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Ok so before anyone states the fact that the php framework question has already been answered, note that I am asking questions specifically on which framework would be best given the requirements that I am providing. I am currently in the proccess of building a large project. I will be in the future working on several medium/large and a few small projects. I am an experienced php developer and fully know OOP inside and out and have a great knowledge of mysql database so learning a system is not a problem.
Now that is out of the way down to what I am actually looking for. I have currently been using a "framework" that is not so great and was provided to me for my projects. I would like to get rid of the "framework" and actually start using an actual framework. I was thinking of building my own framework but was considering (and really leaning towards) using an already preexisting framework. I have looked at a bunch of frameworks and even played with a few of them out there. Once I choose a framework I am going to want to keep using it and not have to switch 6 months down the road so before I choose I will be doing some thorough testing before making the final decision. I would like to get some input from some users as to which ones would fit my needs best.
In a framework I am looking for the following items:
Speed - because of being larger projects I will need to keep speed in mind. I can write efficient code but if the framework is slow it really wont matter now will it :)
Authentication - I would like to be able to use some built in authentication if possible through the framework. I dont necessarily need granular permissions based on users but more or less through groups (granular permissions is not a turn off just not a requirement).
Ajax - I like to use ajax in my applications so I would like some kind of ajax implementation in the framework and personally I prefer jquery. It doesnt necessarily need to have built in ajax features but a way to kill the page with the ajax output before anything is output for efficiency.
Forms - I have seen that alot of frameworks have built in features for managing forms but just thought I would mention it here to save myself the headache.
Administration - This is possibly one of the most required features that I really need. I need to be able to create a backend to manage the site. I dont want to have to hack something together to make this work.
Api - I will be in need of an api for accessing/modifying data that I will be allowing.
Database - Built in database methods. Doesnt necessarily need to do it automatically, just give me access to be able to retrieve/update the data that is need.
These are not neccessarily requirements but more or less nice features:
I would like to be able to encase all of my data that goes with a certain item into a "module" of a sort. So that I could easily copy it to another site and have it all ready to go.
An easy to navigate structure. I would like to be able to go into controllers and not see 50 files but instead see maybe 10 folders with the files encased in the folders so that it is better separated.
I cant really think of anything else at this time but if I think of anything else I will update the post. I would really like to get feedback from people who are using any frameworks out there. If you havent messed with a framework please do not recommend it as you have no experience with it and will not know if it would suit my needs. Any help is appreciated.
EDIT:
I just wanted to edit this post to clarify some stuff. In the requirements/features that I am looking for I do not necessarily need all of the features to be built into the framework. From some of the responses it seemed as if people were thinking that all of this stuff has to be pre-ready. I more or less am looking for a framework that supports all of the features that I am looking for that is easily accomplished with the components in the framework. For example the administration, it does not have to have a default administration area but allow for me to create an administration easily from the components that I will be adding to the site.
From my own experience ( CodeIgniter , Zend Framework ), but realy all major frameworks will allow you to do everithing you asked .
Speed - CodeIgniter is the fastest i worked with , this is not the strongest feature of ZF , in fact where i work we all got to the conclusion that ZF is slow .
Auth - Zend Framework handles auth better than what i saw in other frameworks
Ajax - All major Frameworks will allow you do disable the layout/view , Zend is slightly better here , as you can have special json views.
Forms - CodeIgniter framework handles forms easyer than ZF , however all frameworks should deal with this problem with ease . Symfony needs to be mentioned here with it's form generator .
Administration - Symfony just becouse it has a nice crud form generator based on the tables you're passing ( "admin generator" how they are advertising it ) , witch will speed development quite a bit .
???
Database - ZF handles databases nicer in my opionion , however i've heard good things about Symfony too . CodeIgniter here is not that strict witch is not a good thing in my opinion .
Modular App - Building modules in ZF is realy easy , and the feature that i like most is that a module structure looks like the whole app itself ( eg. the whole app is a module ... )
Easy to navigate structure - All of them once you are used to it , however i don't like the fact that CodeIgniter keeps all it's controllers in one place , when in ZF you can add modules and separate things from one and another .
