You really must check out:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/devphp I have tried many editors and DEV-PHP is truly gold. TRY IT!! If tabs bother you, it even has adjustable tabs. lol. As far as learning MySQL goes, it sounds intimidating, but really isn't and is well worth it. To tell you the truth using text files is MUCH more difficult.
here is a MySQL code example which generates the the calendar on our website. its quite simple:
PHP Code:
<?php
$dbh = mysql_connect ("localhost", "username goes here", "password here") or die ('the database has gone to hell: ');
mysql_select_db ("geargrin_geargrin", $dbh);
$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `calendar` ORDER BY year, month, day", $dbh);
while ($result = mysql_fetch_array($query)) {
$description = $result['description'];
$location = $result['location'];
$year = $result['year'];
$month = $result['month'];
$day = $result['day'];
print("<tr>\n");
print("<td width=100px class=\"calendar_box\"><div class=\"date\"> $month/$day/$year </div></td>\n");
print("<td width=300px class=\"calendar_box\"><div class=\"description\"> $description </div></td>\n");
print("<td width=150px class=\"calendar_box\"><div class=\"description\"> $location </div></td>\n");
print("</tr>");
}
?>