Community Documentation

Development tools

Last updated February 5, 2012. Created by mike stewart on May 29, 2007.
Edited by vegantriathlete, ptmkenny, Borden Rhodes, troyer. Log in to edit this page.

Use these development tools to help you create Drupal sites faster and with less effort. If you have a favorite Drupal tool that is not listed, please leave a comment with a link to the tool, we'll check it out and add it. Or become a documentation contributor and do it yourself.

Tools for Your Browser

Tools for Editing Text & Code

In the world of pure Linux/Unix, the most popular editors are the intimidating but powerful Emacs and Vi. Devotees have long argued the merits of which is better. You'll want a cheat sheet to learn either, but serious users find that Emacs and Vi allow fast, touch-typed editing that's quicker than using a mouse-based desktop application.

  • Emacs (Free. Open source. Runs on Linux, Mac, Windows and others.) (Details about configuring Emacs for Drupal)
  • VIM (Free. Open source. Linux, Mac, Windows and others.) -- Vim is an advanced text editor based on vi, but more powerful. The learning curve is reasonably steep and the interface can be confusing at first, but this is soon rewarded with greater editing efficiency. (Details about configuring VIM for Drupal)

Other Editors

  • BBEdit (Commercial. Proprietary. Mac only.) Check out BBEdit Clippings for Drupal 7
  • Bluefish Editor (Free. Open Source. POSIX > Linux. Mac. Windows. Fast, lean multi syntax WYSIWYN editor with a focus on HTML/CSS/Javascript - GTK+ based). The Windows version can be found at http://code.google.com/p/bluefish-win/
  • Dreamweaver (Commercial. Proprietary. Mac and Windows.) - A WYSIWYG HTML/XHTML, CSS, PHP, XSL/T editor, and there's a free Drupal API extension for Dreamweaver.
  • gPHPEdit (Free. Open source. Runs on Linux)
  • jEdit (Free. Open source. Runs on Linux, Mac, Windows and others. Java based.)
  • Komodo Edit (Free. Open source. Runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. Configuration guide available.)
  • Notepad++ (Free. Open Source. Windows only.) - A light-weight notepad replacement with tabbing and syntax highlighting.
  • Smultron (Commercial. Proprietary. Mac only.)
  • TextMate (Commercial. Proprietary. Mac only although a Windows clone exists) - A couple of Drupal specific bundles are available, the PHP Drupal bundle which has the most features and another by Steven Wittens which allows tab completion of function signatures - both can exist without conflict. A lot of the power of TextMate is in its bundle system and it has built-in support for diff which speeds up the rolling and applying of patches and many more.
  • TextWrangler (Free. Proprietary. Mac only.) -- Lets you read and save via FTP/SFTP, and supports grep and Show Changes (diff).
  • Coda (Proprietary. Mac only.) - Editor for web pages (HTML, CSS) with preview and FTP capabilities; has a Drupal plugin.
  • Sublime Text 2 - Win, Mac OSX, and Linux. A very clean and user friendly code editor. Interface is smooth. And compatible with many TextMate bundles. (Proprietary. Has full-featured trial available with no time limit.)

Integrated Development Environments (IDE)

IDE's expand on the ability of a simple text editor. Here is a list of IDE's that work well with PHP and Drupal.
Note: There is also a Drupal IDE group dedicated to setting up an IDE for Drupal development for starter tips, and ongoing interactive discussions.

