CodeGear releases “Delphi for PHP” version 2.0

CodeGear, the developer tools arm of Borland Software, has upgraded its tool set for PHP developers.

The company announced Delphi for PHP 2.0 on April 14. Delphi for PHP is an IDE (integrated development environment) for rapidly building interactive Web applications using visual drag-and-drop design capabilities. The product also features a PHP component framework.

CodeGear officials said Delphi for PHP 2.0 features several enhancements, including HTML templates with embedded dynamic PHP; database support for MySQL, CodeGear InterBase, Microsoft SQL Server Oracle, PostgreSQL, IBM Informix and DB2, and Sybase’s SQL Anywhere, plus the ability to build rich data-driven Web applications without requiring database connectivity coding; an expanded and faster VCL (Visual Component Library) for PHP with support for popular PHP packages and libraries including the Zend Framework from Zend Technologies; productivity and performance enhancements including new error insight and source code formatting; and new PHP debugging features and integrated PHP performance profiling and tuning.

According to Michael Swindell, CodeGear’s vice president of products, Version 2.0 of Delphi for PHP is a major advancement over the initial version, which introduced PHP developers to the productivity of a specialized IDE.

Yet, “perhaps the most significant advance is the new HTML template system, which enables PHP developers to seamlessly build rich PHP applications against HTML templates for design flexibility and easy customization with popular HTML tools,” Swindell said.

Delphi for PHP 2.0 is available at an introductory price of $249 through the end of June 2008. Upgrades from Delphi for PHP 1.0 are currently $179.