How to work faster with PhpStorm

How to work faster with PhpStorm

You repeat any day a lot of things. Many, many things and any things need some time. Sometimes one second, sometimes few seconds. You can think that is not too much, but believe me – you wasting a lot of time. Today I show you how to work faster with PhpStorm.

Time is precious

I have two basic principles to save time. If you want work faster and more effectively, you will use most often as possible shortcuts and do not use the mouse if it is not necessary. At the beginning is not intuitive and uncomfortable but believe me, you should invest your time to learn it. In the future, you will see positive results.

Live Template

In PhpStorm can you write “Live Templates”. That mean, you can set an abbreviation to any snippets. For example, if you use oft:

var_dump($variable);
die();

You can set abbreviation “vard” and then when you write “vard” and push TAB, your code will be automative generated. You can set cursor position or variable too.

Macros

In PhpStorm can you use macros too. Macros are like “Live Template” but you do not set abbreviation and snippet. You record your coding and then can you “play” it at any time.

Plugins

PhpStorm has a lot of shortcuts:

https://resources.jetbrains.com/storage/products/phpstorm/docs/PhpStorm_ReferenceCard.pdf

That is not easy to learn each of them, but you can use a “Key promoter” plugin. From now, every time when you use a mouse instead of the keyboard, you see an alert and a tip with a shortcut.

Plugin site: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/1003-key-promoter

IdeaVim

I know… VIM is not easy. It is very hard. I tried work with VIM 4 times and I gave up every time. Now I want to use this shortcuts in all programs. Trust me. Invest now the time to learn VIM shortcuts and save a lot of time in the future. Not only in PhpStorm, but in the console too. Now can I edit without a mouse any text document in the console. That make life easier and earn respect in the workspace 😉 .

Plugin site: https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/164-ideavim

I hope your life will be easier now. I will get you more tips in the next posts. If you have another tip, please share with us!