Netbeans 6.8 got released today, from the PHP-Perspective Netbeans 6.8 now Supports PHP 5.3 and has Integration for the Symfony Framework, Code-Completion seems to be a lot faster and more.

Complete list for PHP-Part

• PHP 5.3 support including(syntax highlighting, code completion, code folding, navigator)
• Symfony Framework support
• PHPUnit improvements
• FTP/SFTP improvements
• Ignored Folders in PHP projects
• PHP Application from Remote Server
• PHP syntax coloring in YAML files

Complete List for Java and other languages: New and Noteworthy Netbeans 6.8

There too exists a Netbeans Promotion Video on the Sun Channel Homepage and a Symfony Support Screencast on the Netbeans PHP Blog.

Doctrine 1.2.1 was released some hours ago, it contains some bugfixes:

• [r6834] Fixing issue with relationship ordering
• [r6835] Fixes issue with oracle adapter statement using wrong constant
• [r6836] Fixing issue with sfYaml autoload not returning true
• [r6839] Fixes issue with array cache driver and deleting
• [r6840] Fixed thrown Exceptions to be package-level
• [r6842] Fixes issue with $length in migrations addColumn
• [r6859] Fixed misplaced param when parsing join condition
• [r6883] Added empty init() method implementation to avoid method does not exist error
• [r6889] Fixing issue with nested set createRoot() method and string root column
• [r6893] Adding _cleanup() call to start of migrations diff to make sure directory is clean

Full Changelog: Change Log Doctrine 1.2.1
Download: Download Doctrine 1.2.1.

Some default settings I use in Netbeans:

Hiding and Showing specific Files

Because I want to see my .htaccess-Files in the Project-View, dont want to see the .git-directory but want to see .gitignore for example I change the Patter used to hide files in the Projects-View.

Tools -> Options -> Miscellaneous -> Files -> Files Ignored by the IDE -> Ignored Files Pattern

 ^(CVS|SCCS|vssver.?\.scc|#.*#|%.*%|_svn)$|~$

Twilight Theme (Dark Theme) for Netbeans

Since I prefer dark themes for my OS and my tools, I am using the Twilight-Theme for Netbeans.
Only the default-font I change back to Monospaced.

Tools -> Options -> Import -> Netbeans_Twilight_Theme.zip
Restart Netbeans and go to

When choosing a dark theme for your operating system, the biggest problem often is to find one which plays nice with all programs and tools and the OS itself. Big problem are often, that Tools use black text on black or dark background which is in most cases unreadable and forces you to select texts to read them (if possible and marked text has a better contrast). Another problem you have to face is that the text-color and background-color of select elements match, which again results in unreadable text. Marked text can get unreadable too if the marked color matches the color of marked text ...
Something really annoying when using dark themes is that some tools don't use all colors from the theme, for example force white backgrounds for text-based stuff, but that's something you can't really change when it is hardcoded in Programs or you have to look if they offer extra options for their color.

One thing you will propably start to notice when browsing the web, that browsers like Firefox use the the systems background-as default-css-background-color for webpages and form-elements instead of white and that means some webpages (which forget to set a background-color for html/body) will have the background-color of your theme instead of white. That can look really strange and sometimes really sucks on Forms if you can't even read what you have written.

On Linux/Gnome I used the Clearlooks Darklime Theme for a long time, it propably is more a semi-dark-theme than a dark theme, but it is nice and didn't have any glitches that disturbed me. I already used it for GTK-Applications (like Pidgin) under Windows XP more than a Year ago and i was happy with it. Currently I am using the Murrina LimeLight Theme, which is darker but also features green.

Looking for some other dark Themes for Gnome ? Try 20 beautiful dark themes for Gnome and Ubuntu on Cats who Code

The Netbeans PHP Team is currently looking for new features for the next Release of Netbeans

Looking at the posts Planning Features for Netbeans next, Planning Features for Netbeans next ... Continuation I and Planning Features for Netbeans next ... Continuation II on the Netbeans PHP-Team-Blog shows some interesting ideas like integration of optimizers for css/js (minifying/compression). There are already over 60 comments to the 3 threads.

