I am thinking of getting into JS/Html5 to do some web applications.
At the moment I am using Visual Studio Express 2010 (I am coming from a c#/silverlight/mssql background). Its nice. However, if I am doing html5/js I would prefer to write server side database lookup scripts in php for mysql, rather than mssql. VS does not cater for php mysql (as far as I know).
What ide is best for this? Do I need to install wamp server or somthing like that? (It needs to be free, this is just a hobby.)
Also, for non-database applications, eg simple games, how could I make my js/html5 app into as close as a downloadable app as possible? Is it possible? Downloading and unzipping a zip file is fine, if that has to be done.
The last thing I might need to know is how to save a text file to the hard drive. I think it can be done using Internet Explorer, but could you create a html page on the fly, with a copy button, which you could then instruct the user to paste into notepad, or somthing like that?
For IDEs, NetBeans is nice and simple, and works well for web stuff. You don't really need an IDE though. It won't be as helpful as it is in .NET. Plenty of web developers use simpler text editors. If you have a Mac I like TextMate.
If you need to serve files from a web server you will need a web server, but for most things you can develop just via the file system and file:// urls. You will run into problems if you're trying to do AJAX - see jQuery Ajax request from local filesystem (Windows file:///)
Downloadable apps can be pretty much implemented with the HTML5 Offline Application spec. See http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/offline.html for the formal stuff, but there are lots of examples, e.g. http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/appcache/beginner/.
As far as saving a text file, for security reasons I don't think that regular cross-platform JavaScript will let you do this. It's easy to do if you have a web server and you're serving up files and services for AJAX calls though.
Related
I want to ask if I can run virtual server, MySQL, and a PHP editor on Android (4.1 for example)? I know my question is simple, but I didn't find anything helpful in my searches.
I use an app called Servers Ultimate, it makes life quite simple
Look into Bit Web Server (PHP,MySQL,PMA). It's a web server with PHP, MySQL as well as PHPMyAdmin - built on Android. It cost $2 and it's available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andi.serverweb&feature=related_apps#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEwOSwiY29tLmFuZGkuc2VydmVyd2ViIl0.
Hope that helps!
Or you can take alook at this
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.fun2code.android.pawserver&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDMsImRlLmZ1bjJjb2RlLmFuZHJvaWQucGF3c2VydmVyIl0.
Paw Server is able to run php , i guess by transferring the code to another server and rendering the reponse..
Have a look on my app - Android Web Developer (IDE/Code Editor for web developers). It contains a lot features e.g.
Support all major web languages and formats: PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML
A lot of ways to reach your project ( FTP, FTPS, SFTP, WEBDav and growing)
Code highlighting
Code completion
Error checking
Hardware keyboard support (e.g hotkeys)
Code beautifying with one click
Tablet ready UI
Line numbering
Quick preview of your page
Highlighting the current line
Search and replace with regular expressions
Unlimited Undo/redo
Full screen mode
Recent projects
Periodical autosaving
Rename/create/delete/copy-paste files inside you project
Hope this helps.
I keep seeing all these cool new frameworks for web dev, but am very confused, because 95% of the info I read is all just hype, how do they work?
Is it as simple as providing a link in your html to a server that hosts the framework? Or do you have to download the framework, and install it on your own server?
Do web frameworks work with Winhost.com (windows-based hosting with php), or the many other windows-based hosting providers? Sorry if this is a stupid question, but the pages I have visited are very confusing!
Most of the frameworks would require you to download them and re upload them to your hosting.
Since having some crazy requirements would hit the popularity of such framework, most of the populars one tends to have as less as possible requirements. I.e. you don't need to have specific PHP extensions or PHP settings, so it would be possible to use them on any hosting(PHP5 hosting, zf, symphony and other don't play well with PHP4).
In term of what a framework brings you, you can see a framework as a big code base the you can use to make your development faster. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Plus a framework would force you to code more cleanly.
Generally speaking and in a nutshell, they allow you to generate HTML (with code) instead of providing static pages to the users. This also means you get to code less and don't repeat yourself.
