Millenia Arts

There is one function in PHP that every web designer should know. That function is called include. Whether you are experienced in PHP or never used it at all, it is important and crucial to know for anyone who wants to build a website. Knowing this function will make web development much quicker and easier.

The reason that the include function is so important is because it includes the contents of another file where it is placed. You may not realize this at first but this allows you to have a file that is just the navigation, the header, or the footer of your webpage. This way, whenever you need to update it, instead of updating every file, you just update the one file.

Include is very easy to use. It takes one argument which is a string of the location of the file to include. To use this function, it would look like the following:

$header_file = “header.php”;
include($header_file); // Includes the contents of the header file.
include(“navigation.php”); // Includes the contents of the navigation file.

These examples are both common uses of the include function. The first one just shows how you would use it with a variable and the second one shows how you would use it with just writing the file name in.

Using this will save you a lot of time when it comes to maintaining and updating your website. If you have 300 or more pages on a website, updating the navigation on every page will take hours. However, by using the include function, you can update every single page by just updating one file which will only take minutes.

If you are a web developer, then you should try using PHP’s include function. You will save a lot of time and discover how easy it is to use.

By: Jeremy Framer

About the Author:

Website content

PHP include page statement is an extremely useful statement to build your Web pages. If you are very new in PHP or even don’t know it at all, you can also utilize this statement to manage your website. Logically you can divide HTML code of a web page into multiple segments. Some of those are static parts and others are variable parts. Static parts are those which do not change from page to page, i.e. top part of your page where you put your site name and banner, menu, bottom part of your page where you put copyright notice, etc. Variable parts of your page are the elements which vary from page to page, i.e. your page title, descriptions, keywords, content of your page etc. When you create a new web page you have to write entire HTML code both for static and variable parts of your page. Now if you want to add a new link to the menu or if you like to change your site banner then you has to edit all HTML files you have already created. It is almost an impossible task if your website contains fifty pages or more. PHP include file is the ideal solution for this problem.

What is PHP include page statement?

PHP include statement adds the content of the file to be included at the point where you put this statement. This statement takes only one argument, file name you want to include. The form of the statement is:



To include a file say menu.html use the following command:



If you include a text or an HTML file, content of that file will be directly added to the parent file at the point where you put the include statement. But if you include a PHP file with include statement the file to be included first compiled and then added to the parent file. If any error generated during compilation PHP will generate an error message.

How to utilize PHP include file?

To utilize include file statement you keep the static parts of your HTML code in separate files, say menu.html, footer.html, top.html etc. For your convenience keep those files in a separate include directory. When you create a new web page write your HTML code as usual but when you need to write the static part HTML code you just put PHP include file statement to add those codes. So the resulting file becomes smaller and hence easier to maintain. Also you can edit the static part code by editing only a single file.

Point to remember: You can use include page statement to include HTML or PHP file, but the parent file where you put the include statement must be a PHP file. So when saving that page use .php extension.

Advantages of PHP include page

Resulting page is smaller. So smaller web space required. As codes are divided into multiple segments so it is easier to maintain. Finally PHP is free software. So no extra cost you require to get PHP.

By: Susen G

About the Author:

Kansieo.com

If you’re here reading this, you undoubtedly are familiar with the world wide web and all the amazing things it can do. There are sites that let you do all kinds of things, from sharing photos to opinions to videos to everything else, or carrying out functions like online banking or shopping. You know how convenient and amazing the internet can be, and you’ve probably had some good ideas for things to “put on the internet” but don’t even know where to get started. Be confused no more! Here’s what you need to know to get on the path of writing and installing your own interactive websites to do whatever you want.

For our purposes, we’re going to focus on PHP. There are a lot of languages out there that interactive web sites are written in, but if you’re new PHP is the best place to start. It’s the most popular language for programming web pages right now. Its main advantages are that it’s easy and inexpensive to get a server that can run PHP applications, and that with its popularity it has the most resources for getting help, support, and existing code to help you do what you want to do. There are other great languages out there, but they have disadvantages for newcomers. For example, ASP.NET is supported by Microsoft and allows for some very detailed applications, but just to write or even use other people’s code you’ll need to buy Microsoft software and use the Windows operating system, which can cost hundreds of dollars out of pocket and since the servers need to buy licenses as well, you will pay more for web hosting. There are free web scripting languages that are wonderful, such as Django or Ruby on Rails, however it is harder to find a web host that supports them and they don’t enjoy the same popularity and wealth of support available as PHP.

