NetBeans IDE 6.9 Milestone 1 is now available for download. Among other things, this release adds the long-awaited feature of Zend Framework support. Previously, many Eclipse and Zend Studio users wouldn’t even consider NetBeans because of this deficiency.

The Zend Framework support is still in its infancy, however. Some initial configuration is required to point NetBeans at your Zend command line tool. It also doesn’t bundle the library when you create a ZF project from scratch, though this is on their todo list. NetBeans lets you do many of the same things you would do manually from the command line: add actions, controllers, views, and the like. It also allows more seamless navigation between related items, such as views and actions.

If symfony is your framework of choice, this Milestone still offers something for you. Many users have custom directory structures for their symfony projects. This release of NetBeans will now properly identify those projects as symfony projects, despite the custom structure.

While not PHP-specific, many users will also appreciate the new CSS-related features. NetBeans now supports some basic refactoring of CSS code and allows you to see where your CSS is used throughout the site. Code completion is also improved for CSS, saving time and improving accuracy when referencing ids and class selectors.

For full details of what’s new in this version, check out the release notes. Estimates place the final release date for NetBeans 6.9 some time in Summer 2010.