7th march 2007

wow. clonefish.

currently doing a site with *a lot* of forms on it, and as i'm using php i had a look around for something that could help me out a bit. came across a product called clonefish and i have to tell you, i'm very, very impressed.

put basically, this is a php form class that takes all the tedium out of producing, often very repetitive, html forms. as well as obviously being able to produce the necessary form elements, it easily adds any optional html to your tags (class attributes, title attributes, whatever), can add code before or after each element (e.g. "required", "password must be 6 characters long", etc) and - best of all - adds validation right there and then. you can use ready made validation techniques ('required' tells the class that user input on that element is... well, required), or your own custom validation in - get this - *either* javascript or php! does it get any better? well, maybe - it can also hook up to your mysql database - using native php/mysql connectors, pear db or, my current favourite, adodb - to do things like outputting a select options depending on records from your db, or db validation ("select password where user ..."). you can style everything in the normal way, and it's down to you - not the class - whether you output valid xhtml.

more than that, the clonefish support has been fantastic. i've had a couple of queries/requests and they've done everything to help me out, even sending over new, updated files to suit my needs. better than "look, that'll be available in the next release, ok!?!".

if you're messing about with php and loads of forms, i really recommend you take a look.

related:

css,

javascript,

sites,

web dev

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/07/03/07/wow-c...

5th january 2007

aja. (another) future of web apps?

look, you know i haven't posted for ages, i know i haven't posted for ages. but i think we're all big enough to forget that, and move on. yeah? good.

so, interesting article on phpit, regarding using ajax without the x. yup, using ajax without the - can be - troublesome xmlhttprequest. not had the opportunity to really try this out yet, but looks good.

take a look at the article yourself.

related:

ajax,

javascript,

web dev

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/07/01/05/aja-a...

4th may 2006

next gen php frameworks

nice little round up of 5 of the best next gen php frameworks over at the web 2.0 dev.

it briefly discusses symfony, cakephp, zend, agavi and the horribly titled php on trax.

apparently they'll make you "want to create apps just for the hell of it". gosh.

take a look for yourself.

related:

web dev

permalink:

http://www.oneplayer.co.uk/06/05/04/next-...