Friday, September 3, 2010

Php Projects

As a php web developer, you should know that php is probably the language that has the biggest code repository. So no matter what module you want to include in your project there should be an open source solution.
This can help in various ways, but just in case you can’t think of one, here I put a few :
  • Open source is worked by many people, so the result is for sure better than one man’s work
  • You can have free updates to your code, while otherwise you should code the updates each time something new comes up
  • You save development time while your project is getting better
Anyway, after many years as a web developer, I’ve compiled a list of php classes that can be easily integrated in any project and I am regularly use.
Sending Emails
Sending emails is something very common for every web site. Php’s mail() function is good for this, but what if you want to attach a file, or send through an SMTP server, etc? Well in that case you should use phpmailer
User Manipulation
Another common module is the user module. With that you can manipulate users (login, logout, register, etc.) Personally I’ve never found a project that is good enough, so I created my own
Php user class is a module that can be used even in established projects, as it uses variable data for database tables, fields, session variables, etc.
Fetching RSS Feeds
Ever wanted to fetch an rss feed from your project? Well there is always an easy way to fetch a feed but in most cases you need more than that. When that is the case you should definitely use Magpie RSS
Geotargeting
There are many times that you need to know where are your visitors coming from. Maxmind gives a solution to this. For a complete tutorial check this article
Grabbing Remote Content
Some times RSS is not enough so you need to grab the content of a web page and parse it. If you are a huge fun of preg you should not continue reading, but if you are not you definitely need the htmlSQL class The htmlSQL class allow you to access html values with SQL code. Nice huh?
Trackback
Sending and receiving trackbacks is vital for a web site in our age. And in fact it is very easy if you are using a class like php trackback
Template System
Another thing that all sites use is a template. A template engine can save you lots of time, while it can make display changes very easy. A complete template engine that most projects use is Smarty
BBcode
BBcode used to be a functionality for forums, but as more and more sites use it in order to be more friendly to their users, you might want to use BBcode to your site. The problem is that BBcode requires a lot of coding and I am not sure if you have the time for this. If you don’t you’ll find StringParser_BBcode class very useful
Paypal Payment Integration
As you may know paypal has a nice API for developers who want to integrate paypal payments in their sites. The paypal IPN integration class helps you make use of it and start accepting payments in 20 minutes.
Editor Controls
I don’t have a problem to make changes to a site using phpMyAdmin or a simple text area, but when it comes to my clients I have to give them more than that. A javascript WYSIWYG editor is a perfect solution but as it requires countless hours to get it done I would suggest you to use the tinyMCE control
Hope you enjoyed this list. If I forgot something feel free to comment above

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Php Manual

Preface

PHP, which stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor" is a widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. Its syntax draws upon C, Java, and Perl, and is easy to learn. The main goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated web pages quickly, but you can do much more with PHP.
This manual consists primarily of a function reference, but also contains a language reference, explanations of some of PHP's major features, and other supplemental information.
You can download this manual in several formats at » http://www.php.net/download-docs.php. More information about how this manual is developed can be found in the 'About the manual' appendix. If you are interested in the history of PHP, visit the relevant appendix.

Authors and Contributors

We highlight the currently most active people on front page of the manual, but there are many more contributors who currently help in our work or have provided a great amount of help to the project in the past. There are a lot of unnamed people who help out with user notes on manual pages, which continually get included in the references, the work of whom we are also very thankful for. All of the lists provided below are in alphabetical order.

Authors and Editors

The following contributors should be recognized for the impact they have made and/or continue to make by adding content to the manual: Bill Abt, Jouni Ahto, Alexander Aulbach, Daniel Beckham, Stig Bakken, Nilgün Belma Bugüner, Jesus M. Castagnetto, Ron Chmara, Sean Coates, John Coggeshall, Simone Cortesi, Peter Cowburn, Daniel Egeberg, Markus Fischer, Wez Furlong, Sara Golemon, Rui Hirokawa, Brad House, Pierre-Alain Joye, Etienne Kneuss, Moriyoshi Koizumi, Rasmus Lerdorf, Andrew Lindeman, Stanislav Malyshev, Rafael Martinez, Rick McGuire, Kalle Sommer Nielsen, Yasuo Ohgaki, Richard Quadling, Derick Rethans, Rob Richards, Sander Roobol, Egon Schmid, Thomas Schoefbeck, Sascha Schumann, Dan Scott, Masahiro Takagi, Yannick Torres, Michael Wallner, Lars Torben Wilson, Jim Winstead, Jeroen van Wolffelaar and Andrei Zmievski.
The following contributors have done significant work editing the manual: Stig Bakken, Gabor Hojtsy, Hartmut Holzgraefe and Egon Schmid.

User Note Maintainers

The currently most active maintainers are: Daniel Brown, Nuno Lopes, Felipe Pena, Thiago Pojda and Maciek Sokolewicz.
These people have also put a lot of effort into managing user notes: Mehdi Achour, Daniel Beckham, Friedhelm Betz, Victor Boivie, Jesus M. Castagnetto, Nicolas Chaillan, Ron Chmara, Sean Coates, James Cox, Vincent Gevers, Sara Golemon, Zak Greant, Szabolcs Heilig, Oliver Hinckel, Hartmut Holzgraefe, Etienne Kneuss, Rasmus Lerdorf, Matthew Li, Andrew Lindeman, Aidan Lister, Hannes Magnusson, Maxim Maletsky, Bobby Matthis, James Moore, Philip Olson, Sebastian Picklum, Derick Rethans, Sander Roobol, Damien Seguy, Jason Sheets, Tom Sommer, Jani Taskinen, Yasuo Ohgaki, Jakub Vrana, Lars Torben Wilson, Jim Winstead, Jared Wyles and Jeroen van Wolffelaar.