  • Eclipse (Free. Open source. Linux, Mac, Windows and others. Java based.) Probably the most popular open source IDE. Eclipse requires plugins in order to develop PHP. The PHP editing plugins for Eclipse are listed below by popularity:
  • Aptana (Free. Open source, though some features, notably SFTP support, require a commercial license. Linux, Mac, Windows and others. Java based.) -- A full-featured Web Development IDE. A package based on the Eclipse environment that comes with the essentials right out of the box (PHP highlighting, ftp/sftp, code browser, etc).
  • Netbeans cross-platform IDE with full PHP and debugging support. (Free. Open Source. Linux. Mac. Win. Solaris). Supported by Sun Microsystems (Oracle).
    • Firefox extension easy Xdebug makes debugging easy with Netbeans.
    • Very nice code completion
    • Automatic text highlighting for tons of languages
    • In context HTML, CSS, PHP reference makes it easy to find help on code syntax without leaving the file you are working on.
    • Instructions for configuring Netbeans for Drupal
    • Two Netbeans plugins are available to aid Drupal developers: NBDrupalSupport and NBDrupalDevel
  • Bluefish Editor (Free. Open Source. Linux. Mac. Fast Lean multi syntax WYSIWYN editor - GTK+ based). A lightweight, fast, multi-syntax IDE that supports projects, multiple documents, ftp/webDAV/sftp/http/https/samba, user custom integration with many programs like make, lint, weblint, xmllint, tidy, javac, more..., multi-language translations, etc. Just an awesome text editor on steroids.
  • Quanta Plus (Free. Open Source. Linux - Part of the KDE environment).
  • Geany (Free. Open Source. POSIX > GTk+. Linux. Mac. Windows. Fast lean multi syntax - GTK+ based).
  • Komodo IDE (Commercial. Proprietary. Linux, Mac and Windows.) Drupal Configuration notes available and Module building extension with node and user code intelligence
  • Zend Studio (Commercial. Proprietary. Linux, Mac and others. Java based.)
  • PhpEd (Commercial. Proprietary. Windows, Linux.)
  • CodeLobster (Commercial and free versions. Proprietary. Windows only.) IDE with PHP/HTML/CSS/JavaScript highlighting, advanced PHP/HTML/CSS/JavaScript autocomplete, PHP debugger, SQL autocomplete, context and dynamic help.
  • Xcode (Commercial, free with Mac OS X. Mac only.) Here are instructions on setting up Xcode to work with Drupal.
  • PhpStorm (Commercial. Proprietary. Windows, Mac OS X, Linux. Java Based.) Code hinting, X-Debug.

SQL & Database tools

There is software that can aid your SQL and database needs with features ranging from queries to administration.

  • phpMyAdmin - Industry-standard PHP tool for administering a MySQL database, included in most shared hosting packages (if not, find a different host!). For local database installations you could try phpminiadmin which is an order of magnitude faster than phpMyAdmin, but has fewer features.
  • pgadmin3 (Free. Windows/Linux/Mac PostgreSQL). Industry-standard for administering a PostgreSQL database, the SQL99 reference database. Runs from your desktop, SSL aware, no need to install anything on your server. The application also includes a syntax highlighting SQL editor, a server-side script editor, an SQL/batch/shell job scheduling agent, support for the Slony-I replication engine and much more.
  • MySQL Workbench (Free. Windows/Mac/Linux. Source available. MySQL only.) - A GUI from MySQL allowing developers to design, model, query and administer MySQL databases. Replaces the MySQL GUI Tools Bundle.
  • FlySpeed SQL Query (Free. Windows. MySQL/PostgreSQL) -- Builds queries without needing deep knowledge of SQL syntax and performs data manipulations such as export and reporting.
  • Navicat (Free & Commercial. Windows, Linux, Mac. Versions for MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL.)
  • Sequel Pro (Free. Mac. MySQL)
  • SQLyog (Free Community Edition, Enterprise Edition. Windows. MySQL)
  • HeidiSQL (Free & Open Source. Windows. MySQL only.)

Other Tools

  • PuTTY (Free. Windows only.) - An SSH and telnet client.
  • WinSCP - WinSCP is an open source free SFTP client and FTP client for Windows.
  • 7 Zip (Free. Open Source. Windows is the primary platform, with ports listed on the download page.) - Extracts archived and compacted files (such as tarballs).
  • Cygwin (Free. Open Source. Windows only.) - Allows Windows users to use a Unix like shell. This is particularly useful for interfacing with git and patching files; read more.
  • Filezilla (Free. Open Source. Windows, Mac, and Linux.) - Graphical FTP client
  • IE Net Renderer - Check your site on IE 6 & 7 without Windows
  • UnxUtils (Free. Open Source. Windows only.) - a lightweight option for adding some Unix command line utilities such as patch and grep to Windows, for those not wishing to download Cygwin.
  • Realtime CSS Viewer Gem (Free, runs on Ruby) - This is a CSS viewer that monitors your changes as you edit in any text editor.This link does not work anymore
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Comments

I would also recommend PSPad

Posted by ivanjaros on August 31, 2009 at 5:18pm

I would also recommend PSPad editor. I'm woking on adding Drupal functions in it.

www.spherea.eu e-Commerce SaaS provider

I cannot find the download

Posted by Canine Coaches on February 11, 2010 at 7:54pm

I cannot find the download link as google czech to english translation is very bad and it only translates about half the content on the page. Can you add a more direct link to the download please. Thank you.

