Using PHP in Node-Webkit - php

Ive built an AngularJS application over the last several months that utilizes a MySQL database for its data. This data is fetched by Angular making calls to PHP and PHP returns JSON strings etc.
The issue is once this application is running inside node-webkit, none of the php works, so all of the content areas are empty. I assume (though the documentation on this issue is null and so i have no confirmation) this happens because Node-webkit is a client-side application framework and therefor wont run server-side languages like php. Is there a way to expand node webkit to run php and other server side languages?
I have done my best to find an answer to this question before posting, but documentation for this is nonexistent, and all of the information I have found about node-webkit talks about installing node on your server and installing npms for MySQL and having angular make calls to node. This defeats the purpose of the application entirely as it is designed so that the exe/deb/rpm/dmg can run and you can set up a database with any cloud database provider and be ready to go. Not ideal if you have to buy a vps just to run this one thing.
I have to assume this is possible in some way. i refuse to believe that everyone with an nw application hard codes all their data.
Thanks in advance

I know of four methods to accomplish this. Some of which you have preferred not to do but I am going to offer them in the hopes it helps you or someone else.
Look for an NPM that can do this for you. You should be able to do this functionality within node.js. - https://www.npmjs.com/search?q=mysql
You can host your PHP remotely. Using node-remote you can give this server the appropriate access to your NW.js project.
You can code a RESTful PHP application that your JavaScript can pass off information to.
You can use my boilerplate code to run PHP within a NW.js project. It however fires up an express.js web server internally to accomplish this. But the server is restricted to the machine and does not accept outside connections - https://github.com/baconface/php-webkit
1 and 4 both carry a risk in your case. Your project can be reversed engineered to reveal the source code and the connection information can be retrieved rather easy. So this should only be in an application on trusted machines and 2 and 3 are the ideal solutions.

Related

Using Interactive Telnet Menus from PHP?

So we've got a web app at work that we're working on migrating.
The new version is based on Zend Framework, and we're gradually moving it over from this really odd little ASP classic app written in Jscript, that comes with it's own set of terminal clients that actually need to be installed on the client machine in order to work.
The reason we need the terminal clients is because we need to click on a link in a web page, and that opens up the terminal apps which log into remote systems, sometimes over two and three steps to obtain information which is sent back to the terminal client, which they then copy and paste into another application, which is processed by a perl script, and sent to the database that the first app uses.
This process is painful.
What I want to do is use ssh programmatically, to log into a remote device, in this case a router in another city, and then use telnet from there to navigate to another app that uses a series of moderately complex telnet menus (I think this is the sticking point) to navigate to the data that's needed.
There are some extremely well rounded php programmers on stack overflow, and I thought I would post here to see if anyone had solved this kind of problem before using PHP and/or Zend Framework.
When I searched for this topic on the site, I was unable to find a solution that fit the problem.
Is there a library or set of libraries I can use to do this job?
Thanks in advance for your time and attention.
I have been researching this topic for a bit, and have not tried any of these solutions myself, but here is what I have found so far in my research:
https://github.com/graze/telnet-client
https://github.com/jnorell/Net_Telnet
https://github.com/farzadghanei/POLlib
http://www.geckotribe.com/php-telnet/

Serve PHP/MySQL with Apache/Nginx/FastCGI on Swift (iOS)

At work we have a enterprise store, meaning we can kind of bypass most of the main Apple App Store regulations. We have a special data-management system written in CodeIgniter with MySQL as the database engine serving the framework on Apache.
We are now getting more and more questions to run the system offline on the iPad. I've tried to use LocalStorage and such, yet it's just not enough and stable enough (WebStorage/WebSQL glitchy) and the allowed storage size is too small to fit all offline buffered data into.
I know this is very ugly, but as we mostly know, customers always find the most weird ways of requesting features and our sales team always manages to push it through without consulting us :P.
I did browse Google/DuckDuckGo and CocoaPods for a while, but I can't really find anything combining PHP serving within Swift (Objective-C would be ok too) serving it on Apache/Nginx/FastCGI with MySQL (I could substitute this with SQLite3).
I was wondering if anyone has experience with running an internal server in Swift/Objective-C in this fashion.
If you wish to keep your current stack of technologies, you could use something like Realm. It is a replacement for Core Data, and it allows you to easily create objects from JSON REST API and store it to the local database. But you still have to write some application specific code to keep data on the mobile device in sync with the server, and you have to have RESTful services that produce JSON on the server.
If you're ready to switch your persistence stack, you could use Couchbase Mobile that allows you to transparently sync your data on the device with data in your backend database, back and forth. But then you have to use Couchbase on the server.
If you want server-side Objective-C, look at https://github.com/depinette/backtoweb
I have not updated this framework in a while but it worked for me.
It's based on fastcgi and it can be used with the Apache server integrated with OSX.
I suppose you could use swift instead of Objective-C.