Well, I worked with several PHP frameworks in the past and there aren't many good frameworks. You could risk a look at Zend Framework
ok
ok (but not enterprise level)
ok, but dojo
complicated
no, its a framework, not an application
ok, but not really a ERM
encapsulates PDO in an ugly way (bad implemented factory pattern)
ZF is developed by Zend itself, but I wasn't really happy with that too, because it has a lot of shortcomings (cruel DBAL, complicated form handling, supports dojo instead of jQuery) and if you are used to Java/JBOSS or .NET it just sucks (only mentioning this because you are planning a big project).
If you have some time until your project needs to be deployed and if you dont need to start immediately, you could also try FLOW3 (still alpha) which is developed by the TYPO3 Team. I've played a little bit with FLOW3 and can say that it is the only PHP FW which has at least a good architecture and some good ideas/paradigms (AOP e.g.).
If I understand you in the right way you would need something like a CMS for your backend. Maybe it would be a good idea to evaluate exiting CMS's and check out if you could extend them (use the CMS as framework (TYPO3 e.g.)).
You wont find a FW that matches exactly your needs, therefore you should consider choosing a CMS/FW and customize it in the way you need it. If the project is as big as I imagine there should be enough resources for such task.
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I intend to develop a Content Management System (CMS) like shown in the figure below;
Figure: Intended CMS design
Is it possible to completely develop it using PHP's standard library?
Do I need to use a PHP web framework? If so, why and what framework is ideal?
I hope to use MySQL as backend.
I hope to use below technologies as front end;
HTML5 and CSS3 - hard code by myself (Is there any framework or something make it easy? I heard something lesscss.org)
jQuery - to make HTML elements functional
Ajax - to avoid page refreshing
Bootstrap - to make my CMS responsive
Are there any technologies I do use, or any suggestions?
I prefer to improve my HTML, CSS, PHP and other technologies by learning and hard coding. So I hope not to use CMS like
joomla, WordPress, etc. Am I right?
Please note: I've already searched Google extensively before I put my questions here. But I am unable to confirm what I do next. Your comments are appreciated.
Your questions really look well researched and I think everybody with the intention of building a custom-made CMS has come to this point where they ask themselves these fundamental questions (in other words: good questions!). Now to some answers:
1) Yes it is possible.
2) Although building a CMS in pure, native, hard-coded PHP is possible, I wouldn't recommend it for production. You could do it, and you would largely profit from the experience, but there are many little problems (like Routing / User-Management / Authentication / Communicating with Database / Form-Building (like in your screenshot) / etc.) that are already solved by a good Framework.
Also as you are a beginner, you are naturally overwhelmed by the problems and decisions you have to solve/make. This is also a good point why a framework would be a good starter. Although some solutions are sometimes a little too opinionated, they still give you a good structure to start with and most of the times follow best practices of our industry.
Which framework is the most ideal for your project, you'll have to decide on your own, based on your requirements, but some common ones are:
Symfony (probably the most known and most used php-framework, but also very abstract / I would recommend this on a really big project, where you work in a team and you are aiming for flexible maintainability)
Laravel (excerpt from their website: An amazing ORM, painless routing, powerful queue library, and simple authentication give you the tools you need for modern, maintainable PHP.)
Silex (the little brother of Symfony, info from their website: Silex is a PHP microframework for PHP. It is built on the shoulders of Symfony2 and Pimple and also inspired by sinatra.)
FatFreeFramework (from their website: A powerful yet easy-to-use PHP micro-framework designed to help you build dynamic and robust web applications - fast!)
As I used Silex myself many times and also when I began with best-practice PHP, I recommend to start with it, if you decide to write your own CMS. I pretty fast did some Management-CMS similar to your screenshot with it (with their Form-Builder) and was happy with the result.
3) Again this is up to you. For the backend you will probably use MySQL anyway, if you just need a database. In the frontend using HTML5/CSS you could try jQuery and Bootstrap (and then here their less or sass implementation).
If you really don't have too much logic for your JavaScript, you could also try to just use native JS, without jQuery. This way you will also learn more about the language and have less vendor-dependencies the user has to download.
4) If you are really up to learning a lot, then yes, you should probably hand-code everything yourself. This way you also have total control of what code gets delivered to your user. That's a problem with most common CMS: they pollute your code through some other plugins or something and you quickly loose control over your output.
But if you need to be fast there are also CMS that address this issue by giving you total control over your output and giving you creative freedom, like MODX does.
