by
faheem on July 27th, 2009
I have already written about json in one, actually some of my articles. Cool functionality can be achieved using json. Thanks to http://www.json.org, http://www.zend.com and http://www.dojotoolkit.org for providing easier solutions.
I’m not gonna talk what these three are all about, but instead share a little secret about these.
Json creation in dojo is as simple as this.
var arr = new Array();
arr[0] = "apple";
arr[1] = "ball";
arr[2] = "cat";
dojo.toJson(arr);
Using Zend to convert array into json took only one line of code.
Zend_Json::encode($arr);
And decoding- converting json to array, is as simple as this
Zend_Json::decode(json_string);
by
faheem on July 13th, 2009
In my previous posts I discussed how to create accordion container holding accordion panes and border container having content panes.
In this article I am going to show you how easy it is to create tab continer that hold contents panes. Each content pane having different contents. Contents in one tab pane are shown at a time. when use click on the tab pane’s title, contents in that tab pane are shown.
Before reading this post, you better read and implement what I have discussed in my article “Zend Framework and Dojo: configuration”. Before creating tab continer and panes, you will need to understand and perform necessary configuration.I assume that you have read the post I have mentioned and have done the necessary configuration. Now let’s get started.
First of all, you will need to create your controller as
class ContainerController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
public function tabAction()
{
}
}
In the code above we have defined our ContainerController extending it from Zend_Controller_Action, and then we have defined our tabAction.
Now, the next step is to create tab.phtml in /application/views/scripts/container/ and place the following code in it.
$this->tabContainer()->captureStart('main-container',
array('design' => 'headline'),
array(
'style'=>'height:400px;width:800px'
));
echo $this->contentPane(
'home',
'This is home page',
array('region' => 'top','title'=>'Home'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->contentPane(
'gallery',
'Contents of gallery here',
array('region' => 'left', 'title'=>'Gallery'),
array('style' => 'width: 200px; background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->contentPane(
'Blog',
'Blog post here',
array('region' => 'center','title'=>'Blog'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->contentPane(
'about',
'Information about your company etc',
array('region' => 'bottom', 'title'=>'About Us'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->tabContainer()->captureEnd('main-container');
?>
We first call captureStart() method of tabContainer() dojo view helper, giving it an id, and array containing tab container special attributes. Next we define content panes. Each content pane holds the data. The contents panes in the tab container will become tab panes.
each content pane is defined as
echo $this->contentPane(
'home',
'This is home page',
array('region' => 'top','title'=>'Home'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
Here “home” is the id of the content page, Next “string” is the contents that will appear in the tab pane. Next we have defined the array of the special attributes of the contents. Here title is the most important attribute. This title will appear on the tab. The last array contain css related attributes.
That’s it. we have now written all necessary code for creating nice and beautiful Tab container.
Cheers.
by
faheem on July 13th, 2009
You may have custom of using advanced queries. It often requires writing complex queries if you are working on enterprise, large scale web application(s).
The use of joins can never be ignored.
Zend Framework developers have done tremendous job by providing simple method for implementing joins.
Lets look some examples of different type of joins.
Before discussing joins lets consider we have two tables, “authors” and “books”.
These are associated with author_id.
1. Inner Join
The simplest query will be
$select = $this->_db->select()
->from('books',array('col1','col2'…..))
->joinInner('authors','books.id=authors.bks_id',array('col1','col3'…))
->where('where condition here')
->order('column name ASC/DESC');
2. Left Join
$select = $this->_db->select()
->from('books',array('col1','col2'…..))
->joinLeft('authors','books.id=authors.bks_id',array('col1','col3'…))
->where('where condition here')
->group('group by column name here')
->order('column name ASC/DESC');
3. Right Join
$select = $this->_db->select()
->from('books',array('col1','col2'…..))
->joinRight('authors','books.id=authors.bks_id',array('col1','col3'…))
->where('where condition here')
->group('group by column name here')
->order('column name ASC/DESC');
4. Full Join
$select = $this->_db->select()
->from('books',array('col1','col2'…..))
->joinFull('authors','books.id=authors.bks_id',array('col1','col3'…))
->where('where condition here')
->group('group by column name here')
->order('column name ASC/DESC');
Once you write these queries, you can fetch a single row or multiple rows as
$result = $this->getAdapter()->fetchRow($select);
$result = $this->getAdapter()->fetchAll($select)
The first statement fetch only one row, while the second statement fetch the entire dataset.
by
faheem on July 12th, 2009
In my previous artilce I discuss how to create accordion container and panes. If you wish to create accordion container and panes, read my article “Creating dojo accordion Container in Zend”.
