Zend Developer Zone: Zend_Acl / Zend_Auth example scenario
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On the Zend Developer Zone, there's a new tutorial covering the use of the Zend_Acl and Zend_Auth modules in the Zend Framework to create a simple user login and authentication system from Simon Mundy.   After submitting the initial example of how Zend_Auth and Zend_Acl could be implemented Gavin pointed out areas that weren't really addressed in my proof of concept and it could potentially confuse newcomers to the way MVC is utilised. I'd like to clarify that post to a) Address those concerns and b) see if there's any constructive criticism of the process that could benefit everyone.   He sets up the site layout (including where the actions lie) and defines some of the access rules the script will follow. From there, he creates a bootstrap file and an index.php to work with it. On top of this, he builds the key piece - the Auth.php - to handle the validation of the users.
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Chris Hartjes has posted an update on the Zend_Service_Audioscrobbler package for the Zend Framework, including writing the unit tests to ensure it's complete functionality.   In my spare time I've been banging away at writing the required unit tests for the Zend_Service_Audioscrobbler component that Derek and I had started. I finished all the unit tests for the user based functions, which is a nice milestone. Then I decided to go back and actually read the comments made from the proposal. Oops. I discovered there were a bunch of changes that the folks at Zend said needed to be made in order to accept them. I agree with most of them.   He also lists some of these comments/changes/suggestions for the package that were given to help it fit in better with the rest of the framework.
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The Zend Developer Zone has a new tutorial that focuses on the dynamic creation of zip archives in a PHP application.   PHP too has included support for the ZIP format since PHP 4.x but it was only recently when, idly browsing the PHP manual, I realized that PHP 5.2.0 includes a re-engineered version of the ext/zip extension, one based on the zlib library. Bored and not a little intrigued, I decided to try it out. And over the next few pages, I'm going to tell you what I found.   The tutorial does require that you have the zip extension installed before getting started. He starts with the basics (reading and opening a zip file) but quickly moves on to creating and decompressing them. All of the code needed is included of course, so you'll be up and working with your own zip files in no time.
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Aaron Wormus has a new note on his blog today about his presentation at this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo and another speaker he's excited to hear.    One of the Zend conference sessions that I'm pretty excited about is Don Samisa Abeysinghe's (of WSO2) "Fully Fletched Web Services with PHP".   I'll be presenting a session on "Moving to PHP5 with Style." This tutorial/case study will be based on experience in transitioning several codebases from PHP4 to PHP5, creating unit tests & started a move towards a service based architecture without a complete platform rewrite.    Aaron's talk fits under the banner of the "PHP Development" talks, including others on topics like hosting PHP applications on Windows, working with PDO, unicoding in PHP6, and using PHPUnit.
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The Zend Developer Zone (and Zend) are running a new contest where you could win yourself a free copy of their popular Zend Studio IDE.   It's a very poorly kept secret that Zend is working on the next generation of Zend Studio. They must be getting down to the 'fit and finish' pieces of the project because my buddy Yossi wrote me and asked me to enlist the help of the PHP community at large. So here's his request. The Zend Studio team needs your help. They are looking for a code snippet to showcase the syntax highlighting and debugging capabilities of Zend Studio.    They're looking for certain types of code snippets and a list of the criteria are included in the ZDZ post. The deadline's at at midnight (Pacific) on July the 26th, so get those snippets together and get them sent off for your chance to win!
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In a new blog post Richard Thomas takes a deeper look (well continues his ) at the performance of the Zend_Loader component of the Zend Framework.   When you use Zend_Loader your files are wrapped in conditional statements. These statements prevent APC and all other cache/accelerator programs to have problems properly caching your file. [...] Now here is the catch-22. Depending on the size of your application and how often different classes are used you can run into problems.   His result doesn't have much to do with the component, though - he points out that conditionals of any type can slow things down in an application and that "benchmarking is your friend".
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted this month's Zend Newsletter for those wanting to keep up on all things Zend-ish.   They have kindly allowed me to republish the most recent issue here for your enjoyment. If you want to read it on a regular basis though you are going to have to subscribe. So take a moment and head over to MyZend, login (or register) and on the preferences panel you'll find the checkbox to subscribe. Go ahead, we'll wait.   This edition is just a preview of all of the news that Zend provides each month on its activities, events, product updates, updates to the DevZone, and offers promotions you might want to be aware of.   As Cal mentions, though, you'll need to sign up to get future releases of the newsletter - they won't be posted over on the Zend Developer Zone.
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Cal Evans came up against a problem earlier in his development work - issues when he was trying to get his old include path.   What you SHOULD get back is a string describing your old include path. If you get false, you have hit the problem I hit last night. I went so far as to recompile 2 difference versions of Apache thinking (almost correctly) that it was something that had changed in my Apache config files.   If you're one of the "falsers" out there, check out the rest of his post of his solution around the problem. His problem stemmed from his trying to reassign a php_admin_value (instead of php_value where the script could override it) setting, specifically the one for the include_path.    He also points out that Zend Framework users might keep an eye out for this problem too as the Zend_Loader package changes the include path at times.