In the end it is up to you and especially the needs of your project. If it's a simple website and you conveniently want to edit the content and also have some starter-help, then I recommend to use a CMS.
If you really want to learn about all this stuff and you have some special needs, then go on and code your custom-coded application. In any way: good luck! :)
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I am investigating building a web app.
I know systems like Twitter Bootstrap provide a great starting point for front end design but what are the options for back end, preferably PHP/mySQL but I am open to anything. I have searched around a bit but I am not sure I have the right terminology because all of my searches have brought up nothing close to what I need, so I can only assume I'm looking in the wrong places.
There are plenty of scripts out there that will create a youtube clone for example; and what I need will be similar to this but it will not be video site. My app will be geared up more towards managing and creating lists, information, tags, files ( like .doc .txt etc maybe ). I haven't actually gotten the content part worked out fully yet and I don't expect the base system to be able to handle that part necessarily but what I would like for now is if I could find some library/framework that would allow me to experiment with different content configurations.
What I need from this framework specifically is some kind of system whereby people could register and thus have a login, profile page and have variuous (private) things associated with their account ... ( again I'm not sure what 'things' yet but probably lists and possibly files of some kind). I will eventually probably need some kind of capacity to share things between members. There seems to be a library/script for everything else out there so I thought there might be something for the basis of a membership system.
So
a) can someone suggest the correct terminology I would search google for this - I was trying "portal" script and membership site but I got nowhere
b) does such a thing exist and can anyone suggest anything in particular.
One more important thing. The project is in the very early stages and has no budget so I am pretty much limited to Open Source Freeware, though I welcome any paid for solutions regardless
PS I have developed with WordPress for years now and I know I could probably squeeze this out of WordPress with a few plugins and CPT work but I really feel it might be asking too much and I'll get scaling issues earlier than I need to.
You would want to determine what language you will build the system in.
PHP/MySQL frameworks include Yii, Symphony, Zend and more. Google PHP Frameworks.
if you want to go with Ruby with a rails framework then you can look into that. Rails for Zombies is a good place to start learning Ruby On Rails.
You are referring to this as a "Portal" but I would not be searching for that. I would be looking at web applications. I build a lot of these types of applications in Yii framework with PHP. If you are familiar with wordpress, then perhaps PHP would be a better option. If you do go with PHP on a Yii framework, then consider learning how to use the Gii code generator. This will help you make tables and lists and manage records. I started with this book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1847199585?tag=gii20f-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1847199585&adid=0BHF2HS6FNS82M85KJQT and it showed me everything I needed to know about the framework. It also is good if you are still quite new to PHP and Object Oriented Programming.
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Discussed this with a developer as I suggested to use CodeIgniter framework over standard PHP.
Their response was as follows:
Advantages of Code Igniter include standardised MVC structure.
Disadvantages include the fact that you need the whole framework even if you dont need to use it all and also a bit slower for the team to roll out the project. Advantages of our normal Custom PHP framework - fast to develop and totally flexible, only need the code that is relevant.
Would you agree with their response and why?
I always though CI was quicker to roll out due to the use of short tags and freely available modules.
CodeIgniter has a learning curve but that curve is likely to be quicker than your custom framework. That's because CodeIgniter is well documented.
CodeIgniter is a fairly comprehensive library. Once you learn the framework, you can employ any of its libraries not only in the current project but in various other projects.
The work is already done for you. You may not even know that a XSS or CSRF exploit exists in your code because you haven't done a thorough security audit. But a community framework is under constant audit.
You can extend CodeIgniter to your own needs and still have custom functionality.
After using CodeIgniter for a sufficient period of time, you'll inevitably pick up some great programming practices and improve your overall knowledge since the framework employs many best practies.
It is likely that if you encounter a problem situation, someone else has already solved it. CodeIgniter also has a good community through which you could save yourself hours of debugging.
That said, CodeIgniter is not the only framework but I really do like that fact that with the newer release they have moved to PHP5. In general, open source frameworks are the way to go.
I would strongly disagree.
The details of the project would be very helpful, but in general frameworks are very helpful and speed up the work (not necessarily the application) significantly.
Consider the fact, that 'Custom PHP Framework' (whatever they think of) is... custom. That means it is not tested as eg. Zend Framework, it has not proven to be efficient and successful in thousands of projects, and it is probably something very simple (as large frameworks have been developed for years by big teams of developers plus the developers of companies that use them).
