Work has been overwhelming lately and frustrating but there was an interesting question asked by one of the developers at work. Can the Zend Framework run without the .htaccess file? The answer, Yes.
Why do we need the .htaccess file
First off why is the .htaccess file required in the first place by Zend Framework? Think of the .htaccess file as a funnel.
In a funnel, you poor water/liquid/stuff into the end contaning the larger diameter. The “stuff” is then squeezed out of a small single point at the opposite end. In the web world the “stuff” is web traffic and the the single point is where all the traffic goes through, in this case its the .htaccess file.
The .htaccess file will send all incoming traffic to your Front Controller which handles routing and dispatching etc.
Removing .htaccess from the process.
For this im going use Apache 2.2. Start off by opening up the httpd.conf file located in the the conf folder of your Apache installation. Somewhere near the bottom add the following lines.
#Application Specific Include file
Include conf/extra/httpd-zf.conf
This will allow Apache to add addition configuration settings once Apache is restarted and its a great place to isolate application specific Apache settings.
Now, go ahead an create the include file, “httpd-zf.conf” inside the APACHE_HOME/conf/extra/ directory and place the ReWrite rules which were originally in your .htaccess file into
it. Hit save, remove the .htaccess file, and restart Apache. You should see your Zend Framework application running.
Why do this?
Speed. Your application must always read the .htaccess file when someone visits the site. Removing this extra layer and placing it into the Web Server itself will reduce the amount of time a page loads.
With the release of the new Zend Framework 1.7.3 a few nuggets were released. One of those nuggets was the extension support for JQuery UI Widgets. Featuring Dialog, Tabs, and Date Selection widgets among other bug fixes. (A full list of updated Zend 1.7.3 release notes can be seen here)
With the release I started to dig into my current projects and started to update my forms. Adding widgets here and there. In the process I learned thing or two and just wanted to share.
Outline
What are we going to cover?
All required Files and packages.
Installation of these files and packages
Examples – Dialog, DatePicker Widgets as well as their API.
Links to helpful readings
Required Files
If you havent download the latest release, 1.7.3, do so now (click her). Once your done downloading unzip the filea nd open the directory extras/library. This is the directory which contains the ZendX folder.
The latest Zend Framework release comes with an additional library, ZendX. These are extensions which are not part of the Core of the framework. Currently the library contains 2 componenets; the JQuery and the Console components.
Copy the ZendX folder into the folder which contains your current installation of the Zend library. On my webserver the directory structure looks like this after I copy ZenX into the directory . (Yes
You now need the JQuery UI library. To take advantage of the latest and greatest your going to need the release candidate (jquery 1.6rc6), download it and unzip it.
Place the files
themes
ui
external
jquery-1.3.1.js
inside your public directory. Your final directory structure should look something similar to this:
Required Files are now installed. Identifying ZendX_JQuery to your Zend Application
Since the ZendX_JQuery is a View_Helper extension and not part of the main library we need to register it as a plugin using the Zend_View addHelperPath() method.
Open your bootstrap file. public/index.php and copy the below script into it.
$view = new Zend_View();
$view->addHelperPath('ZendX/JQuery/View/Helper', 'ZendX_JQuery_View_Helper');
$viewRenderer = new Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_ViewRenderer();
$viewRenderer->setView($view);
Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::addHelper($viewRenderer);
Adding the information to the bootstrap file will allow you to use the ZendX_JQuery throughout your application. From now on the only item you need to include in your View are the styleSheet to implement using the jQuery() addStylesheet()
method and the jQuery() setUriLocalPath() method in your View.
The addStylesheet method will add the stylesheet. If your setup is identical to one shown above you can use the string “/js/themes/base/ui.all.css” to refernce the css file required. (ZF reference manual mentions flora css, i could not find it)
The setURiLocalPath() will add the js library to use. Set it to “/js/ui/jquery.ui.all.js”.
Well get to see how to use these jQuery methods now.
Putting the pieces together – Examples Were going to implement 2 quick examples which will get us started on the right foot by implementing a Date-Picker and a Dialog.
Date Picker
The first example demonstrates the use of the View Helper DatePicker.
The full method accepts 4 parameters with the third parameter accepting an array containing options shown here.
The example shown above adds the stylesheet between the head node and places the js file at the very end of our HTML. Placing the js at the very end of the body is critical to do. Placing it anywhere else will cause mixed results when executing Ajax features.
The example above also demonstrates how to format the date for the specific field using one of the parameters. Go ahead and give it a try, you should see something like the below figure.
Dialog Boxes
A dialog box is the Web 2.0 equivalent of the alert() javascript popup. Using the dialogContainer method we can add a dialog box to our page. Below is an example of a dialog box which uses parameters.
If you tried the example in the ZF Reference manual and didn’t have this work for you. Dont worry, change ‘dialog’ to ‘dialogContainer’ and you should be able to get it working.
jQuery()->setUiLocalPath(”/js/ui/jquery.ui.all.js”);?>
For additional parameters available for the dialogContainer take a look at the JQuery API for the UI widget here. Try out the View, you should see the Dialog window shown below.
Thats it. Set up is done, you know the requirements for the JQuery UI Widgets, and you created 2 widgets. Take a look at some of the links below that helped me get started.
There are a few quarcks i havent figured out yet such as the inability to move the dialog box using FF 3 and currently playnig around with the other widgets so Ill update as I go. Next on the docket. Progress bar and File Uploading using Jquery extension.
This will be a quick entry. Are you having issues using the Zend_Paginator view functions? Yea me too. This affects all releases and isnt really a bug but more of a annoyance if you dont know whats going on.
What is the issue?
Well if you installed a fresh copy of PHP or if you prefer to code with <?php ?> open and close tags appose to <? ?> you might be affected. Since a fresh copy of PHP contains the PHP.ini flag short_open_tags = Off this causes some chaos and doesnt allow the Zend_Paginator::paginationControl function for example as well as $this->next $this->previous attributes to not work in a View.
The Fix
Open your php.ini file. You can check which php.ini your using by using phpinfo(); and check the Currently Loaded php.ini path. open the file up and set the short_open_tags flag to On then restart Apache.
