Zend Framework University

PHPBuilder.com: Create a Unit Conversion Application w/the Zend_Measure Component

Wojciech Szela — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:09:48 +0000

Jason Gilmor published on PHPBuilder.com new tutorial about creating unit conversion application using Zend_Measure component of Zend Framework.

Whether you’re trying to develop web applications with a truly global appeal, or you’re one of the roughly 300 million United States residents mired in a maddening cacophony of conflicting measurement standards, chances are you’ll need to regularly convert data from one standard to another. Of course, performing even relatively simple conversion calculations such as from pounds to kilograms from memory can be fairly difficult, let alone calculating more esoteric conversions such as from square meters to acres. To automate this conversion process, I used the Zend Framework to create a calculator capable of easily migrating data among the most commonly used formats. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how you can use the Zend Framework’s Zend_Measure component to create your own measurement-conversion calculator.

While creating simple page with “Cooking Conversion Calculator” he talks about typical problems with unit conversions and how Zend_Measure helps in making it simpler for developers.

Adrian Schneider’ Blog: Testing Zend_Mail

Wojciech Szela — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:59:47 +0000

When testing an application one not always needs exact replica of production environment. It’s good enough if you can plugin in yourself into specific level of application under test. In his recent post Adrian Schneider looks into using fake mail transport class to catch all e-mails being send and store them in the way testers can access them easily.

Zend has the ability to set a default mail transport class to be used when none is specified, which I’d imagine to be 99% of the time. [...] The alternative (for the 1% who want to manually specify), you’d simply pass an instance of your mail transport object to Zend_Mail::send() when you call it. What should your class contain? It has to extend Zend_Mail_Transport_Abstract, which at this time of writing this, will specifically need to override the abstract _sendMail() method. You can use it to create a new record in your database, create a file, or do whatever you need it to.

Adrian talks about other way of testing e-mail delivery in development/testing environment.

Adrian Schneider’s Blog: Caching Zend Framework Forms

Wojciech Szela — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:48:12 +0000

On his blog Adrain Schneider shares his ideas about using Zend_Form component. In his first post he talks about typical use cases of the component – defining inputs, filtering, validation, using models and decorators.

I’m often asked what my favorite component of Zend Framework is, and I invariably answer: “Forms”. Forms have always played an awkward role in the model-view-controller paradigm. Sure, the form is just HTML, but to me, it represents something more abstract than that. It represents the HTML form itself, taking user input, normalizing and validating it, and also being able to show the form again when errors occur. This can take quite a large amount of code.

In the second post he presents his way of speeding up forms by introducing caching.

Generating a form is an expensive process in ZF. It’s always bugged me that I can’t find any resources on trying to cache the initial HTML anywhere, so I took a stab at it myself. I use a loader from inside my controller action to load forms and models, so I found that was a good place to start.

February’s Zend Framework Bug Hunting Days have begun

Wojciech Szela — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:16:15 +0000

Today fifth monthly Zend Framework Bug Hunting Days have begun. For those of you unfamiliar with the event, each month ZF team organizes the community to help reduce the number of open issues reported against the framework. If you want to participate, please read guide in the wiki and join #zftalk.dev channel at Freenode.

Zend Framework 1.10.1 released

Wojciech Szela — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:38:56 +0000

Last Wednesday Zend Framework 1.10.1 stable has been released. This is first maintenance release in 1.10 series. The release includes over 50 bugfixes (see changelog for details).

In addition, few feature has been added to online manual. Manual pages can be now commented, also by casual users.

Integrating Flickr Photostreams with PHP

Wojciech Szela — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:09:41 +0000

There is new tutorial from Vikram Vasvani, published on Zend Developer Zone, presenting how to integrate Flickr API into Zend Framework based application.

The really good stuff, though, is hidden behind the scenes. Like many Web 2.0 applications, Flickr exposes its data to the public via a REST API, making it possible to develop customized applications that run on top of the base service. This REST API allows access to a number of important functions, including photo searching, tagging and uploading; photoset retrieval; contact retrieval; and panda recommendations. It’s also pretty easy to integrate this REST API into a PHP application – and this article will show you how!

In the tutorial Vikram shows how to use Zend_Rest_Client component to call Flickr REST API methods and create simple photo gallery.

Xebee Blog: Test Driven Development with Zend Framework and PHPUnit

Wojciech Szela — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:02:43 +0000

On the Xebee blog there’s a recent post looking at test-driven development with the Zend Framework and PHPUnit.

Over the past few days I was going through the Zend Framework reference docs and I found myself pleasantly surprised with all that the latest version of this web application framework provides. My first thought was to just acknowledge the speed in which PHP as a technology has been maturing. Out of the many new features, what stood out for me was the ease with which Zend Framework and PHPUnit complement and work with each other.

They show how they use PHPUnit, Zend_Test and Selenium to create database and acceptance/functional tests.

Raphael Stolt’s Blog: Utilizing Twitter lists with Zend_Service_Twitter

Wojciech Szela — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:56:04 +0000

If your framework lacks some features, simply add it. This is exactly what Raphael Stolt did to add list feature support to Zend_Service_Twitter service.

Several months ago Twitter added the list feature to it’s public API. While debating some use cases for an event registration application I stumbled upon an interesting feature, which adds participants automatically to a Twitter list upon registration. This way registered and interested users can discover like-minded individuals and get in touch prior to any pre-social event activities. This post will show how this feature can be implemented by utilizing the Zend_Service_Twitter component, and how it then can be used in a Zend Framework based application.

In his post Raphael publishes his class extending Zend_Service_Twitter and adding missing functionality. He also shows how one can use it in controller to add users to Twitter’s list during registration.

Matthew Weier O’Phinney’s Blog: Creating Re-Usable Zend_Application Resource Plugins

Wojciech Szela — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:47:16 +0000

In follow up to his post introducing Zend_Application component Matthew talks about writing custom and reusable component resources.

In my last article, I wrote about how to get started with Zend_Application, including some information about how to write resource methods, as well as listing available resource plugins. What happens when you need a re-usable resource for which there is no existing plugin shipped? Why, write your own, of course! All plugins in Zend Framework follow a common pattern. Basically, you group plugins under a common directory, with a common class prefix, and then notify the pluggable class of their location.

In his step-by-step guide he shows how create resource class following framework’s naming and coding conventions, make use of dependency tracking and make resource configurable using standard configuration files and bootstrapping mechanism.

Rob Allen’s Blog: Zend Framework Tutorial for ZF 1.10

Wojciech Szela — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:37:04 +0000

Rob Allen has updated his famous Zend Framework tutorial to cover changes made in last week release of ZF 1.10.

As a result, I have updated my Zend Framework tutorial so that it is completely current. The main change I made was to remove the _init methods in the Bootstrap as they are no longer needed. I also take advantage of the new features of the zf tool to enable layouts and create forms. It’s a shame that it gets the class name of the form wrong though!

It’s worth mentioning that Rob is writing and constantly updating his tutorial since Zend Framework 1.0 release, and it’s probably most popular ZF tutorial on the web.