Migrating From Eclipse to PhpStorm

No workspace

The first thing you'll notice when launching PhpStorm is that it has no workspace concept. This means that you can work with only one project at a time. While in Eclipse you normally have a set of projects that may depend on each other, in PhpStorm you have a single project that consists of a set of modules.

If you have several unrelated projects, you can open them in separate windows.

If you still want to have several unrelated projects opened in one window, as a workaround you can configure them all in PhpStorm as modules.

No perspectives

The second big surprise when you switch to PhpStorm is that it has no perspectives.

It means that you don't need to switch between different workspace layouts manually to perform different tasks. The IDE follows your context and brings up the relevant tools automatically.

Tool windows

Just like in Eclipse, in PhpStorm you also have tool windows. To open a tool window, simply click it in the tool window bar:

If the tool window bar is hidden, you can open any tool window by hovering over the corresponding icon in the bottom left corner:

If you want to make the tool window bar visible for a moment, you can press Alt (Cmd for macOS) twice and hold it.

If you don't want to use the mouse, you can always switch to any toolbar by pressing the shortcut assigned to it. The most important shortcuts to remember are:

• Project: Alt+1

• Version Control: Alt+9

• Terminal: Alt+F12

Another thing about tool windows is that you can drag, pin, unpin, attach and detach them:

To help store/restore the tool windows layout, there are two useful commands:

• Window | Store Current Layout as Default

• Window | Restore Default Layout (also available via Ctrl+F12)

Multiple windows

Windows management in PhpStorm is slightly different from Eclipse. You can't open several windows with one project, but you can detach any number of editor tabs into separate windows.

Auto-scrolling to/from sources

By default, PhpStorm doesn't change the selection in the Project Tool Window when you switch between editor tabs. However, you can enable it in the tool window settings:

Enabling line numbers

Line numbers are not shown in the editor by default. To enable them, go to Settings/Preferences | Editor | General | Appearance | Show line numbers. There you will also find other useful settings.

No 'save' button

Time for some really shocking news: PhpStorm has no Save button. Since in PhpStorm you can undo refactorings and revert changes from Local History, it makes no sense to ask you to save your changes every time.

Still, it's worth knowing that physical saving to disk is triggered by certain events, including compilation, closing a file, switching focus out of the IDE, etc. You can change this behavior via Settings | Appearance & Behavior | System Settings:

No save actions

One of the features you may miss in PhpStorm as an Eclipse user is save actions, i.e. the actions triggered automatically on save, such as reformatting code, organizing imports, adding missing annotations and the final modifier, etc. Instead, PhpStorm offers you to run the corresponding actions automatically on commit:

Or manually:

• Code | Reformat Code (Ctrl+Alt+L)

• Code | Optimize Imports (Ctrl+Alt+O)

• Analyze | Code Cleanup

If, for some reason, you can't live without an Eclipse save action, you can install a plugin that imitates Eclipse save actions.

Eclipse keymap

For Eclipse users who prefer not to learn new shortcuts, PhpStorm provides the Eclipse keymap which closely mimics its shortcuts:

Find action

When you don't know the shortcut for some action, try using the Find action feature available via Ctrl+Shift+A. Start typing to find an action by its name, see its shortcut, or call it:

Quick-fixes

To apply a quick-fix in PhpStorm, press Alt+Enter:

All quick-fixes are based on inspections configured in Settings | Editor | Inspections:

If you want to apply a quick-fix to several places at once (i.e. to a whole folder, module or even a project), you can do it by running the corresponding inspection via Analyze | Run Inspection By Name or by running the whole batch of inspections via Analyze | Inspect Code:

Apart from outright problems, PhpStorm also recognizes code constructs that can be improved or optimized via the so-called intentions (also available with Alt+Enter):

Generating code

The key action for generating code is Code | Generate, available via Alt+Insert:

Code completion

PhpStorm provides several different types of code completion, which include:

• Basic completion

• Second basic completion

• Smart completion

• Second smart completion

• Statement completion

By default, PhpStorm doesn't show the Documentation popup for the selected item, but you can enable it in Settings/Preferences | Editor | Code Completion | Autopopup documentation in (ms):

If you don't want to enable this option, you can manually invoke this popup by pressing Ctrl+Q when you need it:

When the caret is within the brackets of a method or a constructor, you can get the info about the parameters by calling Parameter Info with Ctrl+P:

Templates

In PhpStorm, Live templates let you insert frequently used constructs into source code.