You may think that in order to learn PHP you need to buy a big, fat technical book and read a lot of confusing words before you can get started. You can do that if you want, but when I learned PHP for myself, I did it in a much more fun way and learned quicker, to boot. I found pre-made PHP applications that did most of what I want, but that are missing some features that I want to include. Start with a pre-made package that is close to what you want to do, maybe forums or blog software, and install it yourself on your web hosting. Don’t use an automatic installer, though! Upload the files yourself, and learn how to set up the application to use a database. It will be a bit confusing at first, but once you understand how to do this it gets much easier before it gets harder again. Most packages have detailed and helpful explanations on how to do this, so use them to help you understand.

From there, I learned how to make modifications that do what I wanted. Many PHP applications have mod scripts or plugins to help you make customizations other users have made, and I started learning how PHP worked by installing these and eventually writing simple ones of my own. While not convenient, mod systems that require you to change PHP code line by line will give you a peek into what PHP code is like, and you’ll quickly learn how to fix mistakes you’ve made which will give you hints on what PHP expects and what its programming rules are. Once you start seeing patterns, try to figure out what interesting parts of PHP scripts do by looking up functions on the official PHP web site or documentation for your package. Try to write your own mods and plugins, keeping it very simple at first, patterned after other ones you’ve seen. It’s easier to learn PHP by not having to worry about making an entire web site, and just focusing on specific functions. Eventually, if you pay attention and keep at it, you will feel confident enough to try more complicated plugins and mods and maybe even your own application.

In the meantime, you may want to enlist some help. MySQL databases, for example, are the lifeblood of PHP web applications, but are hard to learn at first. You might want to consider software like PHP Page Generator which makes databases much easier to work with. Even simple so-called “CRUD” database operations, which stand for Create, Read, Update, and Delete, are exhausting and repetitive to program, but are at the heart of any good PHP application. Helper software like that can save you hours of time and effort on “reinventing the wheel”.

Good luck in your endeavors, and whether you end up just dabbling in or become a pro at PHP, you’ll find that being able to set up or even write your own web applications will be a very handy tool!

By: Rose Basile

About the Author:

Create a video blog…instantly.

There are many ways to structure a website, and some offer advantages over others. Using a site based upon PHP coding makes it easy to add content and additional pages without a lot of editing.

PHP enables a more efficient way to make changes across your website without opening and working on every page involved. You can also make changes to the appearance of your site such as color and style of texts. Adding and managing of affiliate programs represented on the site is easy to do. Sites can be setup up to access the latest products available from your favorite sources such as Amazon, Clickbank, or Ebay.

With PHP, we can enable a site to access and display the latest news feeds from any number of sources. Fresh and changing news or any other content is well-received by the search engines and rewarded by more visits and higher rankings. And, once set up, it functions automatically!

A good PHP driven site is easy to transfer to a new owner if you sell it because it is easier to change affiliate information across the whole website. This makes the site not only easier to maintain, but much easier to sell.

Most PHP sites use a common template across the site that can be easily changed to control the look of the entire site. It is usually a token based template that draws information from other files that are part of the site.

There are a few really good software available that make it easier to put the sites together and give them structure. Study what is available and find one that you can use to not only make great niche websites, but make them easier to maintain.

By: Alton Hargrave

About the Author:

Create a video blog

Zend is an open source, object-oriented web application framework that is simple and straightforward to use for PHP 5 that has been designed to eliminate the technical exhaustiveness and let the developers concentrate on the bigger picture that is building better web applications. One of its strengths is the highly modular Model-View-Controller (MVC) design, making your code more reusable and easier to maintain and this is why Zend has taken a driver’s seat in PHP web development.

Zend is a framework that gives freedom to developers and users as there are no hard and fast rules to be followed. But it does provide components like MVC, Table Data Gateway, and Row Data Gateway design patterns giving individual components for many basic common requirements for web application development. Zend Framework is focused on building more secured, reliable, and modern Web 2.0 applications & web services, and using APIs from leading vendors like Google, Amazon, Yahoo and Flickr.

