Tips for Customizing the Layout of NetBeans for Productive Debugging in PHP

Here are a few productivity tips to make editing and debugging PHP code easier in NetBeans by just modifying the editor's layout.

Display the NetBeans Debugging Window

Click Window > Debugging and select the desired debugging tabs. In NetBeans 8.0, your options will include:

• Variables
• Watches
• Call Stack
• Breakpoint
• Session
• Threads
• Sources
• Debugging

Display a list of your PHP functions in NetBeans

In NetBeans, the function list is called Navigator. To display a list of the PHP functions in the currently opened file, simply toggle the navigator by pressing Ctrl+7.

Add a Debug File Icon to the NetBeans Toolbar

To quickly enable debugging mode for XDEBUG, add a Debug File icon to your NetBeans toolbar.

1. Right click on an empty area of the toolbar and select Customize.
2. In the first section called Debug, drag and drop the Debug File icon into your existing toolbar icons. Note that you won't be able to drop it in an empty area.
3. Click the Close button.