Using meteor.js with php server side

I've developed an application that I would like to use meteor.js for real time updates (I want to enhance but not change my program, for example when a user adds a comments make it update in real-time ) . Problem is meteor.js uses node.js (so javascript as server-side code). I use LAMP stack, Is it possible to get PHP to feed data into meteor.js from mysql.
Meteor is more than just an 'interactive webapplication'-builder or javascript framework. The idea is to have only one programming language (besides HTML/CSS for markup) to do all the work. Basically it creates a 'remote server' (in the clients browser) it can push data to and at the same time it publishes various API's to the users system. The data passed through these API's / connections has a specific structure which has to be adhered at all time.
Meteor is built around NodeJS, which makes it hard (if not impossible) to run it without this backend. Sure you can try to mimic the backend using PHP, but it would be a waste of time. Reading your question you'll be better of using a javascript framework like jQuery or Prototype. Unlike Meteor you will need to do the AJAX calls (POST & CallBack) yourself, but you can actually decide which backend you want to use yourself (including PHP / MySQL).
If you want to do this anyway you need to check the Meteor & NodeJS source code to see what the minimum requirements are to make Meteor run under PHP. The PHP stack has to interpret the commands Meteor sends and receivers, but this won't be an easy task.
You can use comet (or reverse ajax) for realtime updates.
Trying to marry node.js with PHP doesn't sound like a worthwhile path to go down. If someone insisted on using a system like Meteor.js, yet with a PHP back-end, it would make more sense to look at AngularJS which is mainly the client side.
Of course, that is different technology stack. If someone really insisted on the blending, one could consider using server side sockets to interact with PHP Web services; and/or use mongodb and/or mysql-node to interact with the same databases.
I released a meteorite package that interacts with a Wordpress site that has the Wordpress JSON API. A quick fix. For now.
Comes with a backend call that will return the raw data, or a publication that stores the posts using their id's instead of a randomly generated mongoid. And some basic templates to get you started including a Session variable that keeps track of the currently selected post.
I'm working on it a lot more and will eventually have a version that directly makes mysql calls from node so you won't need php or Wordpress; just the ability to access the mysql database (which can be remote, with the appropriate configuration, or on the same machine).

Socket.io and ajax request to php page

I'm setting up a realtime app that will be using socket.io. There's currently some core functionally in php, that utilizes memcache and mysql backend.
Would it make sense in the socket.io server to do an ajax request (if that's even possible) to the php page that handles this? There's a lot of MySQL querying, I know it can be done in node.js, but I'd rather keep this part abstracted in php if possible.
So, my question is, is that a proper thing to do? Call a php page from within the socket.io server to then return to the client?
Thanks!
I don't see any problems with having your node.js app communicate with your PHP app by exposing a RESTful API or some PHP script that you can POST to or GET from your socket.io node.js server. There are plenty of npm modules (like request) that can make HTTP requests like that a breeze for you. After retrieving the data from PHP in your node app, you can use socket.io to emit() the data to the socket.io client on the frontend.
There is nothing wrong with that. You are simply using a RESTful API to access the MySQL data, thus isolating the database details.
If one day you are tired of PHP, you can easily switch to Ruby, Python or Whatever for that part without even touching the node.js. If your logic is already written in PHP (you are upgrading an old app), it make even more sense as you can reuse what has already been tested and debugged. A lot of folks are advocating for that kind of separation between systems. Just look at all the SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) buzz.
Where I work we are using this very architecture in a project (though in this case its an ASP.NET MVC Website calling a Java EE app) and it served us very well. With the event model of node.js, its even better since you won't block waiting for the PHP.
But of course, there are some drawback
Performance overhead
Architecture is more complicated
You now work with two language instead of only one (though javascript and PHP are so often used together that I don't think it's really is a problem in this case)
So you need to ask yourself if your problem really need that solution. But in a lot of case the answer may be yes. Just don't forget the virtue of Keeping It Simple and Stupid (the KISS principle)

access + mysql converting to webplatform = (php + asp.net + mysql)?

