Have you ever tried to find a matching brace? I have many times!

Did you know that PhpStorm has a shortcut to do that? It's called "Move Caret To Matching Brace ", and it also works for HTML tags 🔥

Thanks for the tip @SeeBigg 🙏🏻

It's very easy to end up with unused imports in your classes. Glad there is a nice shortcut to remove them.

It's called optimize imports and also sorts your imports alphabetically. 👍

Did you know that you can sort lines alphabetically through the global search? 👀 🔍

We all know how hard it can be to debug regular expressions. It's not always fun. 🙈

But it just became a lot easier. PhpStorm has an inline action where you can test your expressions. ❤️

In this example, I have different "YouTube" URLs and I need the video id.

Tip by @wiifm 🙏🏻

Whenever you modify your code, you can see a little color indicator on the side. When you click it, you even see the what has changed. (change list)

The used colors are defined by your theme. But like everything in PhpStorm, you can change those colors too. Check the preferences for "Color Scheme -> VCS" and "Color Scheme -> Diff & Merge".

We all sometimes need a placeholder text. In PhpStorm, you can type "lorem" and expand it with the tab key.

But you can also specify the amount of words by adding a number "lorem5" or even combine it with an emmet shortcut like "p>lorem5"

Thanks for the tip @freekmurze 🙏🏻

When you want to override a method, PhpStorm helps you already out while typing it.

But there is also a shortcut to open the "Override Methods" popup. It lets you select a method, and also specify if you like to copy the parent's DocBlock.

Thanks for the tip @simioluwatomi 🙏🏻

I just learned something new! (from jphooiveld) While looking for specific files, you can just type the capital characters of the word.

Like "UCCT" for my "UpdateChannelsCommandTest" class.

This is super useful when you have similar file names and you struggle finding the correct one. It will save you a lot of time.

While using PhpStorm, you often need to work with some windows like the terminal, project tree, or VCS. To close them, you can use the same shortcut you use for opening them. This takes a few seconds when you have multiple windows open.

Much better is the shortcut "Hide All Windows", which closes all active tool windows. 🎉

This is the only shortcut I use these days for closing windows.

While scanning through files, you often need to go "back" to your last cursor position.

The shortcuts "navigate back" and "navigate forward" are your friends in this regard. This is especially useful when scanning from a code-base or just a long file. I use them every day!
Here are the used shortcuts. In video example below, I follow Laravel's kernel and route flow while using those shortcuts.

Do you hate to adapt your tool windows position with every project again? (like file tree from left to right)

Not anymore! You can store them.

When working with tabs, you can select multiple files from pop-ups by holding "shift" and open them together. 👀

In a class, you don't have to write "$this->" every time to get auto-completion for properties or methods. It just works. This saves a lot of time. 🤗

With the release of @phpstorm 2021.2 today, you have more pre-commit options available. I'm excited that I can finally run a specific test configuration before a commit. 🤗

In EVERY dialog, prompt, tree, or folder you can start typing to search for something specific.

It's a simple feature but a life changer when you use it all the time and avoid the Mouse face.

Commit options let you define actions to run before a commit like:

* Reformat Code
* Check TODO
* Analyze code
* etc.


Forget a todo? PhpStorm tells you before doing the commit.👍

Next to the search features, I like to work with the project view too. 3 important shortcuts can help:

1️⃣ Open File in Project View (Fire my favorite one)
2️⃣ Expand Tree
3️⃣ Collapse Tree

Just a tiny refactoring feature but so useful. Great that you can trigger it from both sides. (where the variable is defined and used)

Need to check who changed a specific line of code? Or who else was working on this current file?

Git annotations are your friend. Handshake

If you need to look for strings in your app you can select or copy the string and open "Find in Files". This way it will automatically paste this string and look for it. ✌

Did you know about the "Complete Current Statement" shortcut? It tries to finish the current line of. 👏

(Default shortcut: Shift + CMD + Enter)

How many times do you replace quotes? For me, definitely more than I want to :-)

I'm glad you can do that easily with a context action.

Did you know that you can use some features right from the command line? (thx @nuernberger_me)

- Create a launch script
- Open up file/project
- Open diff dialog
- Or merge dialog

While debugging you are often only interested in one specific case that you want to take a closer look at.

That's when you should use conditions for your breakpoints.

While debugging you often need to have quick look at specific values: Welcome inline watches

- Define what you need to see (with auto-completion of course)
- See it directly in the editor😮

To debug collections or chained method calls with Xdebug you can evaluate every call separately at a breakpoint without changing the code itself. 😮

Today's tip was brought to me by @freekmurze.

When creating a new class, you can toggle the templates "class", "interface", and "trait" by using your up and down keys. Pretty neat and fast! 💨

When you commit/push with PhpStorm tools, you can press the "Alt" key to show letters to trigger the "commit" or "push" button.

This means no mouse is needed for the whole process. 😍

Sometimes we fall into a habit of using the mouse for something, where we could have used a shortcut.

Key Promoter X is a plugin that tells of such situations. It reminds you by showing the shortcut you should use instead.

