I’m dealing with PHP in XML, using NetBeans IDE 7.0.1; the problem is I’m having trouble getting NetBeans to understand what language(s) I’m working with (simultaneously).
For instance, HTML markup and inline PHP is highlighted and auto-completed appropriately when properly delimited by <?php tags, this however is only true with the .php extension.
If I try to use XML, it simply doesn’t observe the PHP code as PHP (or anything besides a text node I’m assuming) This is true when a given file has the .xml extension.
If I change the extension to .php, as in the case of HTML, my inline PHP becomes recognized, but my XML starts behaving strangely (no recognition of matching node tags; the <?xml declaration isn’t recognized, but that’s expected; etc.)
Is there any way to get NetBeans to cleanly interpret a mixed file of PHP and XML based on tag delimitation?
I tried using ASP style tags <%, but those don’t help the XML recognition when the file is .php anyways; when I switch it out to .xml, it doesn’t matter what PHP delimiters I use, it just doesn’t recognize any PHP.
To phrase my question differently, if NetBeans will inevitably fail, what IDE would one suggest?
I can’t say much about NetBeans for sure as I’ve never used it for anything but Java desktop apps, but the Eclipse-based Aptana is my go-to IDE for web development. It supports plenty of languages (and even frameworks) out of the box. Syntax highlighting is a little sketchy, though, in that it uses an engine similar to TextMate, but it shouldn’t bug out horribly on multilingual files.