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User interface

Last modified: 10 November 2022

When you open a project in PhpStorm, the default user interface looks as follows:

The Main window

Depending on the set of plugins and configuration settings, your IDE may look and behave differently.

Editor

Focus: Escape

Use the editor to read, write, and explore your source code .

Action indicators and action list

Open action list: Alt+Enter

Various icons that appear in the gutter, for example, the Yellow bulb icon, help you notice quick-fixes and other actions. Clicking such action indicator or pressing Alt+Enter opens an action list with all quick-fixes and other actions that are available at the current caret position.

Navigation bar

Focus: Alt+Home

Show/hide: View | Appearance | Navigation Bar

The navigation bar at the top is a quick alternative to the Project view, where you can navigate the structure of your project and open files for editing.

tip

If VCS integration is enabled, items in the navigation bar are highlighted according to VCS file status colors.

Use the buttons to the right of the navigation bar to run the Run button and debug the Debug button your application, and perform basic version control operations (if the version control integration is configured). It also contains buttons to Run Anything The Run Anything button (press Ctrl twice) and Search Everywhere The Search Everywhere button (press Shift twice).

note

The main toolbar with buttons for opening and saving files, undo and redo actions is hidden by default. To show it, select View | Appearance | Toolbar.

Status bar

Show/hide: View | Appearance | Status Bar

The left part of the status bar at the bottom of the main window shows the most recent event messages and descriptions of actions when you hover over them with the mouse pointer. Click a message in the status bar to open it in the Notifications tool window. Right-click the message in the status bar and select Copy to paste the message text when you are searching for a solution to a problem or need to add it to a support ticket or to the PhpStorm issue tracker.

Use the quick access button Show tool windows or Hide tool windows to switch between tool windows and hide the tool window bars.

The status bar also shows the progress of background tasks. You can click Background tasks to show the Background Tasks manager.

The right part of the status bar contains widgets that indicate the overall project and IDE status and provide access to various settings. Depending on the set of plugins and configuration settings, the set of widgets can change. Right-click the status bar to select the widgets that you want to show or hide.

Customize the icons on the Status bar

Widget

Description

52:11

Shows the line and column number of the current caret position in the editor. Click the numbers to move the caret to a specific line and column. If you select a code fragment in the editor, PhpStorm also shows the number of characters and line breaks in the selected fragment.

LF

Shows the line endings used to break lines in the current file. Click this widget to change the line separators.

Encoding

Shows the encoding used to view the current file. Click the widget to use another encoding.

Column

Indicates that the column selection mode is enabled for the current editor tab. You can press Alt+Shift+Insert to toggle it.

Read-only Read and write

Click to lock the file from editing (set it to read-only) or unlock it if you want to edit the file.

App vcs branch main

If version control integration is enabled, this widget shows the current VCS branch. Click it to manage VCS branches.

Code style indents

Shows the indent style used in the current file. Click to configure the tab and indent settings for the current file type or disable indent detection in the current project.

Memory indicator

Shows the amount of memory that PhpStorm consumes out of the total amount of heap memory. For more information, see Increase the memory heap of the IDE.

Default deployment server in PhpStorm status bar

Click to set any of the configured deployment servers or sever groups as default for performing deployment operations.

Language Level selector in the status bar

Click to specify the PHP functionality scope to get coding assistance for. Each functionality scope is associated with the PHP version that supports this functionality. Currently PHP 5.3, PHP 5.4, PHP 5.5, PHP 5.6, PHP 7, PHP 7.1, PHP 7.2, PHP 7.3, PHP 7.4, PHP 8.0, and PHP 8.1 levels are supported. See supported PHP versions for details.

When you open an existing project, PhpStorm analyzes it for the language features used and sets the appropriate language level automatically.

note

If the PHP language version is constrained in composer.json and settings synchronization with composer.json is enabled on the Composer page of the Settings/Preferences dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), then you have to set the PHP version in the composer.json file manually. To turn synchronization off, click the widget and select Disable synchronization with composer.json.

Tool windows

Show/hide: View | Tool Windows

Tool windows provide functionality that supplements editing code. For example, the Project tool window shows you the structure of your project, and the Run tool window displays the output of your application when you run it.

By default, tool windows are docked to the sides and bottom of the main window. You can arrange them as necessary, undock, resize, hide, and so on. Right-click the title of the tool window or click The Show Options Menu button in the title for its arrangement options.

You can assign shortcuts to quickly access the tool windows that you frequently use. Some of them have shortcuts by default. For example, to open the Project tool window, press Alt+1, and to open the Terminal tool window, press Alt+F12. To jump from the editor to the last active tool window, press F12.

Context menus

You can right-click various elements of the interface to see the actions available in the current context. For example, right-click a file in the Project tool window for actions related to that file, or right-click in the editor to see actions that apply to the current code fragment.

Most of these actions can also be performed from the main menu at the top of the screen or the main window. Actions with shortcuts show the shortcut next to the action name.

Popup menus

Popup menus provide quick access for actions related to the current context. Here are some useful popup menus and their shortcuts:

  • Alt+Insert opens the Generate popup for generating boilerplate code based on the context.

  • Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T opens the Refactor This popup with a list of contextually available refactorings.

  • Alt+Insert in the Project tool window opens the New popup for adding new files and directories to your project.

  • Alt+` opens the VCS Operations popup with contextually available actions for your version control system.

You can create custom popup menus using quick lists of actions that you often use.

Main window

The main window lets you work with a single PhpStorm project. You can open multiple projects in multiple windows or in a single window. By default, the window header displays the name of the project and the name of the currently open file. If there are multiple projects, it will also show the name of the relevant project.

To show the full path to the current file, select Always show full paths in window header on the Appearance & Behavior | Appearance page of the IDE settings Ctrl+Alt+S.

See also

Concepts

External Links