Another cool feature using the "Run Anything" prompt and custom "Run configurations" to run specific tests like unit, feature, or all.

Especially being able to run "all test" is something I missed an easy solution for a long time. 😍

We often tend to run tasks from within the Terminal. That's fine, but what I prefer is to run them through "Run Anything".

This way I don't have to open up the Terminal and I have one place to check my running tasks.

I hope you already know your shortcuts for specific searches. ( files, classes, etc.)

One little trick here is if you press the shortcut again it toggles the scope of the search between "Project Files" and "All Files" Left-pointing magnifying glass

In a repository, all changes will the stored to the "Default Changelist" in PhpStorm.

When you edit more files than needed for the next commit, it makes sense to order them in custom changelist.

The "Run Anything" prompt can be used to quickly run tasks like from npm/Yarn, but did you know that you can run Artisan calls too? 🤩

Pretty handy for triggering a command without opening the terminal.

I need to activate/deactivate some PhpStorm plugins more often. Gladly I can do that also through the global search.

Be aware, some plugins require a restart.

The Presentation Assistant is great to show the shortcuts you are using while talks or presentations.

By default it includes the default keys. But you can change that to show the ones you have actually set 👍

If you work with #TailwindCSS, make sure to use the latest 2020.3 version of PhpStorm to support auto-completion and preview of the rules on mouse-over.

With PhpStorm 2020.3 you are able to open files directly in split mode. The shortcut works from within the sidebar, but also from the other windows like "recent files" which I really love.

PS: default shortcut is "shift+enter"

Actions are commands + shortcuts in PhpStorm. With the action search, you can easily trigger features without knowing shortcuts.

💡Even better: If you use an action a lot, just assign a shortcut right from the search with alt+enter.

This tip I received by @SenseException. There is a shortcut for getting from a class to its test if given or create a new one.

Constructor arguments can be initialized by PhpStorm. Here are some interesting facts:

1. You can initialize multiple fields
2. PHP < 7.4 it uses PHP DocBlocks
3. You can edit the template
4. >= 7.4 it skips the DocBlock ❤️

Ever wondered about this little colored mark on a line? It shows your changes since the last commit.

Use it too look at what changed or to rollback a change 👍

This one is actually a tip by @brendt_gd . You can use scopes in combination with file colors to create highlighted sections in your project's tree view.

It improves file recognition and also works with tabs 🏳️‍🌈

I got some feedback about more ways to use multiple cursors in PhpStorm, so here are two more:

- add carets to the end of selected lines
- clone caret alt+alt 🔼/🔽

The Productivity Guide shows you an overview of your PhpStorm features usage. It tells you about what you use regularly and what you never used before.

It's also great to learn about new features.

When you're checking a longer class, the "File Structure" tool window becomes super handy. It...

👀 gives an overview of given properties/methods
🔎 lets you search for sthg specific
🔎 even lets you search params names

There are numerous things you can do with if/else statements in PhpStorm like:

- flip condition
- simplify them
- get rid of "else" (EA Inspections plugin)

Multi-cursors are so powerful and a must-have in every code editor.

Here are three ways of using them in PhpStorm:

1⃣ Atl + click
2⃣ Alt + shift + hold click + move up/down
3⃣ Multiple select

Next to "Live Templates" there are also "Postfix Templates" which you can trigger by putting a "." after an expression and then add a key.

This way you don't have to replace the cursor if you wrote the expression first.

".dd" is a custom one 😈

I use the "Go to declaration" shortcut all the time to check a class/method that was used. This was essential for learning how Laravel works under the hood.

But the same shortcut can also be used on the declaration to see where else it is used. 🔎

There are shortcuts for all tool windows like the sidebar, console, etc. The same close it again.

What I find more useful though is to use the "hide active tool window" shortcut. This way you don't have to think about which toolbar it is anymore.

To run a specific test depending on your cursor position, use the "Run context configuration" shortcut.

- Inside a method ➡️ run this test method
- Between methods ➡️ run whole file

The same shortcut used in all three examples in the video.

Last time I showed you the "Surround With" feature, but there is more to it. @pronskiy gave me a hint that we can use it together with Emmet. 😍

Now, this gets even more powerful.

When I needed a tag around some given text, I always created the tag first, then put the text in. I got used to this tedious behavior 🙈

Recently I discovered the "Surround With" feature. 😮

Such details make so much difference in your workflow!

You can easily convert functions to arrow functions by using the "show context action" (⌥ + enter) shortcut.

My favorite aspect is that you do not need "use" anymore to pass variables to the function. Less code is good code 👌

You can style many parts of your IDE within the global search without visiting the settings page like the:

- 💡status bar
- 🍞 breadcrumbs
- 🗂tabs placement
- 🧭 navigation bar
- etc.

Version 2020.1 brought some cool new Composer features like showing the exact used version of a package in the composer.json file.

But did you also know that it autocompletes new requirements now? 😍

Here is one of my favorite live templates to create a simple new test exactly how I like them. Customizing everything to your needs is a key to workflow that you can benefit the most from. 🕺

What templates did you create?