Simplicity remains at the core of Zend framework. It provides lightweight, loosely coupled component library that provides as much as 80% of the functionality everyone has been looking for and it further allows customizing the rest of the 20% remaining. It also comes with the latest Web Development Features like AJAX support through JASON to ensure the requirements that are easy to use, Syndication, Search, Web Services, High-quality object-oriented PHP 5 class library.

It is available on new BSD license which is meant to be safe and secure so that your data and any other information is un-available and can not be breached by a third party. Safety thus is another important feature of the Zend Framework.

Zend has various components that can be used to enhance the productivity and functionality.

Model-View-Controller (MVC): this lets for a separate skill sets for developers and designers to make use of their own individual abilities to build meaningful compositions.

Tooling and Rapid Application Development (RAD): through this component you can now let yourself free from the tedious process of initial application setup. You can now create your project structure and MVC artifacts through tooling support and command line client.

Database: now you can use any database available to you for building your application.

Internationalization and Localization: to be in the league of international as well as local markets you would need a component that allows you to generate applications in your own regional language. This is now possible with Zend.

There are more to the component list like Authentication, Authorization, and Session management, Web and Web Services, Mail, Formats, and Search Core Infrastructure. Through the use of all these components you can speed up the development process and get really useful applications.

By: Jessica Woodson

About the Author:

Create a video blog…instantly.

PHP development is in vogue, and it is playing instrumental role in developing and sustaining online business activities, both for small as well as big business companies. But, how would you go for so effective PHP development? Yes! You got the guess correct! Outsourcing is the best option out, and it’d turn out to be a handsome solution. Outsourcing provides effective, fast and foolproof PHP development, along with search engine optimization services. What’s more, you can also hire dedicated PHP developers that’d not only be adept in providing low cost development options, but also customized solutions matching the individual business needs.

Next, what is the positive outcome of hiring a cost effective PHP programmer? There are many reasons why companies are opting for low cost option, rather than going for expensive web development solutions. These include:

Lowering the over head productive costs incurred in the administrative process. Besides, there’s also tremendous fall of the other options such as government taxes, in-house training expenses, and human resources related fees etc. The budget is allocated in other administrative processes such as Human Resource, Stationery, etc. Quality work is dispensed by thoroughly professional PHP developers.

Hiring a cost effective PHP developer brings together professionalism, time saving and efficiency. Furthermore, by hiring economical PHP developer, the companies work out a solution where more money can be involved in other core areas of development of business.

What a low cost PHP Development can do for you?

Here are some of the promiscuous benefits that a cost effective PHP Development would naturally bring to your business:

User-friendly and easily navigable website development Advanced Open Source Technology that works perfectly well in any kind of platform Cross Browser support and cross Platform support Easily adaptable to business environment Smart Ecommerce development tools can be smoothly integrated

Therefore, low cost web development in open source PHP is a handy option for the businesses world over to come out with innovative business ideas and serve their customers better. Do a little bit of comparison shopping, and find out low cost option out there!

By: Narayan Gopal

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Caffeinated Content – Members-Only Content for WordPress

PHP is an open sourced server side scripting language and almost used in foremost operating systems like Linux, UNIX and also in Windows. PHP follows object oriented programming (OOPs), practical programming rules and nearly a combination of them. It uses command line interface, desktop applications thus it is know as the best traditional server side scripting language.

PHP programming supports most of the reputed database connections like Oracle, SQL, My SQL, and ODBC thus it is an easy choice for freelance programmers to build their dynamic pages with the help of PHP development. The latest version is also popular because it can be embedded HTML coding directly and can be carried by nearly all of the web servers.

PHP is a popular language because of its numerous features infused specifically to design websites or you can say to develop dynamic pages. PHP engine and the PHP coding can be used in every platform that increases flexibility of PHP language. Basically PHP is profitable for both programmers and designers, programmers who realizing its flexibility and tempo and web designers who worth its handiness and user-friendliness.

PHP language can develop giant business services like CRM solutions, community sites, chatting forums and E-Commerce shopping cart as well. Several pools of qualified web programmers are using PHP development for organizing their goal, resource planning and fulfilling their client requirements.

