PhpStorm 2023.1

New UI (Beta)

• Compact Mode - Compact Mode enhances the new UI's user experience on smaller displays. It makes toolbars and tool window headers leaner, reduces spacings and paddings, and makes icons and buttons smaller to help you focus on the code, and not on the controls.
• Visible file name pane when tabs are hidden in the new UI - The name of the file that is currently open is now displayed in a pane when editor tabs are hidden.
• Vertical split for tool windows - This setting in the new UI allows you to divide the tool window's area into 2 windows and arrange them so that you can see both tool windows at the same time. This is something you could do in the old UI, but was missing in the new version.
• Project tabs in the new UI on Apple macOS - When opening several projects in the same window, macOS users can now easily switch between them using the project tabs displayed under the main toolbar. By default in macOS, window tabs are enabled only in full-screen mode. If you want them permanently enabled, adjust the system preferences.
• Redesigned Run widget for the new UI - Redesigned the Run widget in the main window header so that its appearance is unobtrusive and easier on the eyes.

PHP

• Run PHP scratch files on 3v4l.org - This release natively integrates with 3v4l.org and allows you to run PHP scratch files on any desired PHP version without installing anything on your local machine. Create a new PHP scratch file by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Insert. Choose your desired PHP version from the drop-down and press the Run button. You’ll see the output of the script next to the editor.
• Performance improvements - In this release, several significant performance improvements have been made. Here is what you can expect in this release:
  • Shared indexes for popular PHP packages -  Some PHP packages are so popular that it doesn't make sense to rebuild their index on every PhpStorm instance. Instead, indexes have already been computed for you for many popular PHP packages, like PHPUnit, aws/aws-sdk-php, doctrine/orm, laravel/framework, symfony/*, and others. Now, when you open an indexed PHP project, PhpStorm checks composer.json to see which of the dependencies specified have a prebuilt shared index.
    • PhpStorm may download the index or still rebuild it locally, depending on whether your CPU and RAM are faster than your internet connection. You can also generate your own shared indexes for your private projects.
  • Go to Class action available during indexing - Go to Class (Ctrl+O or Navigate | Class...) is one of the most popular actions for navigating through code. In this release, it is available anytime, even while your index is being rebuilt. Previously, it would display an empty list until indexing was finished.
  • Annotator runs during indexing - Another action that is now available even when the indexing is still in progress is annotating the code. This means that many errors and soft keywords will be highlighted by PhpStorm ahead of time to make your workflow smoother and less time-consuming.
  • Scanning files to index process has become smart - The IDE now opens much quicker because PhpStorm uses the project's existing caches from the previous session and looks for any new files to index. If no changes are found after scanning, the IDE will be ready to work right away.
  • Faster inspections - Improve the performance of all inspections, especially the heaviest ones. Some of them are now 30–40% faster, whereas for others, the boosted performance is not that drastic, but the combined effect is still noticeable.
  • Blade templates - Improved the performance of highlighting inside @php...@endphp tags. All keywords and constructs are now highlighted much faster regardless of the code complexity.
  • New IDE suggestion to reconfigure Microsoft Windows Defender settings for better performance - Windows Defender's real-time protection checks can significantly decrease the IDE's speed. To avoid this, PhpStorm now suggests adding certain folders to Defender's list of exclusions. The notification provides the option to either reconfigure these settings automatically, or first check the Defender configuration instructions and then do it manually.
• Debugger With Data Flow Analysis - Users who prefer Xdebug for debugging PHP applications can now enjoy one more advanced feature, called the Data Flow Analysis (DFA) debugger. It allows you to see branches of code that will never be executed ahead of time, without going step by step with the debugger through the code. PhpStorm shows the precomputed result of the conditions in the inlay to the right before the code is executed. This enables you to get a sense of the situation in the code without digging deeper. Branches that will not be executed will appear grayed out during the debugging session.
  • Turn off DFA during debugging - If you're not interested in this additional information during debugging, you can right-click on any precomputed value inlay and turn the DFA feature off for the current debugging session. If you'd like to turn off the feature permanently, you can do so under Preferences/Settings | PHP | Debug | Xdebug.
  • Limitations - Currently, PhpStorm does not precompute property values due to technical limitations. This is an area for future development.
• Support for all PHPStan and Psalm tags - All existing PHPStan and Psalm tags are now parsed correctly in PhpStorm. This makes heavily annotated code more readable.

Support for multi-composer and multi-vendor projects

• Previously, PhpStorm treated any open project as a single space. However, there are more and more cases when there are multiple applications in the same project, all with their own composer.json dependencies. A foundation has been implemented to support these kinds of projects with multiple composer.json files and vendor directories. This brings the following enhancements:
  • Excluded directories are set correctly - This improves overall performance because less analyses and inspections are run. It also makes multi-resolve more stable.
  • PSR roots are detected correctly - Refactorings like Move Class work as expected when you drag and drop classes between applications in the project.
  • Missing extensions in composer.json are reported correctly per application.