Of course coding PHP can be quite good option, when you really need speed (of the application), have time to build it and money to pay the developers that will be developing it quite extensively (because they will be implementing many features that come with almost every PHP framework). But you have to be sure, that you really need to take that non-standard approach (as 'non-standard' I mean not using some reliable framework).
It is up to you. If you can give some details about the application that has to be created, the answers may be more relevant.
Non-Business projects: Standard PHP.
Business projects: CI.
Trying to build you own Framework is very educative and will help you a lot; it will also let you create a framework that fit your needs instead of a general one. But that could be done only if you are managing to create a non Business projects because Business ones requires stability that you may not get from a home-made framework. By creating your own framework you might loose a lot of time (which is expensive when working with business stuff) and money for nothing.
It basically depends on your project type.
I have some experience with writing my own CMS, and I must admit, that this was very educating, but from financial point of view, totally uneconomic decision.
In my opinion, those developers should try to write some specification. Very detailed specification of what they need to implement. Then they should calculate time needed to code such functionality so they can compare this work to elements already included in CI and decide which option is more viable in terms of time to code, time to learn, and of course time to test.
If they don't mind teaching their custom framework, then it's probably the best fit (especially if the guy who wrote it is still around).
However, custom frameworks can turn into unsupportable nightmares. CI has the advantage of a small community and thorough documentation. Once you roll out a few projects with it, I'm sure the roll-out time will be as fast as the custom framework.
We ditched our own custom framework in favour of CI. Financially it was a tough decision as weve spent 1000's of hours on it and have a lot of projects running on it.
CI has allowed us to develop faster and has standardised our projects. The architecture also allows us to extend easily without concerns about 'damaging' the core framework.
CI is the way forward IMO
Their response was quasi-correct...
Disadvantage: also a bit slower for the team to roll out the project.
This is generally untrue, and infact, it's probably quite the contrary in many cases. Personally, I am able to crank out projects much faster using a framework. I haven't used MVC in a team environment but I would imagine that by dividing work into Models, Views and Controllers workflow seperations would promote development speed.
What are you building? This is the crucial question.
If you're building a dynamic web application, frameworks will save you hours and hours of work because you won't have to reinvent the wheel over and over again. If the point of your project is basic, then indeed... frameworks add too much overhead. I'd say, as a general rule, if you're project will require greater than 5 .php files, then start using a framework, because that's what it's purpose is - to separate the logic.
Use CodeIgniter or another framework for larger projects where you suspect your code will start to get disorganised. The MVC pattern prevents this disorganisation.
It sounds as if you've never used a framework before. The first step in making decisions on whether or not a framework will suit the task is to get familiar with one. You'll then be in a much better position to make this call. I do not recommend you write your own right away; you will gain a lot of insight after playing around with CI, Cake, or Zend.
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I have a moderately simple assignment, to create a PHP/PDO site with login functionality and article retrieve/save/edit/search. No tags, nothing else.
Is this overkill to use some framework for this?
It it a good decision to use custom code + perhaps template system like Smarty for a simple site that will not grow too much?
Is there a software niche/best practices for small sites?
In a nutshell, I need logins/forms, but aren't frameworks like Zend or Cake too much for this?
I think that you can never go wrong by adding a framework to any size project. Anytime you can reuse something (and not reinvent the wheel) or leverage an existing code base to speed application development time, then do it.
Besides, you never know when your small to mid-size project suddenly grows to a large project. At least then you will have the pieces in place to grow your application and not have to start from scratch.
I'm a big fan of CodeIgniter, it would make setting up a simple website like this pretty painless. There is a fairly extensive stackoverflow answer about authentication libraries for CodeIgniter which would make login a breeze.
I would not suggest using a third party template library such as smarty. CodeIgniter has helper functions which can be used within 'views' which will allow you to do a lot of things quickly and painlessly, such as form creation.
I think using a framework is ideal for simple projects. They're quicker to set up and get going with. A framework may not be ideal if you need to fine tune how the site will run for reasons such as scalability or special requirements, or because you just don't like frameworks.
I'd suggest just using whatever parts of the Zend Framework you feel you need. Zend is very 'pick and choose' friendly.
That said, I recently used the ZF Application (MVC collection) for a two page site, just because it made things so easy. You don't need to have multiple controllers/models/view helpers to justify using a MVC framework.