Here are a few things which you can perform with PHP:

Design HTML web forms. Superb Database usability to store records. Calculate visitors by sessions and cookies. You can use arrays as well. Play with files through file management system. Creating XML for large number of product list on E-Commerce
Serialization

Serialization is not needed for all kind of databases. In some particular databases like ODBC, MS SQL etc when you wish to pass a value without mentioning its type, it gets dumb. This problem is solved properly in the latest version of PHP. This is also an added advantage of PHP over all king of scripting languages.

Using PHP to improve design on your website

PHP has many capabilities features designed specifically for use in Web sites, including the following:

1. Securing Your Website: PHP is designed to allow user level access to the file system, it’s entirely possible to write a PHP script that will allow you to read system files such as password, modify your Ethernet connections, etc. thus this can provide a customer with an exclusive membership in the business.

2. Working with Web Forms: HTML form can be displayed by PHP and it is the best way to know more about the requirements of your customers and to gather note about their detailed benefits.

3. Communicate with Your Databases: When a persistent connection is requested, PHP checks if there is already an identical persistent connection and if it exists, it uses it. If it does not exist, it creates the link.

4. Customer Loyalty Functions: PHP allows content and applications to be generated and run server-side. This is highly advantageous to web users as they do not have to rely on their own system resources to generate or run content on their own systems. This allows for faster delivery of applications to the user and reduces errors and problems due to browser incompatibilities.

By: Joanna Gadel

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Caffeinated Content

Prerequisite: IIS (web server) installed. There is a link to an IIS installation tutorial at the end of this article

Before we begin any installation steps, the first thing we will need to do is download the PHP zip file from PHP.net (www.php.net/downloads.php). The version available at the time of this publishing is 5.1.4.

The first step is to extract all of the files from the downloaded zip file into C:PHP (create the folder if it doesn’t already exist). You may choose a different location, although it is not recommended. The path must NOT have spaces, for example, you cannot use C:Program FilesPHP. Some web servers may not be able to handle the path name and will fault.

PHP 5 includes a CGI executable, a CLI executable as well as the server modules. The DLLs needed for these executables can be found in the root of the PHP folder (C:PHP).

php5ts.dll needs to be available to the web server. To do this, you have 3 options:

1. Copy php5ts.dll to the web server’s directory (C:inetpubwwwroot).

2. Copy php5ts.dll to the Windows system directory (C:windowssystem32).

3. Add the PHP directory path to the environment variables PATH.

We will go with option 3, because we would like to keep all of our PHP install files in the same location, for easier cleanup later, if needed. Let’s proceed…



Instructions on how to put C:php in env variables PATH.

First we want to open System Properties. There are two ways to get to System Properties. Either way will work.

1. Right-Click on My computer and choose “properties”.

2. Go to Control Panel, and select “System”.

Once here, we want to select the Advanced tab. In the Advanced tab, click the “Environment Variables” button. There are two sections in the Environment Variables window, User Variable and System Variables. We will be using System Variables. Scroll down in System Variables until you find the variable PATH. Highlight that line and the select Edit below the System Variables window. We will only be adding to the Variable Value. BE CAREFUL HERE. You do not want to delete anything on this line. Simply find the end of the line and add a semi-colon ( ; ) if there is not one already. After the semi-colon, type: C:PHP and then hit OK. Now click OK on the Environment Variables window. Finally click OK on the System Properties window and we are done with this part.

Now we must restart the computer to make the Environment Variables changes come into play. We cannot simply log off and log on, you must restart.

The next step is to set up a config file for PHP, php.ini. In C:PHP you will find two files named php.ini-dist and php.ini-recommended. We will use php.ini-recommended for this install, and all you need to do is rename it from php.ini-recommended to php.ini.

1. doc_root = C:inetpubwwwroot

2. cgi.force_redirect = 0

Now PHP is installed, lets move on to preparing our IIS to use PHP.


Configure IIS to use PHP.

1. Open IIS

2. Under Home Directory: Set “Execute Permissions” to “Scripts Only”

3. Click on configuration..

a. Click Add

b. Set “executable” to C:PHPphp5isapi.dll

c. Set “extension” to .php (don’t forget to include the . )

d. Click OK

e. Click Apply, then OK.

Under ISAPI Filters

a. Click “Add”

b. Set Filter Name to PHP

c. Set Executable to C:PHPphp5isapi.dll

d. Click OK.

e. Click Apply, then OK.

Restart the Web Server

Now we want to test PHP on our system. To do this, we will create a file called phpinfo.php and it will be used to display all of the PHP info from our system in our web browser.

