Site(running on local web server) in the Run As field.
Enter the URL to open the main Magento page in the browser (
http://magento.local.com/
).Click the Finish button now to complete the project setup. Now you should have got something like this:
With the NetBeans IDE for PHP, you get the best of both worlds: the productivity of an IDE (code completion, real-time error checking, debugging, and more) with the speed and simplicity of your favorite text editor in a less than 30 MB download.
Upon completion of project setup, NetBeans will open Magento project files and scan the files for debugging information and Subversion history. This could take some time.