Member-only story
9 Essential PHPStorm Shortcuts That Will Skyrocket Your Productivity as a PHP Developer

PHPStorm is a must-use tool for any PHP developer, but are you using it correctly?
Here are 9 shortcuts that will save you heaps of time:
1. Unindent Code (SHIFT + TAB)
When your code has the wrong indentation, it takes time to repair the damage.
The normal approach is to manually go through each line repairing the damage, smashing the backspace button like you’re trying to win a slot machine in Vegas.
But with PHPStorm, there is no need to take the manual approach. Just highlight the relevant code:

And press shift + tab:

2. Refactor code (CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + T)
Refactoring code is tricky if you are not sure of the best approach.
In this case, it’s useful to have a guide to help you. And PHPStorm provides just the shortcut with their ‘Refactor This’ feature:

There are tonnes of suggestions to extract your code into smaller pieces or to introduce new code.
3. Click into a function name (CTRL + CLICK) / (CMD + CLICK)
This is my favorite PHPStorm feature.
Clicking into a function to bring up the referenced function saves me heaps of time.
Using this tool, you’ll be flying across the codebase, finding all the relevant references to functions.
