PhpStorm or PHP 8.2?
The newest version of PHP, PHP 8.2, has been released quite recently. However, you might not observe it from a minor sight but the changes are very few. There are no major breaking changes and only deprecation notices added. Therefore , it’ll be alright to say that if you’re looking for something easy going and minimalist then PhpStorm is the answer. It brings some very cool features that we’ll observe below!
Following is a list of things you can do when setting up PhpStorm from scratch. Programmers usually prefer a clean and minimalistic look. This takes less than 5 minutes to set up.
Hide all toolbars
You only use keyboard shortcuts and the actions menu in PhpStorm. So, you can hide all toolbars.
Light colour schemes
Light colour schemes are better. That’s not just an opinion, it is a fact. Most developers prefer a colour scheme that might be less cool and fancy.
Increased font size
Similar to light colour schemes, pick a font size and line height that works on your monitor, make sure you don’t have to squint your eyes in order to read code on PhpStorm.
Code folding
You can enable code folding for method bodies by default. It gives a proper overview of classes, without too much noise. You can also learn to use your keyboard for navigation and managing folds, so that it doesn’t impact my performance.
Tabs at the bottom
For some reason, placing tabs at the bottom of the programmer’s screen feels way more natural and less intrusive.
Undocked sidebar
Instead of moving sidebars to the right, I undock it, so that it slides on top of my code without moving that code around.
The navigation bar
If you prefer an even cleaner look, you can hide the sidebar altogether and use the navigation bar instead.
Distraction free mode
Distraction free mode centers my code, making it easier to read on large displays. By default it also hides tabs and line numbers, but you can show them again using the actions menu.