PHP and Ruby on Rails are examples of web frameworks. You have to get them installed on a server.
Here's how it works.
Static HTML page is the oldest type of webpage. You write some HTML code, and when the server receive request from browser it parses the URL and determine which HTML file corresponds to the URL.
Dynamic page, is similar to static HTML page; but instead of writing HTML code, you write PHP/ASP/Python/CGI/etc code that writes HTML code.
As it happens, a lot of dynamic websites shares a large chunk of similar PHP/ASP/Python/CGI/etc code. A web framework is a set of pre-written code someone else have written; so instead of you writing the code, you offload half of the code-writing to the web framework's authors.
Different framework have different requirements. The simplest are just several simple PHP pages you can include() into your own codes (i.e. installing is a matter of copying the PHP pages into the same directory as your own code). The more complex one might reverse the role, they take control how the page is processed (i.e. installation is more involved, they might need to tweak the server's configurations).
I have developed a PHP-MySQL web application, which is a school-based project.
My client wants this application to be converted into a .exe file such that it can be installed on his desktop and use it.
How the PHP website can be converted to a .exe file and can it be run without the need of a database/server software?
Please advice.
The convenient solution is not to convert the website to .exe. I think it will be better if you have portable server/php/mysql and make the website work from a usb or CD with autorun.
NuSphere's PhpDock claims to do this: It serves as a deployment helper and comes with a bundled web server. However, I don't know about the database part, and it's not free.
PhpDock enables you to deploy any PHP web application as a Stand Alone Windows Desktop application w/o any changes in the code.
I don't know that particular product, but I have been using their IDE for years and am quite happy.
try using a site-specific browser. it will make a desktop app that is basically a portal running to your webapp. try this one:
https://mozillalabs.com/prism/
It allows alot of advanced features like system tray icons and such. I have used it many times!
Hope this helps, JL
Short answer: Not possible.
Long answer: It depends.
You could install a web- and database server on his machine (or create an installer that does it) and run the application locally on his machine.
or
You keep the application on a server and just provide a launcher that opens his browser and points it to the URL of the application.
As Artefacto mentioned, it might be a good idea to switch to SQLite instead of MySQL but depending on how your application is written it might require a lot of code and SQL Query changes.
No. You have at least to remove the dependency on MySQL (and use e.g. sqlite instead).
Then, you would either have to:
Convert the webpages to windows dialogs. This would completely change your application (e.g. what would originally be http "form submissions" would be someting completely different). At this point, it'd much easier to write a .NET application
Bundle a web server (e.g. Apache) with PHP installed.
Another try would be to turn your php project into PHP-GTK (http://gtk.php.net/).
Yet another one is to give HPHP a try (https://github.com/facebook/hiphop-php/wiki/) and try to turn the generated C code into something like a .DLL in .NET and use it for the logic while coding the UI in say, C#.
Just create a simple program in C or C++ that will just add icon in Start menu, desktop and Quickstart. If your client clicks the icon it will open the default OS browser and point it to URI of your application online.
That might fool your client :)
Or maybe it will be enough for him (he might be asking you to convert it to exe because he can't remember URI or something - ask him what is the reason).
You can use xampp open-source project to pack your PHP site into an executable file.
Use the following steps:-
1. Download Xampp source code.
Add your PHP file inside htdocs directory(Ref:- https://sourceforge.net/p/xampp/code/HEAD/tree/win32/xampp/htdocs/).
Now compile the XAMPP source code and distribute it.
For DATABASE creation and initial data loading in the database, you can code your site in such way that if database is not created, it redirects the page to install.php which do the database creation and data loading task using sql file provided(you need to add SQL file containing database structure and required data).
Don't forget to delete the SQL file post installation of database.
Not sure that's gonna be possible but have a look at:
WinBinder
WinBinder is a new open source
extension for PHP, the script
programming language. It allows PHP
programmers to easily build native
Windows applications.
