Getting together a good development environment for PHP websites isn't that hard any more.

On
a Windows machine, I recommend a pretty simple approach. Install Xampp, install Eclipse PDT,
install XDebug. For bonus points set up Subversion and get TortiseSVN (or, I guess, whatever
other version control works for you).

I'll give a quick rundown here on how I set up a development environment on a Windows
machine, I tested it as I was writing it and I don't think it took but 2 hours.

Get Xampp
Download it from the Apache Friends website . I grabbed the installer (exe) version. Install it to
c:\xampp or just adjust all the paths I give you later to match your install path. In the installer I
also selected to have Apache and MySQL run as a service but not the FileZilla FTP server (I
don't have any need for an FTP server). Xampp has a little control panel that starts and stops the
services but in the past I've just used the xampp_start.exe and xampp_stop.exe programs as
external tools in Eclipse. (Those might only be useful if you chose not to run Apache & MySQL
as a service as I had it set up previously, I'm not sure.)

After Xampp installs you'll default to using PHP5 instead of PHP4. I recommend sticking with 5
- convert your projects now and save a worse headache later. The ini file to tweak PHP will be at
c:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini and the Apache httpd conf file will be at
C:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf.

I only use Xampp for local development so I hide it from the outside world by telling Apache to
only listen for connections from localhost. I recommend doing this or at least restricting the
addresses that can see the development server. Here's how to do what I do.

In httpd.conf, find your Directory section for the root. It will look like

<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

but with comments. Change the Allow line to only permit access from localhost (127.0.0.1) so
that you can get to the webserver but no-one else will be allowed. They will still be able to see
the server exists but Apache will not serve any documents since their IP address can't be
127.0.0.1 (that's address means the same computer Apache is running on). Here's the section
with the new Allow line (again skipping the comments).
<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs">
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Directory>
Also see the bit on the Listen directive next.

Next you can put Apache on a non-standard port so it isn't so easy to find for a portscanner. I
recommend doing this but there are side-effects, like having to use http://localhost:8099/ to see
your development site instead of just http://localhost/. Here's how to do what I do.

Look for the Listen directive in C:\xampp\apache\conf\httpd.conf. It will say

Listen 80

To keep Apache available only on the local machine change this to

Listen 127.0.0.1:80

and you can run Apache on a non-standard port like

Listen 127.0.0.1:8099

Remember ports go from 1-65535 and anything under 1024 is special. You'll also have to adjust
the ServerName directive in the same file from
ServerName localhost:80

to, for example,

ServerName localhost:8099

if you change the port.

After any changes (like these) to httpd.conf you'll need to restart Apache for the changes to take
effect. If you're using the Xampp control panel just click the Stop button next to Apache then
click the Start button. If you don't run it as a service then I think running xampp_stop.exe
followed by xampp_start.exe would do it (do this from a command prompt so you can see any
error messages).

The MySQL service can also be exposed to the world at large but I think the default
configuration of Xampp keeps it private to your machine and that's the best way to keep it for
development.

Get Eclipse PDT

I like Eclipse a lot. It's a great environment for a lot of stuff. I've used it for generic Java
development, I used to use PHPEclipse, I've used it for developing on Google Android, I've used
it for an XML editor and I even tried a little Python with it. What I've found though is that
Eclipse can be slow. I think what made it slow for me was that I had so many plugins running in
it. Now I've recently decided that if one Eclipse is good, then two must be better.

Even if you already have Eclipse installed for some other application, I recommend getting the
PDT all-in-one download. It's simpler than chasing down the dependencies and I believe it will
actually run faster than using one copy of Eclipse with many plugins for different environments.
You can get the PDT all-in-one download by going to the Eclipse PDT downloads page, click on
the latest release build then there's a section titled "PDT All-in-One" with a build for each of
Windows, Mac or Linux. Currently that link points to this list of mirrors here but you really
should start at the Eclipse PDT downloads page to get the latest version.

Once you've downloaded the zip file extract it to the place you want Eclipse to live. When
something doesn't have an installer I often put it under c:\util, so mine lives at c:\util\eclipse-pdt.
To launch it I made a shortcut to c:\util\eclipse-pdt\eclipse.exe on my quicklaunch toolbar (just
dragging the exe file does this in Windows XP but right-click dragging is safer).

Start up Eclipse and it will ask you where you want your workspace. I made my workspace the
same as Apache's DocumentRoot for convenience. If you installed the same way as I described
above then that means c:\xampp\htdocs. If you don't do this then every time you create a new
project that corresponds to some PHP files then you'll need to override the default location for
the project. In my case I just override the few projects that don't live in my DocumentRoot. Next
Eclipse will start up with a Welcome screen you can safely close. I'm not going to explain
everything about how to use Eclipse or PDT but I'll walk you through making one project.

On the left side there's a window titled Project Explorer. This window and others like it are
called Views and you can open Views from the Window menu. Right-click in the Project
Explorer view and pick New Project off the context menu that appears. In the New Project
Wizard pick PHP -> PHP Project and click Next. The next dialog asks for a Project Name. The
Project Name, by default, corresponds to the folder name under where your project files will live.
Xampp comes with some files under htdocs\xampp, so lets make an Eclipse project where you
can poke around at them. Just give the project the name "xampp" and the Directory will (if
you've done everything the same as me) will be c:\xampp\htdocs\xampp. Click Finish and the
new "xampp" project shows up under the Project Explorer. Eclipse might also ask you if you
want to switch to the PHP Perspective at this point (you do). A perspective is basically a
collection of Views. The PHP Perspective is the one you want to use for PHP development. You
can open perspectives from the Window menu or from a little button near the top of your Eclipse
window (you can find it yourself, I'm not taking pictures today). Each open perspective also has
a button that shows up near the top of the Eclipse window to allow you to quickly switch from
one perspective to another. This is especially useful for switching from the PHP to the PHP
Debug perspective and back.

