Presentation #1

Basics - Overview

Topics

• HTML vs CSS

• DOM trees

• JavaScript

• PHP

• Frameworks

• Templates

HTML vs CSS

HTML

• Content, content, content!

• Tags, elements that form a DOM (Document Object Model) tree

CSS

• Presentation of a page

• Select elements and choose how you want them to look

DOM trees

• The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in X|HTML.

JavaScript

• You add action to your page.

• It’s an OOP client side language.

• add a trim function to String sssssssssssssssssssssssssss class

• use it and add action to aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa your page!

Adding life to static pages

• You’ve been creating great web pages with HTML, and a bit of CSS.

• But you’ve noticed that visitors to your site can’t do much other than passively look at the content on the pages. The communication’s one-way, and you’d like to change that!

• With pure HTML web pages,

the server simply serves up

static HTML that only displays

content

PHP – Brings pages to life!

• PHP allows you to manipulate web page content on the server just before a page is delivered to the client browser.

1. A PHP script runs on the server

2. This script can alter or generate HTML code at will

3. HTML page is delivered to the browser which does not know that PHP was involved

• With PHP in the mix, the web server is able to dynamically generate HTML web pages on the fly.

PHP – All the action

PHP - continued

What the server ran What the client received

Frameworks

• A software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. A software framework is a universal, reusable software platform to develop applications, products and solutions.

• Software frameworks include support programs, compilers, code libraries, tool sets, and application programming interfaces (APIs) that bring together all the different components to enable development of a project or solution.

Frameworks – Why use one?

• If you look at PHP Job listings, you will often see “MVC Framework Experience” as one of their requirements. It is becoming one of

those must-have skill sets for web developers.

1. Code and File Organization

2. Utilities and Libraries

3. The MVC Pattern

4. Security

5. Less Code & Faster Development

6. Community Support

7. Suitable for Teamwork

Frameworks – Code and File Organization

• When you setup a PHP Framework, it already has a certain folder structure. It is expected from you to follow the same standards and keep everything organized in a certain way.

• Once you get used to this model, you will never want to go back!

Frameworks – Utilities and Libraries

• if you ever try to build a whole website with PHP alone, you will find yourself either hunting down a lot of 3rd party code and libraries, or have to write them yourself.

• All top PHP frameworks come with certain Libraries and Helpers,

that help you with: 1. Form Validation 2. Input/Output filtering 3. Database Abstraction 4. Session/Cookie Handling 5. Email, Calendar, Pagination etc…

Frameworks - The MVC Pattern

This kind of separation leads to cleaner and more maintainable

code.

PHP itself works like a template engine. However, when used irresponsibly, it leads to very ugly and unmaintainable code.

The way the MVC Pattern applies to PHP applications:

- Models represent your data structures, usually by interfacing with the database.

- Views contain page templates and output.

- Controllers handle page requests and bind everything together.

Frameworks - Security

• In PHP you can already find many input and output filtering functions to protect your website against certain attacks.

• However, manually using these functions can get tiring and you may forget about them every once in a while.

• With a framework, most of the work can be done for you automatically. For example in CodeIgniter:

1. Any value passed to database object gets filtered against SQL injection attacks.

2. All html generating functions, such as form helpers and url helpers filter the output automatically.

3. All user input can be filtered against XSS attacks. 4. Encrypting cookies automatically is only a matter of

changing a config option.

Frameworks – Less Code & Faster Development

• There is of course a learning curve for all PHP Frameworks. But once you get over this hump, you will enjoy the benefits of rapid application development.

• You will write less code, which means less time spent typing. You will not have to chase down 3rd party libraries all the time for every new project because most of them will come with the default framework install.

• Also, since you are being more organized, it will be much faster to chase down bugs, maintain code, and make changes to existing code.

Frameworks – Community Support

• All popular PHP Frameworks have great active communities behind them. You can talk to other developers, get help, feedback and also give back to the community yourself.

• There are message boards and mailing lists… You can also learn a lot by just browsing the forums and look at what other people are talking about.

Frameworks - Suitable for Teamwork

• The way your project is organized in a PHP Framework also helps you create a suitable environment for teamwork.

• You can let your designers work on the Views, database guru work on the Models, let the smart programmer build reusable Libraries and Plugins etc…

• Also you can have someone build unit tests, because they come with tools for that too.

Frameworks – Which one?

1. Laravel 2. Phalcon 3. Symfony 4. CodeIgniter 5. CakePHP 6. Zend • There are also JavaScript frameworks which you

normally put them together alongside your PHP framework to be more productive!

Templates

• A template is a set of HTML as well as CSS files that organize the look and feel of your page.

• They basically make up the Views you will use in your framework.

• Thus, your only job is to use the MVC framework to fill the appropriate content on each of your pages.

Templates - Bracket

Templates - Simplicity

Templates

• And the list goes on and on…

• We will have to choose one of the ones listed in the .doc file

The End

• Questions?