As of the 1.11.4 release of Zend Framework, the generated testing stubs just got a little saner. At the time of Zend_Tool’s initial release, the standard application structure you are familiar with today was just being released as well with Zend_Application. In addition, the testing controllers from this newly standardized application layer, were too, in their infancy. In short, we had known that the stubs being produced in the tests/ directory were incomplete, but we were waiting to see if there were improvements to Zend_Test on the horizon that might improve the way controllers were tested- and to see if these new methods would become best practices.

New from ZendCasts.com today there’s a screencast posted showing you how to integrate Zend_Tool into your application, allowing it to be easily used from the command-line.

A few version back the Zend Framework introduced a handy component that can help you get a Zend Framework started quickly – Zend_Tool (and the command line “zf”). It works like a charm on unix-based systems, but has some quirks about it on Windows. To help with the situation, Cal Evans has posted a guide on Zend_Tool and how he got it working on his Windows 7 platform.

On his blog, Jeroen Keppens writes about his love of modular design philosophies, and how one can do modular based design, using Zend Framework and Zend_Tool

PHP Abstract is back! In this episode I interview Matthew Weier O’Phinney, recently promoted to Project Lead of Zend Framework for Zend Technologies, to find out about all the new features in Zend Framework 1.8.

By now, you are sure to have heard the news, Zend Framework 1.8 has landed.
With ZF 1.8 comes several new features such as Zend_Application,
Zend_Navigation, Zend_Tag_Cloud, and, my favorite Zend_Tool. Zend_Tool is
not a component in the typical sense. Most components have a class at its
top level namespace, Zend_Tool does not. Most components are generally
consumed inside your application code to simplify runtime tasks, Zend_Tool
does not. Zend_Tool is more akin to a framework than a component
– a framework within a framework.