Setting Up Your Editor

Use an editor that understands PHP, such as PhpStorm, or VS Code with a PHP extension (for example Intelephense). What helps most with Jamroom:

• Open the whole Jamroom folder as the project, so the editor knows every module's functions. Hovering a function shows its docblock; typing jrCore_db_ lists the DataStore functions.
• Set the PHP language level to the oldest PHP your sites use (Jamroom 7 supports PHP 7.2 and newer), so the editor warns about newer syntax.
• Exclude data/ from indexing and search: it holds caches, logs and uploads.
• Treat .tpl files as Smarty templates. PhpStorm has Smarty support built in; set the delimiters to { and }.

Connect the editor to Xdebug to stop at breakpoints. See Setting Up a Debugging Environment.

Jamroom's own code uses 4 spaces, braces on their own line for functions and blocks, and docblocks on every function. Match it in your modules, so they read like the rest of the code.