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Currently, if you click on "Debug Project" or "Debug" on a selected file, then the file is opened in a browser and xdebug is triggered to connect to netbeans for debugging. Enhancement request: There should be an option to just start the debugging session, without the browser call. Since all major php frameworks are using the front controller pattern (http://www.martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/frontController.html) you usually debug URLs and not files anymore. It would be much more developer friendly, if you could just make netbeans start listening on the debug port and trigger debugging manually while testing urls (ie using a firefox extension like xdebug helper https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/3960). It would be like the nice function "debug next request/page" from the zend studio toolbar.
great, thanks for this report. Will be evaluated, but hardly implemented into 6.5 release because its too late. Post 6.5 release should have better support for frameworks, so good to know about it.
Thank you for reviewing. Implementing some framework specifics might be a lot of work. Maybe one quick-solution is possible for the 6.5 release: When starting a debug session an options window pops up, asking about client side debugging settings. We could put an option like "Also open file in browser" into this window (see attachment). A developer then can avoid the browser call and append "?XDEBUG_SESSION_START=netbeans-xdebug" to urls manually or use xdebug helper to trigger debugging. Currently the script is always executed upon a click on the debug button, without any parameters, which may lead to unwanted results, ie the unparameterized code may fill cache or make remote requests. With this quick-fix (i dont really know if its really a quick/small one), one can avoid the execution of unparameterized code. So just the option whether to open the script in browser window or not would do it
Created attachment 69354 [details] Extended options dialog
Something like this is suggested for 7.0
It is possible to launch get NetBeans to launch a debug session given a URL only, but it's rather difficult to figure out how to do so given the fixation of the NetBeans UI on debugging individual files. (If you have a single URL you want to debug, what do you put in the "Project URL", "Index File" and "Arguments" fields?) I realise this doesn't help with the problem of launching a debug process from the browser, but if you want to "debug by URL" then, as described in bug 171013, you should use Project Properties > Run Configuration > Advanced... > Debug URL > Ask Every Time (last URLs are remembered).
batch reassigning
going thru the list trying to see if the bug I want to report with 7.1 is on the list, and this issue still shows as "New", know its old but it should be closed. OP wants "There should be an option to just start the debugging session, without the browser call." here you go: right click on your project in the project explorer, select properties select run configuration click Advanced button in the Debug section in the top area of the window select Do Not Open Web Browser
It has been implemented few versions ago.