A powerful and intuitive free extension for Visual Studio that significantly improves the PHP development experience through advanced syntax highlighting and intelligent code validation.
Key Features
Smart Block Highlighting
When your cursor is on a control keyword, the extension automatically highlights all related keywords in the block:
Try-Catch-Finally: simultaneously highlights the try, catch, and finally keywords of the current block
If-ElseIf-Else-EndIf: highlights the entire chain of conditions
Foreach-EndForeach: clearly marks the start and end of loops
Fixed the option panel not showing up in Visual Studio 2026 (v18.x) due to a compatibility issue with the latest Visual Studio SDK. The panel is now fully functional and accessible under Tools → Options → PHP Syntax Highlighter → Colors.
Fixed a minor bug where the syntax error detection would occasionally trigger false positives when editing large PHP files with complex nested structures. The detection logic has been refined to reduce false positives while maintaining accurate error reporting.
Added the .php file template and project template to the extension, allowing users to quickly create new PHP files and projects with the syntax highlighter already configured.
Version 1.0.3
New Features
Added keyword highlighting for PHP language constructs (echo, return, function, class, new, if, foreach, ...)
Added built-in function highlighting covering the full PHP native function library (array_map, str_replace, json_encode, preg_match, session_start, ...)