1. Open Notepad and type:



2. Save the file as phpinfo.php and select the file type ‘All Files’(Important: do not save the file as .txt, as it will not work).

3. Move the file into C:inetpubwwwroot

4. Open your web browser and type: [http://localhost/phpnfo.php]

5. Your browser should display a lot of PHP information.
Click here for IIS installation tutorial. [http://www.studiothreehundred.com/viewarticle.php?id=45]

Congratulations! PHP is now installed and configured on your machine. You can now start building dynamic web pages.

By: C Alexander

About the Author:

php design

For the past decade, PHP has played an important role in Offshore Web Development. PHP is a most usable web development programming language that is basically using to develop an online web application. PHP is a one type of scripting language that is to develop a different kind of web services like web development, web application development, e-commerce site development and many more.

PHP is an open source programming language so it is free, easily available and cover a large amount of people who use PHP resources. The demand of PHP programming is increasing in the information technology and software development sector. Now, in a world huge number of developer, programmer and expert person is the use a PHP programming framework for web site development, and web application development.

PHP Development:

PHP is a widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Offshore Web development and can be embedded into HTML. PHP web programming runs on many different platforms and can be used as a standalone executable or as a module under a variety of Web servers. It has excellent support for databases, XML, LDAP, IMAP, Java, various Internet protocols, and general data manipulation and is extensible via its powerful API.

Advantages:

• PHP supports on a different type of servers such as Apache, IIS, Roxen, THTTPD and AOLserver.
• PHP has database interfaces are available for MYSQL, MS SQL, Informix, Oracle and plenty of others. If a database not supported, ODBC is an option.
• PHP code directly embedded into the HTML that makes up a website.
• PHP supports custom content management development easily.
• Development cost is less.

PHP program runs on (almost) any operating system like Linux, UNIX, window, etc. so its called as robust language. Mostly, user prefers PHP is a use with Linux Operating system because both are an open source. PHP programming is very compatible with MySQL database. Its also use with other databases like MS SQL, Oracle, Informix, and PostgreSQL, etc. The loading time of the website very low this is developed in PHP frameworks.

By: Cleck Hason

About the Author:

Create a video blog

One of the most widely used programming language for building dynamic web pages, PHP, has developed a lot from the time it was first launched into the market. Being an open source and having a huge community to support the updates and development, PHP has become a preferred developers choice world over.

One of the best features PHP has is that it offers number of frameworks that can be used according to your requirement to increase your proficiency. These are easy to use and implement and have similar advantages as PHP overall does. So lets see them one by one to know what are the benefits that you can avail through them.

Zend Framework

Its an open source object oriented PHP framework that has been developed to build scalable, performance oriented, secured and qualitative web 2.0 application development. It also supports PHP5 and higher versions for Web Application Development as well as all modern databases like, MySQL, SQl Server, Oracle, PostGreSQL etc.

Zend has been developed on the basis of concepts like UI design patterns, unit testing, loose coupling as well as OOP concepts and uses MVC implementation. Due to all this it gives you a competitive edge in terms of using technology more efficiently and converting your business process into the online environment.

Smarty Framework

Also know as the Template Engine it is used for quick and easy development and deployment of web application. It has Pure PHP Template Option and an extremely rich feature Template Inheritance. It also works with Tons of Template Syntax Enhancements and PHP Streams Support.

CakePHP

It is a free open source PHP rapid development framekwork and is considered to be one of the most popular of all. Reason being it is easy to understand and scores over security and session handling, it is compatible with PHP4 as well as PHP5, provides efficient data validation features, being under MIT license it is available for free to everyone and it reduces the development cost and build applications much faster.

Prado

It is a component-based and event-driven framework for rapid Web programming in PHP 5. Prado is useful as its components are a combination of a specification file, HTML template and PHP class. Its components combine together to form larger components or complete PRADO pages. It is known for its various benefits for the developers like re-usability, ease of use, robustness, better performance and team integration. It seems to have reconceptualized Web application development in terms of components, events and properties instead of procedures, URLs and query parameters.

So these are all the frameworks that can be used to enhance performance and make it more proficient. These various frameworks can be used as per according to the requirements of your projects and the features you want to include.

By: Jessica Woodson

About the Author:

Website content