February 21, 2010
When I started the work on xCoder 2010 back in August 2009, I had no idea what the name would be. I didn't exactly call my project "xCoder" internally, but I did have another codename for it. I wasn't really sure what direction I should go, but I already had some ideas that I knew I wanted to do no matter what, so I started with those. The big question, put in my mind by several customers, was whether to combine phpCoder and WebCoder or keep them as separate products, and if they should be combined, which name should be used? With the feedback from the xCoder 2010 forum, as well as feedback obtained from a range of trusted customers, I slowly made the decision: I wanted one application with the best from both worlds, mainly because people seemed to be bothered by the fact that they had to choose between two applications. My initial idea was to use a brand new name for this merged application, but I'm simply to fond of the WebCoder name to let it go. In other words, xCoder 2010 will be TSW WebCoder 2010, with the very best from phpCoder 2008 and WebCoder 2009 and a range of new stuff as well! I think this is what people want, and the more I think of it, it's what I want as a webdeveloper too.
This has all been very theoretic, but I promise that in my next post, I will start to show you some of the new goodies from WebCoder 2010. Stay tuned :)
February 16, 2010
The xCoder process has already been long. I asked for your input a couple of months ago, but I had actually done quite a bit of work before that as well. Instead of doing long stretches of work on the application and then releasing it as beta, I have done it differently this time. I have spent shorter periods of time developing the application, and in between those, I have used it extensively for various web projects and written down all the bugs I found and the ideas I came up with. This led to a pretty big TODO list of both small and bigger items, and each time I implemented a bunch of the changes, I came up with even more stuff that I wanted to do. This has been going on since August 2009 where I first stated the xCoder project, and since the new version is built on top of WebCoder 2009 code, the entire time has been used to add new features and perhaps more importantly: improve the old ones. Today, my TODO list has surpassed 200 changes, and most of them has already been implemented! Hopefully this will bring you the best web editor ever, and I'm already very excited to show it to you.
In the following weeks, I will tell you much more about this new application, which brings lots of positive changes to the world. In the meantime, while we wait for the beta, I urge you to participate in the xCoder 2010 forum. Let me know what you would like to see improved or added, so we can get it in there before the first beta version. As you can see, lots of users have already provided their feedback, and several requests have already been fulfilled. Thank you and stay tuned! :)
November 17, 2009
Hello all,
As this blog clearly shows, things have been a bit quiet here at TSW. Not the company in general, I have been as busy as usual, but for several months after the release of WebCoder 2009, I was occupied by other projects than the software. Finishing up WebCoder 2009 and releasing it took a lot of effort, and I really needed some time away from it afterwards. During that time, I thought a lot about the future of both WebCoder and phpCoder though, and wrote down every idea I got.
By now, I have a huge list of small and big ideas that I want to do for the next version, but the really big question is: What will the next version be? phpCoder 2010? WebCoder 2010? CombinedCoder 2010? I have thought a lot about this, after receiving much feedback from you, dear users, but now I think it's time that we take a discussion together, all of us. To separate it from previous discussions, I have created a brand new forum for this single purpose, with the mysterious name xCoder 2010.
What I really want is all of your opinions on where we should take these pieces of software and how we will make them even better. I would like to know which version you currently use, which version you prefer, what your favorite features are, and what you currently long for. In other words: Throw in all your thoughts and ideas, as structured as possible, and I will try to combine them and integrate it all into my current TODO list. I want everything, from minor annoyances to big feature requests. Obviously, I can't fulfill all of your wishes, but this is your best bet to influence the next version, so start posting! I will take part in the discussions, but I may hold back in the beginning, to make sure that as many people as possible have a chance to be heard, before I meddle :). I'm looking forward to hearing all of your opinions, so be sure to post in the xCoder 2010 forum now! Thank you :)
February 9, 2009
I'm happy to announce a new maintenance release for TSW phpCoder 2008. It comes with the following changes:
- A minor bug related to scripts and encoding were fixed.
- A couple of small PHP Tidy related bugs were fixed.
- If no text is selected and you start a standard Search or Search & Replace operation, the current word will be suggested as the search phrase.
- Access to the Shell context menu is now possible for both files and folders on the Projects tab, by holding down the Ctrl key when right clicking on a node.
- Code for communicating with TSW WebCoder 2009 was implemented. This will allow users of both applications to share projects and work on the same files with both editors at the same time. More information can be found here.
- Projects with a non-existing root path could not be updated. This should be fixed now.
- You can now define a specific encoding to use when loading and saving files from a specific project.
- The selected project database would not be shown when editing the properties of a project.
- Made sure that FTP/Web mapped URL's will get the refresh parameter too, to prevent a cached version of the file to be shown.
To upgrade, simply go to the phpCoder product page and download the application. Install it on top of the previous version, that should cause no problems. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.
July 18, 2008
I'm happy to announce the release of version 1.03 of TSW phpCoder 2008. It comes with a new feature called test mappings:
Test mappings allow you to test one or several files using another URL than the standard, servermapped version. This is especially useful in these cases:
- When you're using URL rewriting and wish to call the re-written URL instead of the actual file
- When you wish to always test a file (or several files) with a set of parameters
- When you wish to debug include files - you can simply call the file that includes it instead of the actual file
Test mappings can be defined on projects, and they support wildcards, which allows you to map e.g. a whole directory of files to a specific URL. A specific toolbar button has been added to the preview toolbar, allowing you to manage test mappings for the active project, if any. Feedback on this new piece of functionality would be much appreciated.
