If you use Zend Framework you probably used the initRoutes() function in your Initializer.php to create nice URI’s and creating some different routing in your application. To create a customized route for your application you can use the Zend_Controller_Router_Route class from the Zend Framework. If you use the common syntax you have to repeatedly build routes in code for all routes in your application. This makes it not maintainable for programmers. To fix this problem we are going to use a XML file with all routing information.

Matthew wrote up an article on modules in Zend_Application and that got me thinking a little bit. When I have done training for Zend Framework, one of the things that mystifies students to some extent is the whole plugin architecture and where things can go. There has been several articles written about it, but they tend to use code to describe it. I was only able to find a small handfull of articles that used some kind of chart to describe what goes on. Not that that’s a problem, but I had found that when I drew out the request lifecycle that it helped the students understand it better.

It’s generally considered a good idea to separate the functional business logic of a Web application from its user interface. And a good template engine helps you achieve this separation with minimal fuss and muss. This article introduces Savant, a lightweight, OOP-compliant template engine with some unique features that offers an effective solution to the problem of controller-view separation.

Pascal Opitz has implemented a caching pattern for models using Zend_Cache and the __call magic method. The goal of this pattern was for the model to be able to return calls either uncached or cached, without initializing a cache object every time, and allowing for an easy way to switch between the two in the controller.

Douglas Brown has discussed the advantages of using a PHP framework in his blog. If you’re new to the world of PHP frameworks, his post provides a concise list of the benefits you will gain. One of the key benefits he finds is: “MVC or Model- View- Controller is a well-known design pattern that demarcates the database and business logic from the presentation layer. This results in simple, clean and understandable code”. Of course, not everyone agrees! A spirited discussion is currently under way in the comments section of his post. Take a look, and put in your $0.02!

I am very proud to announce availability of the first production release of Zend Framework. Many thanks to the scores of PHP developers who have worked for many months to make this product milestone possible. Zend Framework has followed a mission to provide classes that are extremely simple, yet powerful and extensible. Zend Framework is now the best class library available for PHP 5 web application development.

One of my roles at Zend is as a Zend Framework developer, and as such, I’m
the lead developer on the MVC components. Yesterday, I committed a change to
core in preparation for the 1.0.0RC1 release that, while breaking backwards
compatability slightly, will also greatly simplify the integration between
the controller and view components.

p. Since the first time I really saw and understood what Flash was and did, I’ve been jealous of what Flash designers could do. Beyond just the cute animations for banner ads and games, Flash designers have always had a much more fine-grained control on their environment that HTML allows for. Besides my innate inability to design anything like a usable interface, the main drawback that has kept me from exploiting Flash is I never could get my head around the “Movie Timeline” metaphor for programming. As we say back home, “It just ain’t right.” That all changed with Flex. Now programmers can work with tools they are comfortable with and still take advantage of all of Flash’s…well, flash. Flex won’t help developers like me design eye-pleasing interfaces any more than a new pencil would improve my inability to draw. However, I can now put much more useful interfaces on my back-end code.

p. Fellow Zender and all around nice guy Matthew Weier O’Phinney recently posted an article on his blog encouraging PHP developers to “Start Writing Embeddable Applications”.

p. Padraic Brady has been posting a fascinating series of articles on his blog about complex views in the Zend Framework. If you are working with the Zend Framework or you are interested in a deep discussion about M-V-C then you’ll want to spend a lunch hour digesting these four articles.