Zeev Suraski has this new post today to inform the community that the beta for Zend Studio 5 is now available.

It's been a while since I personally contributed code to this project, but a bunch of my most-wanted features are now in there, most notably multilevel code completion and native web services support.

Multilevel code completion means that almost always you'd get code completion for objects, even if they're return values from functions (as long as you phpdocument them!) or a 10th level indirection, $foo->bar->baz->.... As a code-completion addict, that's great news.

Native web services support means I no longer have to start writing web services by taking an existing WSDL file (a.k.a. scrolls of magic) and change it, but can instead use the WSDL generator now built into the system. Not to mention the code completion for SoapClient objects (did I mention I'm a code completion addict?)

I've used the IDE before and it is a very nice piece of software. Some of the earlier versions were a bit buggy and still needed some smoothing around the edges, but I think that they've come a long way and really have created a good product.

If you'd like to grab the beta, head on over to their site and try it out for free - and when you're done, share your experiences with Zend and get some fun prizes in return...