• BBEdit / TextWrangler
• Coda
• XCode
• Dreamweaver
• skEdit
• WebScripter
• Eclipse / PHPEclipse
• TextMate
• Aptana Studio
• jEdit
• SubEthaEdit
• TacoHTMLEdit
• Smultron

• 
• Name: BBEdit (V9)
• Company: Bare Bones Software
• http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/
• Price: USD 129

BBEdit is just too expensive. 129 bucks for an editor is pretty heavy, although it features autocompletion, suggests variables while typing, but it doesn’t recognize self written funtions and classes. In combination with that price tag not the best choice.
TextWrangler is BBEdit’s little brother, freeware and does not feature autocompletion, function suggestion, but highlights PHP functions.

• 
• Name: Coda (V1.5)
• Company: Panic
• http://www.panic.com/coda/
• Price: USD 99

Not as pricy as BBEdit, Coda seems to be real good alternative. Autocompletion, but doesn’t suggest variables, especially not global ones like $_POST or $_SESSION.

• 
• Name: XCode (V3.1)
• Company: Apple
• http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/
• Price: Freeware

XCode is actual an Objective C IDE, designed for creating Mac OS X apps, and therefore unsuitable for programming in PHP, no autocompletion, no nothing – by default. XCode can in fact be modified to understand PHP, but I want a native solution.

• 
• Dreamweaver (CS3)
• Company: Adobe
• http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver/
• Price: USD 399

Dreamweaver, in my opinion, is more a tool to create HTML than anything else. Although it features a good PHP IDE, it feels overloaded and bloated with features no mortal will ever use and in combination with a pricetag of 400 bucks not the best choice either.

• 
• skEdit (V4.1.1)
• Company: skti
• http://www.skti.org/skedit/
• Price: USD 34.95

skEdit is a lightweight editor for many languages, features autocompletion, suggests self written functions, and everything else you could possibly want from an IDE, seems like a good choice.

• 
• WebScripter (V2.0.2)
• Company: WebScripter
• http://www.web-scripter.com/
• Price: USD 39

WebScripter looks and feels like BBEdit, with half the price.

• 
• Eclipse (V3.4)
• Company: Eclipse Foundation
• http://www.eclipse.org/
• Price: Freeware

I used to work with Eclipse back in 2004, and it features everything from autocompletion to SVN checkout, the lot. Eclipse is anything else than lightweight, and can’t handle PHP proper by default, so you’ll need the plugin PHPEclipse, which is also freeware. Not a lightweight IDE, but the all-in-one device suitable for all purposes.

• 
• TextMate (V1.5.7)
• Company: Macromates
• http://macromates.com/
• Price: USD 39

TextMate is featherlight editor, speaks a lot of languages, and features autocompletion.

• 
• Aptana Studio (V1.1)
• Company: Aptana
• http://www.aptana.com/studio
• Price: Freeware (USD 99 for the professional version)

Aptana Studio starts with a slow download, continues with a slow Installation and an starts even slower. It doesn’t recognize PHP by default, but Aptana has a plugin ready for you. not the best choice.

• 
• jEdit (V4.3)
• Company: jEdit
• http://www.jedit.org/
• Price: Freeware

jEdit is a Java application, looks like one and feels not made for Mac. Features a lot of functions but no autocompletion.

• 
• SubEthaEdit (V3.1)
• Company: Coding Monkeys
• http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit/
• Price: USD 29

SubEthaEdit is a good editor for many languages, features online collaborating with others, misses autocompletion.

• 
• TacoHTMLEdit (V2.0.0)
• Taco Software
• http://tacosw.com/
• Price: USD 24.95

TacoHTMLEdit is a neat editor, features autocompletion, was freeware and now costs 25 bucks.

• 
• Smultron
• Company: Peter Borg
• http://smultron.sourceforge.net/
• Price: Freeware

Smultron is a better TextWrangler, features autocompletion, suggests variables (globals too), good choice.

So many editors and I tried to test them all. And it seems that there is only one freeware editor that features autocompletion, is lightweight and high-performance, and its name is Smultron!

And to get that PDF file in Firefox, Safari and whatosever it is sufficient to output two header directives:

<?php
// $pdfcode is some pdf file
header(‘Content-type: application/pdf’);
header(‘Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=filename.pdf’);
echo $pdfcode
?>

In IE7 you need to do more than that to recieve the same result:

<?php
// $pdfcode is some pdf file
header(“Cache-Control: public”);
header(“Content-Description: File Transfer”);
header(‘Content-Type: application/pdf’);
header(‘Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=filename.pdf’);
header(“Content-Type: application/pdf”);
header(“Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary”);
echo $pdfcode
?>

Hope this helps anyone!

Autographing session in a bookstore near you soon

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare get_user_ipaddress() (previously declared in /var/www/web169/html/wp-content/plugins/wp-onlinecounter.php:94) in /var/www/web169/html/wp-content/plugins/wp-onlinecounter.php on line 93

I found a quick and dirty workaround for that issue:

1. Open wp-onlinecounter.php in your plugins folder
2. Find the following line of code
   function get_user_ipaddress() {
3. Add the following before
   if(!function_exists(get_useripaddress()) {
4. Close the if-statement right after the closing brackets of get_useripadress()

Should look like this:

if(!function_exists(get_user_ipaddress)) {
function get_user_ipaddress() {
if(empty($_SERVER["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"])) {
$ip_address = $_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"];
}else{
$ip_address = $_SERVER["HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR"];
}
if(strpos($ip_address, ',') !== false) {
$ip_address = explode(',', $ip_address);
$ip_address = $ip_address[0];
}
return $ip_address;
}
}