New inspections

• Custom Regexp-based search and replace inspections - You can now use regular expressions to create your own search and replace inspections. These inspections can be especially useful for highlighting style and formatting problems or simple code-related issues. For more advanced inspections that may involve type hierarchy checks, you can use Structural Search and Replace (SSR) inspections.
• Built-in PHP inspections:
  • Overriding method/extending class marked as @final - You can mark classes with the keyword final, producing a fatal error in case of a violation. A gentler approach would be to add the PHPDoc tag @final. In this case, PhpStorm will highlight incorrect inheritance, but the code will not produce an error during execution.
  • Incompatible return types - With a new quick-fix in this release, you can now either add a compatible return type for methods in child classes, or change it if it's incompatible. Assertion can be replaced with assertTrue/assertFalse.
  • Multiple instances of isset() of nested array access or objects can be replaced with a single one.
  • Add global for variables accessed from other files.

Quality-of-life improvements for PHP

• Clickable paths and class references for var_dump() / dd() output in the terminal - Improved the debugging experience for users who prefer the "dump and die" approach. As a first step, file paths and class references have already been activated. Clicking on them opens the corresponding file in the editor.
• Descriptions for file open modes in the completion popup - In the previous PhpStorm release, descriptions were added for different formats in date-time functions. Any functions that accept file modes, now have a detailed description of those in a completion drop-down. You never have to remember what r+, a, and w all mean anymore.
• More live templates - Introduced more live templates, including fun for the function template and fori for indexed loops.

User Experience

• Full IDE zoom - It is now possible to zoom in and out of PhpStorm as a whole, changing the size of all UI elements simultaneously. This could be helpful for demonstrations, livestreams, online meetings, or presentations.
• Option to save multiple tool window layouts - You can now save and manage several tool window layouts and switch between them when needed.
• New Remember size for each tool window setting - The new Remember size for each tool window checkbox is available in Settings/Preferences | Appearance & Behavior | Tool Windows. It allows you to unify the width of the side tool windows or retain the ability to freely adjust their sizes as you customize your layout.

Editor

• Fill Paragraph for Markdown files - Markdown files now support the Fill Paragraph editor action which lets you break up long pieces of text into lines of equal length.
• New Smart Keys settings page for Markdown - Added a page to Settings/Preferences | Editor | General | Smart Keys where you can set up and change your Markdown preferences. This page should make it easier for you to manage your preferences because it has separate checkboxes for different editor features. Previously, there was only one checkbox in Settings/Preferences | Languages & Frameworks.
• Option to show whitespaces only in selected code - There is a new Selection checkbox in Settings/Preferences | Editor | General | Appearance | Show Whitespace that allows you to configure this setting so that the IDE shows whitespaces as small dots only when you select code.

VCS / Git / GitHub

• VCS status color hints in the Structure tool window - In the Structure tool window, color hints have been added for changes. This means you can now see which properties, methods, and functions have been changed or added.
• Improved branches popup - It is now easier to move between branches because they are stored in lists that can be expanded.
• Auto-completion in the Create New Branch popup - With this release, auto-completion has been implemented in the Create New Branch popup. Once you start typing a name for your new branch, the IDE will suggest relevant prefixes based on the names of existing local branches.
• Background commit checks - Commit checks for Git and Mercurial are now performed in the background after you commit but before you push. This should speed up the overall commit process.
• Improved code review workflow for GitHub - The most common scenario of using pull requests is when a user goes first to GitHub, and then refers to the IDE in cases where it is necessary to fully browse the code.
  • To facilitate this workflow, the Pull Request tool window has been reworked. It now features a dedicated tab for each pull request you open. The tab instantly displays the list of changed files, but now provides fewer distractions than before. This allows you to focus better on the current task.
  • There's now also a dedicated button to easily execute the action that's considered the most important given the pull request's current state.

Docker improvements

• Merged log from all Docker-compose containers - The Dashboard tab of the Docker-compose node now pulls together logs from all Docker-compose containers and displays them all in one place. They are also updated in real time.
• Support for Microsoft Azure Container Registry - You can now easily connect to the Azure Container Registry. Go to Preferences / Settings | Build, Execution, Deployment | Docker | Docker Registry and set it up by selecting the Docker V2 option in the Registry input field.
• New setting to apply the :z mount option to bind volumes on SELinux - You are now able to add the :z configuration flag to Docker bind mounts, which allows you to connect volumes to Docker containers on SELinux workstations.

Web

• Astro support - Added support for Astro in PhpStorm. You can get it through the new Astro plugin, which can be installed from Preferences / Settings | Plugins. The plugin provides basic functionality including syntax highlighting, code completion with automatic imports, refactorings, navigation, correct formatting, and more.
• Support for TypeScript in Vue templates - Added TypeScript support in Vue templates when you set the lang attribute in a script tag to ts. Previously, JavaScript was used regardless of the lang attribute in the script tag. PhpStorm will now provide support for inline casting, improved type narrowing, and correct information about inferred types in quick documentation in templates of Vue Single-File Components.
• Tailwind CSS configuration - In this release, support for configuration options has been added, such as custom class name completion under the classAttributes option, or experimental ones like tailwindCSS.experimental.configFile.