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P&aacute;draic Brady continues his series on working with Complex Views in the Zend Framework with this new article - part seven focusing on the Zend_View Enhanced method.   It's been a long, and hopefully interesting, road to Part 7. In this concluding entry to the long running, and oft delayed, "Complex Views with the Zend Framework" series I introduce the Zend_View Enhanced Proposal for the Zend Framework, elaborate on its operation, and provide some opinions on the ongoing debate over its implementation.    In this final entry of the series, he recaps previous concepts (like Partials/Layouts/Controllers/Placeholders) and how far reaching the Zend_View Enhanced component is. He also includes some of the helpers and interfaces he's proposed for the module including:   Zend_View_Helper_Partial Zend_View_Helper_Controller Zend_View_Helper_HeadScript Zend_View_Helper_Doctype Zend_View_Helper_HeadStyle   He takes each of the concepts mentioned above and applies these different helpers/interfaces inside them, illustrating with some sample code as needed.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted today about a new webinar from Zend touting "everything you need to know" about the PHP 5 certification exam that the company offers.   Zend Certified Engineers are the most sought after PHP developers. [...] To become a Zend Certified Engineer developers must pass the Certification exam covering a wide range of PHP topics. Attend the Zend Certified Engineer Webinar and hear all the details about the exam.   The webinar will happen on January 30th at about 9am (PST) and will be hosted by Beth Gomez. You can reserve your spot today by signing up over on Zend's pages on Webex.com or just get more information about it from this page over on the Zend site.
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The Zend Developer Zone has posted their latest podcast episode in their PHP Abstract series today. The show i shosted by Chris Hartjes again (see his previous show) and discusses the difference between "glue" and "full stack" frameworks.   Today's special guest is Chris Hartjes. Chris has been building PHP applications since 1998. Currently employed as a Senior Developer for the Cake Development Corporation, Chris has been labeled as an "agent provocateur" within the PHP community. [...] Today Chris is going to talk to us today about Glue Frameworks vs. Full Stack frameworks.   The show can be downloaded directly from here or, as always, you can drop the url to their feed into your favorite aggregator and get this and other great episodes of PHP Abstract.
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Zend has a new tutorial posted in their PHP 101 series - PHP 101 (part 9): SQLite My Fire!
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Chris Hartjes has posted again about the "rebirth" of a Zend Framework component he's worked on - the Zend_Service_Audioscrobbler.   So, dear readers, I received some nice emails and comments from those you have used Zend_Service_Audioscrobbler, along with having a nice email conversation with Wil Sinclair from Zend.   He still wants to "rip things up and start over", but has decided on a slightly different route - mapping the older function calls to the new ones via a __call catch and including a message stating that the older function call would be deprecated.
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Matthew O'Phinney points out that one of the latest Zend Webinar presentations, "MVC applications with the Zend Framework", has been posted to Zend's webinar page.   We had more than 50 attendees, most of whom stayed on the whole time. For those of you who attended, thanks for the great questions and comments. If you would like to view the webinar, download the slides, or download the example code (a hello world app), visit the Zend.com Webinar page and look for the presentation.   Other webinars posted include a look at the Zend Core, an overview of the Zend Development Tools and a look at the Zend Framework and Access Control.
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Scott Mattocks, like so many others, has just reciently recieved notification that he's been accepted as a speaker for the Zend/PHP Conference & Expo this fall. He talks more about his speech in his latest post.   My session, "Consusming Web Services with PHP-GTK 2&#8243; will be a look at how to turn a web services API into a desktop application. I only have fifty minutes so it won't be very heavy on implementation details. Instead it will look more at representing different data structures, collecting different types of data and how creating a desktop application can make life easier for the company and the end user.   Scott joins other speakers for this great event, including speakers like Ilia Alshanetsky, Wez Furlong, and Zeev Suraski. Be sure to check back on the Zend site soon to see when Scott and others' talks will be held.
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In a new post on the Zend Developer Zone (by Daniel Vecchiato) pointing out a new tutorial that combines the Zend Framework with another framework, CodeIgniter, to enhance each's power.    The tutorial (Using Zend Framework components in Code Igniter) will introduce you to an easy way to integrate the Zend Framework libraries (a lot!) into Code Igniter PHP Framework.   In particular we will build an example in which we use the Zend_Service_Flickr to retrieve images based on a specific tag ('climbing' in this tutorial).    The tutorial steps you through a quick installation of the Zend Framework, but assumes that you already have CodeIgniter installed. Then it's a simple matter of combining the two, extending the Zend Flickr service client and grabbing photos related to "climbing".
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Cal Evans has another update about the upcoming (Oct 8th through 11th) to the Zend Developer Zone today:   ZendCon is sneaking up on us fast. If you've not got your tickets yet, time is running out so you had better hurry. To whet your appetite, ere are a few blog posts or ZendCon mentions from speakers and attendees who will be there this year.   Included in his list are bloggers like Terry Chay, Brian DeShong and Mike Naberenzy and events like the Happy Hour 2.0 and the Unconference.