Chris

Yes please, more on your PS Pad plugin

Posted by sparkweb on March 24, 2010 at 9:59pm

I've been using PS Pad for a couple of years. If you have more information about a plugin for it for Drupal functions, that would be excellent. It's a great editor that's simple but also a lot of advanced tools and I use it for everything from basic day to day stuff to full out projects. Not as fancy as some IDE's but many of the same abilities -- others should check it out. In any case, I too can't locate on your site, and more info in English, where to download, how to install, etc.. I realize this is an old post, but maybe you're still around.

Thanks!

Get it from here

Posted by ivanjaros on April 22, 2010 at 2:34pm

Get it from here http://pastebin.com/Ssfvs8es
Copy the code and save it into program files/pspad editor/context/drupal.def
There is also a php definition in it so you can change your template without loosing list of php functions.

The code isnt complete. There are missing function names and only hooks are included so you wont find drupal_set_message and so on.

www.spherea.eu e-Commerce SaaS provider

Google Chrome not only has a

Posted by Spiked on September 1, 2009 at 7:05pm

Google Chrome not only has a good javascript debugger, but also an awesome Resource Inspector, DOM inspector (with live manipulation) and much more for debugging and developing.

Configuring Eclipse and Xdebug

Posted by captaindav on October 2, 2009 at 7:21pm

I posted on another thread but thought I should add a link here:

http://drupal.org/node/259622#comment-2108192

captaindav
http://drupalanswer.com

A new plug-in for Eclipse PDT / Zend Studio

Posted by zvikico on October 27, 2009 at 7:40am

Introducing nWire for PHP: Real-time Code Analysis and Exploration Plugin for Eclipse

I'd like to recommend a new tool which was recently released: nWire for PHP. It is a code exploration plugin for Eclipse PDT and Zend Studio 7. It enables code visualization, navigation and search. For large complex projects, like Drupal, this can be a big time saver. If you are doing custom Drupal development, you may find this a valuable addition to your arsenal.

nWire for PHP was developed with support from the Zend Studio team. A fully functional 30-day free trial is available.

Thanks,
Zviki

MySQL Query Browser is not maintained for Mac OS X...

Posted by xgretsch on January 29, 2010 at 4:12pm

...and is very buggy. Most database queries work fine, but almost anything that involves creating or editing tables is prone to crashing. Filing a bug with MySQL results in the response that they're not maintaining the tool on this platform.

If you're Mac based, use a different tool (either phpMyAdmin, the command line client, etc) if you're making changes to table structures. Alternatively, run a virtual copy of Windows under Parallels or similar and use the MySQL Browser out of the partition.

xgretsch

Chrome for Linux

Posted by forestmonster on February 8, 2010 at 11:58pm

Google Chrome has a Linux build available.

PHP Editor for GNU/Linux

Posted by zyxware on February 26, 2010 at 6:51pm

You could also add gPHPEdit (http://gphpedit.org) to the list of other editors. It is a GPL licensed PHP/HTML editor for GNU Linux with inline PHP help.

Zyxware Technologies

Alternatives to Firebug

Posted by andrewmacpherson on March 2, 2010 at 2:32pm

Firebug Lite is okay, but there are some better developer tools available.

Dragonfly provides a set of developer tools native to the Opera browser, very similar to Firebug.

Web Inspector provides these tools for Safari, Chrome, and other WebKit-based browsers.

Safari and Chrome now support more OS

Posted by andrewmacpherson on March 2, 2010 at 2:36pm

Update to the browsers section:

Safari is now available for Windows and Mac OS X.

Chrome is now available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Update for IE version testing and free UNIX work-alike for Win.

Posted by noobee on March 4, 2010 at 9:26pm

Following the link for "Multiple Internet Explorer versions," the stuff there is no longer updated and no longer works; please remove it from this page.

IETester, however, works great! It lets you test with IE 5.5, 6, 7, and 8. No problems on XP SP3.

Also, Safari now runs (great) in Windoze.

Also, there's a terrific "heavyweight" UNIX-alike for Windoze, written by many of the same people who originally wrote Unix, called UWin, available for free download from: http://www2.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/. It works surprisingly well, and is only limited, it seems, by the capabilities of the underlying filesystem. It really lets you forget you're on a Windoze box as long as you stay in the UWin window. Just amazing. It does install a few services &c to do all the magic, so I'd not call it "lightweight," but it's hardly bloated, either. I haven't found anything missing from it yet.

bend the curve...

