Author Archives: Tech Admin

Zend Framework On the Way: Sample Application For Academic Purpose

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Can Zend Framework do you a favor? Does it taste different flavour? If you ask me, the answer is yes.

As Zend Framework (ZF) is on its steady pace to the first stable release, more and more applications are [being] developed on ZF. This is also intriguing me to create some applications which are driven by ZF.

Fortunately, I was offered to create a system for managing final projects in my past department (it’s now recognized as School of Informatics and Electrical Engineering). Considering this as a perfect chance to show properly designed academic software and as a pilot project for other ZF-based applications, I took the opportunity and started developing the application.

Frontend view

Figure 1 Sample user’s frontend view

The application itself is mainly another CRUD application with some remote calls to fetch academic data located at different servers. The remote call API is customized to suit the department’s need. Currently it still relies on POST and GET based supplied parameters. However, it’s likely a custom XML API will be developed to handle the web service.

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Community Builder Advanced Search: Search By Age Interval and Avatar Only Unofficial Hack

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As I posted in joomla forum about my plan to release my hack for community builder advanced search, here I will give some notes about how to enable and implement the hack. This hack is made for Community Builder Advanced Search 2.0.4 (which might be later adapted to work with the upcoming 2.0.5).

Before you proceed

Currently this component only works in Joomla 1.0.x. It’s not recommended to install this component on Joomla 1.5 unless you want to provide assistance in reporting bugs and compatibility of this component. Please read the full article here.

What’s this hack for?

This hack will enable search for members with certain age ranges, defined by user. This hack will also add extra filter to show only member with avatar / thumbnail photo.

Who will benefit from this hack?

Community based site’s owners and webmasters who use Community Builder to power their community-based service.

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Modifying Zend_Db_Adapter_Abstract::quoteInto to accept multiple question marks

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A nice feature from Zend Framework (ZF) is its robust database adapter. Although there is still some work needed to extend the functionality (ORM?) and some strange bugs I encounter when working with multiple tables, Zend_Db package is already good solution for my CRUD application.

In Zend_Db_Adapter_Abstract, there is a function called quoteInto which is used to quote a field value from an sql statement. Most implementation is in where clause like

$where = $db->quoteInto('name = ?','John Doe');

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Displaying Author Alias in Joomla’s Article / Content

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As a popular CMS, Joomla can be used to serve various purpose sites, from simple news management to sophisticated e-commerce with CRM functionalities. Now, consider yourself as a smart publisher who instead of burning your skin chasing for a hot article about kitten’s birth, decides to automate the process and let user submit their favorite news and article to your site.

You choose Joomla because it’s simple and easy to manage. Later you pick JA Submit, a content submission component available for free download at http://www.joomlart.com/downloads/ cat/free_joomla_extensions/ja_submit_2.1.html and after installing, configuring the component and put the link at your site, you’re done. Really?

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Zend Framework: A Gem in Less Than A Penny

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I’ve been searching for robust PHP framework which does more than a set of classes. After playing with some frameworks available on the internet, I stumble upon Zend Framework, a framework provided by Zend.

Quoting Zend, this is their definition for Zend Framework

Zend Framework is a simple, straightforward, open-source software framework for PHP 5 designed to eliminate the tedious details of coding and let you focus on the big picture. Its strength is in its highly-modular MVC design, making your code more reusable and easier to maintain. Although it’s currently in preview release, take a look—you may be surprised.

I accentuate on the last phrase, and yes, i was surprised. ZF has clear logic and workflow for what a framework must posses. It has Zend_Loader for loading necessary class and Zend_Registry for keeping object singleton. Zend_View handles the viewer nicely from the MVC and uses PHP directly to parse variables and routines within templates (this is great since some template engines parse variables within templates thus increasing process time and give some overhead). Other features are also nice. You can find them by reading the documentation and manual.

Supported with good documentation, mailing list, and active community, ZF seems promising for being the most popular PHP framework in the future. Give ZF a try. It costs less than a penny.