I would be really happy if there would an Integration for the Zend Framework like it exists for Symfony already, the issue for Zend Framework-integration currently has more than 100 votes.

Other features I am waiting for which are not really PHP-features are the integration of my prefered VCS GIT and a better integration for removing trailing spaces. Like I have written in a Comment to Remove Trailing Spaces I am currently using an ANT-Task which uses the unix-command sed to remove all trailing spaces from my php-Files, but that's only a workaround, no solution.

So if you have any other good ideas from which the PHP-Developers unsing Netbeans would profit -> tell them!

Doctrine 1.2 stable was released yesterday.

It is a LTS-Release (Long Time Support-Release) which will be supported for 18 month until 06/01/2011.

An overview of the new features can be found here.

Grab your copy at the download page of Doctrine ORM.

Started by Chris Shiflett and Sean Coates the php-advent calendar offers an articles (not only directly php-related stuff) for each day.

Last year's (2008) articles were contributed by Chris Cornutt, Matthew Weier O’Phinney, Travis Swicegood, Lorna Mitchell, Cal Evans, Eli White, Keith Casey, Helgi Þormar Þorbjörnsson, Ivo Jansch, Paul Jones, Ed Finkler, Maggie Nelson, Marco Tabini, Ligaya Turmelle, Andrei Zmievski, Scott MacVicar, Elizabeth Smith, Ben Ramsey, Luke Welling, Paul Reinheimer, Derick Rethans, Nate Abele and Terry Chay.

Let's be prepared for the the 2009 calendar and see what it brings and who will contribute this year.

You can subscribe to the Feed or you can follow the phpadvent-twitter-account.

And if you have some time, read the articles from 2008 or 2007.

Since Doctrine will be integrated into the Zend Framework and Doctrine 2.0 in Zend Framework 2.0 (Both will need PHP 5.3), I thought it would be nice to have have some informations about how you can already use Doctrine in your Zend Framework Applications, what code-snippets exist out there and what you don't need to reinvent.
There is already a lot of Articles about how to use Doctrine as an ORM System in Zend Framework-Applications, some snippets, even a podcast, a libary and the Doctrine Manual for informations about the usage of Doctrine itself.

Nach einer längeren Überlegung bin ich zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass es mehr Sinn macht meine technischen Artikel, Code-Schnipsel und sonstigen Inhalte die sich um Dinge wie Webprogrammierung, Apache, Linux, PHP, Doctrine, Zend Framework oder ähnliches handeln in Englisch zu verfassen.

Gründe gibt es da viele, zuerst mal gab es schon ein paar Anfragen/Wünsche ob ich Artikel nicht auch in Englisch veröffentlichen könnte, weil die Leser kein Deutsch konnten, ausserdem ergab eine Auswertung der Referrer meiner Seite, dass einige Artikel mehr Aufrufe über Google Translate oder auch ausländische Suchmaschinen haben als normale Aufrufe (auch der ein oder andere Link geht direkt auf Google Translate anstatt auf den Artikel). Das alles hat mir zu denken gegeben und ich bin zu dem Ergebnis gekommen dass ich dadurch auch die Anzahl meiner potentiellen Leser durchaus vergrößern kann, ausserdem ist es für mich gleichzeitig eine gute Übung etwas mehr in Englisch zu schreiben, nachdem schon die meisten Bücher im technischen und teilweise auch privat Bereich die ich lese Englisch sind, tut mir ein wenig mehr Englisch schreiben sicher auch gut.

Matthew Weier O’Phinney hat gestern die Roadmap für das Zend Framework 2.0 im Community-Wiki des Zend Frameworks vorgestellt und in den letzten 2 Wochen hat sich dann auch ergeben, dass Doctrine wohl etwas mehr Unterstützung im Zend Framework bekommen wird.