My project phpchat, has been selected by the XERJ team for inclusion in Corpus Hub.

XERJ is a public collection of practical coding solutions designed to help developers utilize real-world implementations.

The reason our project was likely chosen is that the "mention users with username" feature which includes autocomplete, highlighting, and notifications is a comprehensive and functional implementation, rather than just a simple, basic feature.

This time, a portion of my project's code will go on to help even more developers!

Screenshots:

https://imgur.com/CSPnqty

Hi r/PHP. I'm Shiv, I make PHP videos in Hinglish on YouTube, and a lot of my viewers learn on Windows with XAMPP. The last XAMPP release for Windows I can find ships PHP 8.2, so people keep asking me how to get 8.3, 8.4 or 8.5 working locally without Docker.

So I built DevStackBox, an open-source desktop app for Windows 10/11:

• The installer includes Apache 2.4.65, PHP 8.3.31, MySQL 8.4.11 LTS and phpMyAdmin 5.2.2.
• From inside the app you can download PHP 8.1, 8.2, 8.4 or 8.5 (official windows.php.net builds, SHA-256 checked) and switch versions.
• Apache with .htaccess works the way XAMPP users expect.
• Editor for httpd.conf, my.cnf and php.ini with automatic backups, plus virtual hosts, SSL, logs and a terminal.
• Import from XAMPP copies htdocs. Your databases still need a phpMyAdmin export and import.
• MIT license, no telemetry, no account, no paid tier.

Things it does not do yet: Composer is not bundled, there is no one-click Laravel or WordPress, and it is Windows only. The installer is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen will warn you. The SHA-256 is on the download page.

Repo: https://github.com/DevStackBox/DevStackBox Site: https://www.devstackbox.com/

Two questions for people who develop PHP on Windows:

1. What would make you switch from whatever you use now (XAMPP, Laragon, WSL, Docker)?
2. Which matters more to you next: bundled Composer, automatic project.test virtual hosts, or a portable ZIP that needs no admin rights?