i have a database that is written in access. the access mdb file connects via ODBC to a local mysql database. i have a bunch of sql and vba code in the access file. i dont expect the database to surpass 100mb. currently it is around 10mb. i will need to have multiple user access. (no more than 10 users at a time)
i need to convert this database from being a local one to a web server, and i need to make a web interface for it.
how do i get the current local instance of mysql database to run off a webserver? i am currently running it off wampserver 2.0. i dont have experience putting a database on a webserver.
i have an OK vb.net background. i have never done any web applications. here's a picture of the access form that i may need to replicate to work off a website:
alt text http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/1025/83882488.jpg
which platform should i use as the front end to this thing?
would it be possible to just run this access file off a webserver instead of programming a new front end for it? is that not a smart idea?
thank you for your help!
If your webserver has TCP connectivity to your existing database server, and its hosted in a suitable place (eg, don't have your webserver in a datacenter connecting to a database server on your office DSL connection), then no move is required.
If you do need to move it, it's as easy as creating a backup/dump, and restoring it elsewhere.
As far as the frontend, there are MANY technologies that will do what you need (ASP.NET, PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl, Java being the most popular ones, not necessarily in that order).
Use something you are comfortable with, or that you are interested in learning (provided you have the time to do so)
Use something that runs properly on your target webserver. Really, ASP.NET is the only one that has any major issue here, as it's limited to Windows.
Access itself has no direct web-accessible version. A Google search finds some apps that claim to convert Access forms to web-based, but I will not link to any because I don't know how well they work. I'm certainly leary of anything like that, because web apps are a different breed from Windows apps. If you are going to go that route, be sure they actually generate HTML output; make sane, clean source; and offer a free trial so you can verify it actually works.
Really though, a form like that is reasonably easy to reproduce with some basic knowledge of server-side programming and some HTML.
I don't have any experience migrating access to a web-based interface, although I have heard of people going straight from access to a web page. MySql is exceptionally easy to migrate. MySQL.com has a program called mysqldump that comes with the standard install of MySQL that allows you to export your database straight to a text file that can be used then with mysqldump to import it on another server. I don't believe the WAMP server comes with the command line tools although they can be downloaded from mysql.com. However, if it has phpMyAdmin, then there is also an export feature with that as well that will generate a .sql file that can be imported to the webserver using phpMyAdmin. One thing to keep in mind though is that I have had very little success mixing and matching these methods: ie, I've never been able to get a mysqldump-created file to work with phpMyAdmin and vice versa.
Good luck!
The link will help you to export and import mySQL database
May be on Windows web server there is an opportunity to run Access files, you can check, but any way if you have some programming skills, I would say that it is not difficult to crate a php script which will query your database info and will edit.
Migrating an Access application to the web is quite difficult, because you can't translate an Access form 1:1 into a web page. Web apps are stateless, whereas Access is built around the concept of bound controls and bound datasets.
Secondly, it is impossible to easily replicate an Access subform.
Third, you lose tons of events that Access forms and controls are built around.
In general, a web page that performs the same task as an Access form will bear little or no resemblance to the Access form, simply because the methods for accomplishing the same tasks and the UI widgets available to you are so completely different.
One thing to consider is whether your users need a web application or if they just need to use your existing Access application over the Internet. If the latter is the case, Windows Terminal Server/Citrix can do the job for a lot less money, since there's no conversion needed. You do need to provision a Windows Terminal Server, set up a VPN and purchase CALs for the users, but the costs of those are going to be much less than the cost of rebuilding the app for web deployment.
It may not be an appropriate solution, but it's one that you should consider, I think.

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