(source: winbinder.org)
Solution 1:
There are several solutions to convert your web application into a desktop application, the one I prefer is the open source solution: PhpDesktop, but unfortunately it only supports SQLite.
Best Solution:
To convert your PHP application with MySQL I know a paid solution that does this: 'ExeOutPut For Desktop', it is the best for this job
Php desktop is the way to go, it's actually very simple to modify to the version of PHP you want to use and is open source too https://github.com/cztomczak/phpdesktop
I've decided to code some applications in PHP that are supposed to run offline in the user's machine. However, I can't seem to find an user-friendly install wizard to create a local server in where the script will run. Any ideas?
PS: Here's an example of what I want: http://www.nolapro.com
You could go to the old school route and try using PHP-GTK.
Text Tutorial here: http://www.kksou.com/php-gtk2/References/Compiling-standalone-PHP-GTK2-applications-on-windows-using-PriadoBlender.php
or you could go the route that I believe has much more promise: Adobe AIR + PHP
It has the added bonus of running on any platform!
Video tutorials here: http://www.vtc.com/products/Adobe-AIR-PHP-Development-Tutorials.htm
There's also a new player in the game, Appcelerator. It lets you write your code in whatever language you want (PHP, Ruby, Python, etc) and compile it for the platform of choice (iPhone, Android, Windows, OSX). Parts of it are still beta, but it looks unbelievably slick & cool, and there are lots of tutorial videos. http://www.appcelerator.com
I hate to advocate this, because it just feels so wrong. You would probably be better off using a language inteded for use for stand-alone applications, if you're going to be doing this often or in a production setting.
With that said, a colleague of mine used to use the Bambalam PHP to EXE Compiler for this. He actually had a profitable product built around it.
Bambalam will generate an EXE that doesn't rely on any external DLLs, based on your PHP code.
http://www.bambalam.se/bamcompile/
If you have a webapp written, you maybe want to deploy on client, a possible way is use wapache, which is a standalone apache bundled with your application, and an integrated (IE) browser control inside.
http://wapache.sourceforge.net/
A new feature of PHP 5.4 & 6 can help you, the builtin web-server.
http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php
With this feature you can host locally your php app without external webserver, and access on localhost.
If you really talking about a client application you are really wrong to do this.
If you want to wrap a server + browser to deploy your web based application so it runs local you might check out three options:
1) Deploy a simple webkit browser (you can get a QT Webkit Browser in 30 lines of code) and an apache server that is installed somewhere standalone (not via the apache control script as this uses port 80 and i probably conflicts with another installed webserver.
2) Look at the Firefox PRISMA solution. I have read about this only in a news article but it wrapps the firefox around one single start URL. You have to deploy a webserver in the same way as
3) Try to wrap it as a HTA application. Search the corresponding info on MSDN.
I would prefer (1) as you can add special application interacting code as needed.
I've been taken onboard to work on a PHP-based web application. One part of the application generates thumbnail images for MS Office documents on demand, and it uses MS Office + the VeryPDF docprint utility to do this. Because of this one requirement, the system is running on Windows Server 2003 + IIS.
I would prefer to have the system running on a Linux server, rather than MS, as I have far more experience in administering Linux systems than Windows and we have no other in-house technical staff.
Does anyone know a way to handle the document conversion using native Linux software? I would love something PHP native, but am willing to look outside that if necessary.
I have never done anything like this, so I'm just throwing an idea off the top of my head.
Have you thought about utilizing Open Office's capabilities to create thumbnail images? I know OO saves thumbnail images within a created document, so all you need to do is extract the image to display it. (This is demonstrated on the Ubuntu forums.) You could always do something sort of "hackish" where you use run a file through OpenOffice and extract the image to display a small thumbnail.
Again, I have no idea how well this will work, but it may be worth a shot.
To anyone else who comes across this, I have ended up going with the newer version of jodconverter. The sample code includes a basic web page that can be POSTed to using something like Pear's HTTP_Request2. A sample class (by yours truly) which uses this is mentioned in the comments in jodconverter's group on google code.