If you don’t know how to configure dojo and Zend Framework, read here.
In this article, however I am going to discuss how to create border container. Border continer divide our page in different section so that we can display different contents in those sectitons.
To create the border container we first need to create our controller as
class ContainerController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
public function borderAction()
{
}
}
Now in your /application/views/scripts/container/border.phtml, place the following code.
$this->borderContainer()->captureStart('main-container',
array('design' => 'headline'),
array(
'style'=>'height:400px;width:800px',
'align' => 'center'
));
echo $this->contentPane(
'menuPane',
'This is the menu pane',
array('region' => 'top'),
array('style' => 'background-color: darkblue;color:white')
);
echo $this->contentPane(
'navPane',
'This is the navigation pane',
array('region' => 'left'),
array('style' => 'width: 200px; background-color: lightblue;')
);
echo $this->contentPane(
'mainPane',
'This is the main content pane area',
array('region' => 'center'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->contentPane(
'statusPane',
'Status area',
array('region' => 'bottom'),
array('style' => 'background-color: lightgray;')
);
echo $this->borderContainer()->captureEnd('main-container');
Here we have called captureStart() method to start our border container, and then we have placed different content panes.
Each content pane has an “id”, “contents” it holds, array containing content panes attributes, and an array containing css attributes.
by
faheem on July 12th, 2009
Dojo provide very easy and nice way of creating different containers such as accordion, tab, border, and stack etc.
These containers hold different type of panes. These different panes in turn use to hold contents. contents can be simple text or it can be complete html.
Zend Framework collaboration with Dojo has made things quite easy. Zend Framework provide view helpers to achieve different type of dojo functionality.
In this article I am going to discuss how to create Accordion Container. accordion Container hold accordion panes. Each accordion pane hold different contents and open in a stylish way when user click on the title of the pane.
In order to enable dojo helpers in you Zend Framework application, you will need to make some initial configuration. read my tutorial “Zend Framework and Dojo: configuration” before reading this tutorial. After successfull configuration create a controller called “ContinerController.php” in your controllers directory and place the following code in it.
class ContainerController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
public function accordionAction()
{
}
}
We have only defined an action in our controller, putting no code at all. you however can put whatever code you wish.
Now in /application/views/scripts/container/accordion.phtml place the following code.
$this->accordionContainer()->captureStart('main-container',
array('design' => 'headline'),
array(
'style'=>'height:400px;width:400px'
));
echo $this->accordionPane(
'home',
'This is home page',
array('region' => 'top','title'=>'Home'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->accordionPane(
'gallery',
'Contents of gallery here',
array('region' => 'left', 'title'=>'Gallery'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->accordionPane(
'Blog',
'Blog post here',
array('region' => 'center','title'=>'Blog'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
echo $this->accordionContainer()->captureEnd('main-container');
The code is pretty simple. we first call captureStart() method on accordionContainer(). this will start accordion container for us.
Once the accordion continer is started, we need to put accordion panes in it and at the end we will need to call captureEnd() method to end our accordion container.
The container holding the following accordion pane.
echo $this->accordionPane(
'home',
'This is home page',
array('region' => 'top','title'=>'Home'),
array('style' => 'background-color: white;')
);
The above code call accordionPane() helper method. This dojo helper method take an “id”, “contents” to be displayed in the accordion pane, an array containing the special attributes of the accordion pane, and array of css attributes.
by
faheem on July 12th, 2009
Well, while working with ajax, it better to have an xml as response. Xml, however need more coding and parsing on client side than json.
Zend framework provides very easy way to generate json response.
In this article I’m going to discuss how to create Ajax request using prototype and how to use Zend_Json to generate response.
For generating Ajax request, you will need to write
If response is the form of this
[
{"firstName":"Faheem","lastName":"Abbas","username":"fahim","email":"faheem.abbas@example.com"},
{"firstName":"Shazil","lastName":"Hassan","username":"shazil","email":"shazil.hassan@yahoo.com"}
]
Then to acess the values of the first row, write
var firstName = results[0].firstName;
var lastName = results[0].lastName;
and the values of the second row can be accessed as
var firstName = results[1]. firstName;
var lastName = results[1].lastName;
To create Json response, you will need to write the following in your controller action
$users = new Users();
$username = $this->_getParam('username');
$select = $users->select();
$data = $users->fetchAll($select);
$results = $data->toArray();
echo Zend_Json::encode($results);
Keep in mind that “users” is our model, having the following code.
class Users extends Zend_Db_Table
{
protected $_name = "users";
}
That’s it. cheers.