Besides that, TSW phpCoder 2008 version 1.03 comes with the following changes:
- Notices from PHP during debugging will now be handled differently - instead of halting the execution, phpCoder will try to continue and the notice messages will be shown in the application statusbar
- The search/replace dialog was always visible when active, even if phpCoder had been minimized
- Better handling of &$parameters in function parameters
- Better support for constants in IntelliSense and other IntelliSense related improvements
- Fixed a problem with some characters in the error reporting tool introduced in the previous version
To upgrade, simply go to the phpCoder product page and download the application. Install it on top of the previous version, that should cause no problems. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.
June 25, 2008
My good friend Jeff Sabarese just sent me this nifty phpCoder 2008 button. If you feel like linking to phpCoder, and I really hope that you do, this button might make it cooler :)
You can insert it like this:
<a href="http://www.tsware.net/phpcoder.php" title="TSW phpCoder - Advanced PHP IDE"><img src="http://www.tsware.net/images/madewith/phpcoder2008.png" alt="TSW phpCoder - Advanced PHP IDE" style="border: 0" /></a>
June 14, 2008
I'm happy to announce the release of version 1.02 of TSW phpCoder 2008. It comes with the following changes:
- AutoProposal lists can now be confirmed with the Tab key as well
- Project based include directories can now be recursive, to allow for automatic inclusions of subfolders and thereby files
- A bug, which caused the debug interface to not be changed under certain conditions, was fixed
- A couple of minor PHP Tidy bugs were fixed
- HTML end tags will now be completed with the correct casing, according to the HTML tag settings
- Updates through the database result window would cause an exception if the user didn't have the required rights - a nicer message has been implemented
Besides that, a new error handling mechanism has been implemented. It will pop up instead of the old messagebox, when an unexpected error occurs, and besides looking better, it allows you to see more details about the problem, and even better: Submit them to us with a single click on the mouse. Hopefully this will give me a better overview of which problems still exist, allowing me to fix them faster and better :)
To upgrade, simply go to the phpCoder product page and download the application. Install it on top of the previous version, that should cause no problems. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.
June 2, 2008
I'm happy to announce the release of version 1.01 of TSW phpCoder 2008. It comes with the following changes:
- Several IntelliSense bugs were fixed
- Better support for the Ctrl+Space shortcut, in various PHP code contexts
- Minor PHP Tidy fixes
- A small bug where an extra / character would be used in a servermapped URL has been fixed
- The address field of the old style interface has been made more flexible, so that it automatically adjusts its size to better use up free space
- Added support for basic clipboard (Cut, Copy & Paste), Undo/redo and Select all shortcuts in IE preview (Mozilla preview does not seem to allow it)
- The font color of the PHP reference listview could get a bit hard to read with certain Windows color schemes
- Find references can now be used on a selected identifier as well
- The Save As dialog now uses path and filename from existing file, if possible
- An extra setting for controlling the PHP AutoProposal list was added, to differ between automatically showing for variables, class members etc. and for identifiers (when you start typing a word). You can turn the last one off, if the AutoProposal list is causing slow typing in phpCoder on your computer
- A bug where the FTP port number would not be displayed correctly in the FTP server dialog was fixed
Besides that, a new option will be added to the Start menu, allowing you to easily manage the settings for TSW phpCoder, without starting the application. This allows you to reset layout, reset all settings, access the various folders and even make a backup of your settings folder.
To upgrade, simply go to the phpCoder product page and download the application. Install it on top of the previous version, that should cause no problems. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us.
April 28, 2008
I'm very happy to announce the final version of TSW phpCoder 2008. It can be downloaded from the product page, where I've tried to collect a bunch of cool videos and screenshots, for your viewing pleasure. Go download the trial version of it and I hope you'll all like it :). For those of you who haven't yet seen TSW phpCoder in action, here are the top list of reasons to give it a try as soon as possible:
Go get it now!
A big thank you goes out to all the betatesters, who have been hunting bugs like crazy for the last 3 months. 3 months, where you guys started almost 300 threads in the beta forum, and where we all submitted almost 1.500 posts in total. Very impressive, guys! I promised to give away 5 commercial licenses for phpCoder 2008, and while you all did a terrific job, I feel that these 5 persons deserves it the most (in no particular order, listed with their forum names):
- amews_aj
- Mobleman
- BlackYell
- iosoftgame
- redndahead
Send me an e-mail through the contact form of this site, and I will make sure that you get your free license. Thank you, betatesters :)
Special note to people with a beta version installed: Unless you allow phpCoder to overwrite your previous settings, you may be missing out on certain fixes, since each beta release usually comes with slightly modified data files, to fix issues where these files are involved.
April 21, 2008
Final beta 6 has now been released. Only very few bugs were found in FB5, so we are definitely getting very close to the final release. Let's find the last bugs now! As mentioned, I will be giving away free commercial licenses to the 5 most active betatesters at the end of the test, so get busy :)
Download TSW phpCoder 2008 final beta 6 - please provide feedback in the beta forum
Special note to people with a previous beta version installed: Unless you allow phpCoder to overwrite your previous settings, you may be missing out on certain fixes, since each beta release usually comes with slightly modified data files, to fix issues where these files are involved.