Please don't user smarty. It's really unnecessary. PHP is it's own template language.
These posts on sitepoint tell the story well: #1, #2, #3
I've been using Kohana and I like it.
http://www.kohanaphp.com/
This guide got me started Kohana 101
For something that simple you can use a tiny framework like MicroMVC which comes with a equally small PDO based ActiveRecord-like database class.
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Has anybody used the ATK Framework? It is claimed to be geared toward developing apps for business use. Manipulating data, knowledge bases, etc... This is what I primarily develop (on the side-for my own use). The site hasn't given me a great overview of why it may be better than other frameworks.
What are your thoughts / experiences with this product?
First of all, let me say that I've been using ATK for only few days now, while my co-workers have been using it for almost 6 months.
ATK Framework is really, excellent framework - but with quite special purpose.
If your looking for framework to help you build Administration panel - ATK will save you loads of time. You only have to write few lines of code to build complete and really good administration panel.
The only thing I didn't like about this framework is that you can't really control everything (things going under the hood) and the fact that it doesn't have support for UNIX TIMESTAMPS (I've tried to generate date field but it didn't want to accept time stamp so I had to change some things, add a class).
ATK community is really great, and with my co-worker helping me - I've learned lots of things about this framework in only 3 hours.
HOWEVER if you're looking for universal framework to code your whole site - you might want to avoid this one.
Personally, I'm going to go (really soon) for ATK+Zend Framework combo - ATK for backend and Zend for frontend.
ATK is a great framework. I used it to create MySHI. An open source project I spent some time on back in 2008. I've not yet built anything with Django but have worked through the tutorial once or twice.
ATK is similar to Django's admin interface. Django is a better general framework. But I found ATK to be a more thorough business logic framework. Django's admin interface is only meant to be rough back end interface for managing a websites content it's original design isn't meant to be the front end for a large database driven website.
For creating a web interface to a data centric database (out of the box) ATK seems to better match what is necessary to create a complete UI. The biggest problem with them both is when you will want to do things that aren't part of the framework. Either one will some times seem to fight you from doing things you know you should be able to do.
ATK Cons
Small Dev Team (But reasonably responsive)
Lack of Marketing (no buz)
Small User Base (Getting help)
PHP (Python is the current craze but there isn't anything wrong with PHP)
Documentation (Limited but after working through the tutorial most of it is API after that.)
If I were to start a project today I might pick either one. If the project were small with few table relationships and I knew ahead of time a custom user ui was necessary I'd pick Django. Think a simple personal bank register. If I were to start a project with many table relationships and the database admin was the user interface then I'd pick ATK. Think customer management with invoicing. If I were to start a highly complex project where I might need to do some things not thought of by the framework architects then I'd pick a more general and open framework like Pyramid or Ruby on Rails (still trying to answer this one myself). Think electronic medical record.
this is the best framework that i ever used..it handles all CRUD function..so it just use a few line of code to create a simple web based system..this framework will drive you to learn what all developers needs to build a great system..either you to want intergrate with other tools..it depends..i put my believe that without work hard you cant be the best..this is truth because i got failed in programming paper..then NOW! i'm developer!
We have used the ATK Framework on four projects now and have been pleased with the framework in general. It is excellent for rapid application development and allows us to turn around fully functional business process sites in a matter of weeks. We have sucessfully integrated third party controls like the Aurigma Image Uploader to handle complex image manipulation and management, used the framework against databases with several million records per table, and scaled the data export routines to hundreds of thousands records at once. The biggest issue we have had with the ATK Framework has been documentation and specific examples for things we need to do that do not fit in the normal ATK use cases. We have contracted with iBuildings a time or two to have very specific changes made to support our project and they have been very responsive and thurough in their work. We have used other Frameworks as well, including Zend Framework and .NET - and while each have their own strengths I can tell you that I have not seen a faster way to create a fully functional application than with ATK, but you do sacrifice some control over exactly how things are done under the hood.
I just download ATK Framework a few days back ago and now finishing one of the modules in my current software project to be presented to my client this week. I could say ATK save my time and effort.
We use the atk-framework in work and I must say this is the worst Framework I've ever used.
Nothing is like in other Framework - nothing works like it should be and the documentation - btw. What documentation?
This is not only bad it is totally unuseable