The list of available templates can be found in Settings/Preferences | Editor | Live Templates. There you can also add your own templates or modify any existing ones.

While PhpStorm suggests templates in code completion results, you can quickly expand any template without using code completion simply by pressing Tab.

Postfix templates

In addition to 'regular' templates, PhpStorm offers the so-called postfix templates. They are useful when you want to apply a template to an expression you've already typed. For instance, type a variable name, add null and press Tab. PhpStorm will turn your expression into a if (...==null){...} statement.

To see a complete list of available postfix templates, go to Settings/Preferences | Editor | General | Postfix Completion.

Surround with live template

The surround with templates is another addition that works similarly to live templates but can be applied to the selected code with Ctrl+Alt+J.

To define your own surround with template, go to Settings/Preferences | Editor | Live Templates and use $SELECTION$ within the template text:

Navigation

The table below roughly maps the navigation actions available in Eclipse with those in PhpStorm:

Refactorings

The following table maps the shortcuts for the most common refactorings in Eclipse with those in PhpStorm:

Undo

Sometimes, refactorings may affect a lot of files in a project. PhpStorm not only takes care of applying changes safely, but also lets you revert them. To undo the last refactoring, switch the focus to the Project Tool Window and press Ctrl+Z.

Search

Below is a map of the most common search actions and shortcuts:

Configuring VCS roots

When you open a project located under a VCS root, PhpStorm automatically detects it and suggests adding this root to the project settings. To change version control-related project settings (or manually add a VCS root), go to Settings | Version Control:

PhpStorm works perfectly with multi-repository projects. Just map your project directories to VCS, and the IDE will take care of the rest. For Git and Mercurial, the IDE will even offer you synchronized branch control, so that you can perform branch operations on multiple repositories simultaneously (for more details, see Manage branches).

Editing VCS settings

Every VCS may require specific settings, for example, Path to Git executable, GitHub/Perforce credentials, etc.:

Once you've configured the VCS settings, you'll see the Version Control tool window. You can invoke it any time by pressing Alt+9.

Checking projects out

To check out a project from a VCS, click Checkout from Version Control on the Welcome Screen, or in the main VCS menu.

Working with local changes

The Local Changes tab of the Version Control tool window shows your local changes: both staged and unstaged. To simplify managing changes, all changes are organized into changelists. Any changes made to source files are automatically included into the active changelist. You can create new changelists, delete the existing ones (except for the Default changelist), and move files between changelists.

To configure ignored files, go to Settings | Version Control, or use the corresponding button in the Version Control tool window.

Working with history

The Log tab of the Version Control tool window lets you see and search through the history of commits. You can sort and filter commits by the repository, branch, user, date, folder, or even a phrase in the description. You can find a particular commit, or just browse through the history and the branch tree:

Working with branches

PhpStorm lets you create, switch, merge, compare and delete branches. For these operations, either use Branches from the main or context VCS menu, or the VCS operations popup (you can invoke it by pressing Alt+`, or the widget on the right of the status bar:

All VCS operations are available from the VCS main menu:

What configuration is needed before start?

A lot of PhpStorm features are available without any configuration right after you launch it. Still, to take full advantage of running your PHP application, you need to configure a PHP interpreter and a server.

If you plan to launch the application locally, you need a PHP engine installed and registered in PhpStorm, as well as a Web server installed, configured, and integrated with PhpStorm. You can install these components separately or use an AMP package. For more details about initial environment configuration, refer to Configuring PHP Development Environment.

If you are going to run and debug an application directly on a remote host, the only thing you need is register access to this host in PhpStorm to enable synchronization.

How do I start with deployment to a remote host?

If you've checked out your project from the remote host, the deployment server is already configured. Otherwise, you will need to get it configured (it can be FTP/SFTP/FTPS server or mounted/local folder) on the Deployment page of the Settings/Preferences dialog. The Remote Host Tool Window is available on the right-hand side of the PhpStorm window, which can be handy for browsing through your remote server and performing various actions.

See Deploying your application for details.

How do I start debugging?

PhpStorm comes with support for both Xdebug and Zend Debugger for debugging and profiling. There is a zero-configuration debugging workflow available, which means that to start debugging you only need to:

• Click Start Listening for PHP Debugging Connections on the toolbar of the IDE.

• Place a breakpoint in code by clicking in the editor gutter next to the line.

• Start debugging in the browser using a plugin or browser bookmarklets.