Book Image

PHP Application Development with NetBeans: Beginner's Guide

By : M A Hossain Tonu
Book Image

PHP Application Development with NetBeans: Beginner's Guide

By: M A Hossain Tonu

Overview of this book

<p>NetBeans has many features that greatly simplify PHP development, and with its several features and great flexibility, PHP developers can become overwhelmed by the IDE's options. This book provides step-by-step instructions that show you how to take control of the environment and make use of these features to make your PHP application development more efficient and productive than ever before.<br /><br />"PHP Application Development with NetBeans: Beginner's Guide" leads you through the crucial parts of PHP programming and shows you how to use the features of NetBeans that will improve your PHP development experience, through clear and easy instructions.<br /><br />The book gets you started with the development environment and tools, and takes you through working on practical projects with a clear focus. With each chapter being mission-critical, the book is a perfect companion to boost your PHP coding productivity and gain experience with even complex projects.<br /><br />The book starts with setting up the PHP development environment and introduces exciting and useful IDE features. You'll learn how to build real life PHP projects such as Facebook like Status Updater and even User Registration, Login &amp; Logout application. Also the book will introduce you with some must know development tools such as debugging &amp; testing tools, source documenter tools, and versioning tools.<br /><br />Working with the NetBeans IDE for PHP development has its own advantages, and this book reassures the purpose. This book is full of illustrations, screenshots, and clear instructions to take your PHP development to a new level and even shows you time-saving tricks and other productivity enhancements.</p>
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
PHP Application Development with NetBeans Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Time for action — installing NetBeans step by step


In this section, we will install the NetBeans IDE step by step, for Windows OS—that is, Windows 7. In order to install the software, you need to run the installer and proceed with the followings steps:

  1. 1. Run or execute the installer. The first step will look similar to the following screenshot:

  2. 2. By clicking on the Next button, you will be asked to accept the license agreement:

  3. 3. The next step will ask you for the installation location for NetBeans and the JRE, with some default program file path:

    Note that JRE is the Java software for your computer, or the Java Runtime Environment, which is also referred to as the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). JRE will be installed as well.

  4. 4. Set the installation folder using the file browser, and click on the Next button. The next screenshot shows the total installation size:

  5. 5. If everything is set, start the installation by clicking on the Install button, which will start the installation process.

  6. 6. After everything is installed correctly, you will see the finish wizard, as shown in the following screenshot:

  7. 7. You may check or uncheck the Contribute to the NetBeans project by providing anonymous usage data checkbox, as per your wish to participate or not. Note that it will send project-specific usage data to netbeans.org, so read the on-screen instructions carefully before checking it. Complete the installation by clicking on the Finish button. Now, go to your OS's Program menu or into the directory where you have installed the IDE to be run. The IDE initializes with a splash screen, as shown below:

  8. 8. Finally, the running IDE looks similar to the following screenshot:

What just happened?

Now that we have the IDE up and running, we can go on to explore setting up the development environment with various operating systems.

In the next section, we will configure our PHP development environment on various operating systems. We will use the latest Apache-MySQL-PHP package installer, that is LAMP, XAMPP, and MAMP, for corresponding operating systems.

Adding PHP as a plugin to an already existing NetBeans installation

If you want to add functionality to your NetBeans IDE configuration, use the NetBeans Plugin Manager. For example, assume that you have already been running the NetBeans IDE for the Java or C/C++ pack. You then decide that you want to try out the PHP functionality. To do this, go to the NetBeans Plugin Manager from the IDE (choose Tools | Plugins), and add the PHP pack to your existing installation.

Multiple installation support

Multiple installations of NetBeans IDE 5.x, 6.x, and 7.x can coexist with the latest version on the same system. You do not have to uninstall the earlier versions in order to install or run the latest one.

If you have an earlier installation of the NetBeans IDE, you can choose whether or not to import the user settings from the existing user directory when you run the latest IDE for the first time.

Have a go hero — adding or removing features from NetBeans

So, you have NetBeans up and running on your computer. Now, add more features or remove unnecessary features, to or from your installed NetBeans, and check the newly added feature(s) inside the IDE. You may try the plugin manager to do this.