Yes -- better link more info for PS Pad?

Posted by sparkweb on March 24, 2010 at 9:58pm

Moved

A really simple to use tool

Posted by Arnold Leung on September 3, 2010 at 1:33am

A really simple to use tool for text editing is Edit Plus -> http://www.editplus.com/ .

Also, in terms of creating wireframes for the design of the site, we use Axure http://www.axure.com.

Appnovation Technologies

SQLyog

Posted by Imaaxa-Cory on October 22, 2010 at 1:18pm

SQLyog is now charging $139 for the enterprise edition. They no longer offer a community version.

tools for development

Posted by fndtn357 on November 13, 2010 at 6:39am

I noticed no one has mentioned FirePHP a plugin for Firefox with a link to its use in debugging code.

I also failed to see the awesome tool called Beyond Compare for file/folder compare, merge and sync if you prefer a GUI.

"The skill of coding is to create a context in which other people can contribute."

Eclipse for Ubuntu

Posted by rmjackson on January 18, 2011 at 5:59pm

It should be noted that installing Eclipse on Ubuntu 10.04 or otherwise should be done on the command line or through synaptic. The software package manager omits the pde package which is needed to install the php module.

Have a nice day,

Robbie Jackson
www.drupalcreations.com
robbiejackson@drupalcreations.com
Skype: beaverleaderdad
Linkedin profile: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/robbie-jackson/b/a4b/357

Eclipse for Ubuntu

Posted by rmjackson on January 18, 2011 at 5:59pm

It should be noted that installing Eclipse on Ubuntu 10.04 or otherwise should be done on the command line or through synaptic. The software package manager omits the pde package which is needed to install the php module.

Have a nice day,

Robbie Jackson
www.drupalcreations.com
robbiejackson@drupalcreations.com
Skype: beaverleaderdad
Linkedin profile: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/robbie-jackson/b/a4b/357

Editing in notepad++

Posted by orit on June 2, 2011 at 8:06am

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Orit Kislev-Kapon
http://kapon.synthasite.com/

Geany also have support for

Posted by dimasikov on July 1, 2011 at 6:36am

Geany also have support for drupal API. They placed in .tags files.
http://www.geany.org/Download/Extras#tags
List of .tags files you can find here:
http://download.geany.org/contrib/tags/

Please include the Gentoo

Posted by likewhoa on July 21, 2011 at 10:38am

Please include the Gentoo Prefix project as a way to have a cygwin alternative but on top of a solid metadistro. More info Gentoo Prefix can be found http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/

Acquia Dev Desktop (Drupal on local Windows Vista box)

Posted by EddieN120 on August 10, 2011 at 2:09am

Out of all the Windows OSes, Drupal devs who want to install a WAMP package on a local Windows Vista box run into the most problems. Therefore I was quite happy to see that Acquia has, as usual, made a simple one-stop solution.

In addition to Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), this "DAMP stack" (Drupal-specific xAMP stack installer) has been tested to run on 32 or 64-bit PCs running Windows XP, 2003 Server, and Windows 7, as well as on Macs running OS 10.6 or OS 10.5 (Intel-based, not PowerPC).

Download the Acquia Dev Desktop here:

http://network.acquia.com/documentation/acquia-drupal-stack

Set your developping environment to encode files in UTF

Posted by EDDYL on August 12, 2011 at 4:58pm

Whatever the tool you have chosen, you should take care that it encodes files automatically in UTF8.

I used to think that this encoding issue was only applicable to mysql, but this is also important on php files (*.module ; *.install ; ...).

This is especially important for french developers as all accents will soon become a "pain in the neck" (hook_menu, mymodule.info,...)

MySQL GUI tools are obsolete

Posted by davideads on October 18, 2011 at 5:23pm

MySQL AB would encourage you to use the newer "MySQL Workbench" tool (http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench/). I can say from experience it is a much nicer tool than the old GUI toolkit. I even used it to generate SVG representations of database schema for use in expert testimony in a court case!

a very nice little editor

Posted by SKAUGHT on November 6, 2011 at 3:49pm

geany is a great little editing tool i've discovered recently (installers for GNU/linux & Windows platforms)

nobody click here