Get XDebug

If you've never used a real debugger then you'll have to get to know a couple concepts. Basically
the way a lot of debuggers (including XDebug) work is by splitting the work into a debug server
and a debug client. XDebug is a debug server. There's a debug client available on the same site
but it's basically just useful for testing purposes (I've used it to test on Linux but to test on
Windows I used XDebugClient).

When you visit a page with the debug server running, the server will try to connect to a listening
debug client. The debug client and server then exchange some information and your debug client
can control what's going on and give you information about the state of the program you're
debugging. In this case the debug client we want to use is a part of Eclipse PDT.

So to get XDebug, go download it. As of this writing the version you want is XDebug 2.0.3 for
PHP 5.2.1-5.2.6 to go with Xampp 1.6.6a.

There are a few places that describe how to set up the XDebug server in PHP, the official docs
are a good place to start but there are more details spread around that site and others. All you
need to do is make a couple tweaks to c:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini. Xampp has the lines you
need but they're commented out:

[XDebug]
;; Only Zend OR (!) XDebug
;zend_extension_ts="C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug.dll"
;xdebug.remote_enable=true
;xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1
;xdebug.remote_port=9000
;xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
;xdebug.profiler_enable=1
;xdebug.profiler_output_dir="C:\xampp\tmp"

So you can see that Xampp tells you where they think XDebug goes. So move php_xdebug-
2.0.3-5.2.5.dll to C:\xampp\php\ext\ and change the [XDebug] section to look like this:

[XDebug]
;; Only Zend OR (!) XDebug
zend_extension_ts="C:\xampp\php\ext\php_xdebug-2.0.3-5.2.5.dll"
xdebug.remote_enable=true
xdebug.remote_host=127.0.0.1
xdebug.remote_port=9000
xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp
xdebug.profiler_enable=1
xdebug.profiler_output_dir="C:\xampp\tmp"

Xampp also comes configured for Zend Optimizer which is incompatible with XDebug. You'll
get an error like "Zend Optimizer 3.3.0 is incompatible with Xdebug 2.0.3" when Apache starts
if you try to use both. You need to find the section like this in PHP.ini

[Zend]
zend_extension_ts = "C:\xampp\php\zendOptimizer\lib\ZendExtensionManager.dll"
zend_extension_manager.optimizer_ts = "C:\xampp\php\zendOptimizer\lib\Optimizer"
zend_optimizer.enable_loader = 0
zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
;zend_optimizer.license_path =
; Local Variables:
; tab-width: 4
; End:

and either delete it or comment it out like so

;[Zend]
;zend_extension_ts = "C:\xampp\php\zendOptimizer\lib\ZendExtensionManager.dll"
;zend_extension_manager.optimizer_ts = "C:\xampp\php\zendOptimizer\lib\Optimizer"
;zend_optimizer.enable_loader = 0
;zend_optimizer.optimization_level=15
;zend_optimizer.license_path =
; Local Variables:
; tab-width: 4
; End:

Any time you change php.ini you need to restart Apache, so do that too.

Now we're ready to test the debugger. In Eclipse, open up C:\xampp\htdocs\xampp\index.php -

it's in the project we created earlier. On the Run menu choose "Open Debug Dialog..." and you'll
get a Debug dialog that lets you define debug settings. You can have several debug
configurations for different projects or scenarios. Right now we just want to make one for
demonstrating the debugger (after that you can figure out how to apply it to your own stuff). On
the left side of the dialog, double click "PHP Web Page" and you'll get a new debug
configuration called "New_configuration". On the Server tab, under Server Debugger, choose
XDebug. In the File edit box, fill in "/xampp/index.php" (or use the Browse button to find it).
Next, uncheck the Auto Generate box in the URL section. You can only fill in the second part of
the URL here because the server name part is decided by servers configured in Eclipse (I'll come
back to that in a minute). In the second URL edit box, you'll want to replace "/index.php" with
"/xampp/index.php". If you didn't change the port for Apache then you should be all set here.

Oh, you changed the port for Apache like I said you should? Then you need to do one more thing
before you make the Debug Configuration. In Eclipse, go to Window->"Preferences..." and on
the left side of the Preferences dialog, find PHP, click the + then pick "PHP Servers" under it.
You'll see the "Default PHP Web Server" has an address of "http://localhost". All you need to do
is change that to match the port for Apache, like "http://localhost:8099". Click Okay a couple
times and then go do the Debug Launch Configuration I described just above.

After you've set up your Debug Configuration you can just click the little bug button in the PHP
perspective to start it again. If something goes wrong and you get an error message like "Web
Launch Already Running!" then you need to stop the debugger before trying again. To do that,
go to the PHP Debug perspective. To get to the PHP Debug perspective, look for a button near
the top of the Eclipse window that says "PHP Debug". If you don't see it just go to the Window
menu, pick "Open Perspective" and pick "PHP Debug" from there. Once you're in the PHP
Debug perspective, you'll see a View titled "Debug".