erb0

There are a bunch of PHP IDEs that are much better than Dreamweaver. Many are free as well. The IDE I use is PHPEdit, available from www.waterproof.fr. It is a good editor, although the code completion only has an insert mode and not an overwrite mode and its "quick mark" feature is a little annoying. You can get the trial version, buy the professional version, or you can get a personal liscense if you tell them that you won't use it for commercial purposes (and if you do happen to use it for commercial purposes, well, I won't tell). There are many more. For a good selection, check out www.php-editors.com.

The book I read to learn PHP was PHP and MySQL Web Development Second Edition by Luke Welling and Laura Thompson. It is by far the best, most-informative technology-related book I have ever read. The first chapter on variables is way over done and quite confusing but just read it a couple of times and then the rest of the book is a breeze. I recommend to any PHP developer as a learning tool as well as a reference. Link to Amazon

I have DW but I set it to hand-coding interface because I find it easier to hand-code rather than revise and properly indent, etc. the crappy code that DW writes.