Zend Screencasts: Video Tutorials about the Zend PHP Framework (iphone)

This is the second in a series exploring Zend_Db_Table. We finish up the project in the last video by adding Update and Delete functionality to our UserService. Grab the source code and follow along.

This video is the first in a series on Zend_Db. I start with a looking at insert and read using the Zend_Db_Table classes with a bit of Zend_Db_Select thrown in at the end. Next week will be a followup with update and delete with the help of a custom route, some view partials and a few more additions to our service layer. I’m not a fan of putting business logic in the same object as a class belonging to the Table Data Gateway pattern, so I’ve created a custom UserService object to help seperate the view and model layers. This would also be in keeping if you had multiple service layers (for example, a database, a couple RSS feeds and a couple of web services) and wanted to keep their business logic and querying outside of the Controller. I don’t bother with Zend_Form since it’s configuration heavy and only really interesting in conjunction with validators, however it would fit in perfectly as an extension to this project. The code can be downloaded for this and next weeks episode to help you follow along.

This video covers a web service that I’ve been using lately called Bits on the Run. The service has fantastic support (with even the famous JW from the JW Player offering assistance if needed) and good documentation. If you want to build a web 2.0 app with video and aren’t interested in managing the encoding of multiple formats, BotR is for you. I look at searching and getting detailed information from the bits on the run web service. If you’re planning on using Bits on the Run for live video uploads, I would encourage using the flash uploader on their downloads page. Instead of JSON, the web service is XML based, so there’s some references to using SimpleXML as well. If you took the time to look at the last video on web services, this will all be pretty familiar, except that instead of working with a web service that I’ve created, I’ll take advantage of a commercial web service. If you’re planning on integrating video into your web application and find this video helpful, please consider following this affiliate link as a way of supporting zendcasts. This video wraps up a series on RESTful web services. I’ll be moving onto Zend_Db and then Doctrine integration in the following weeks. If all the jumping around is getting to you, grab the source code from google code and follow along.

The folks at Zend were kind enough to offer me a license for Zend Studio and since I’m a fan of where the project is going, I’m excited about using it here. The advantage here is that I can cover some things like Unit Testing in a consistent manner in the videos to come. That’s not to say that NetBeans can’t do unit testing, or synchronization with SVN, but the configuration and environment isn’t as tailored to Zend Development. You can grab a 60 day trial of Zend Studio from Zend. This video covers setting up SVN with Zend Studio, however I’m not going to make a habit of covering Zend-Studio specific features. That’s why I’m posting another video later today about web services with a little more meat that isn’t development environment specific.

This podcast is a two-parter: Zend_Config_Ini and Zend_Http_Client(). While the two classes aren’t married together in the video, anyone serious about writing an API to their web application will need to access the API differently in development, staging and production environments. We also take 10 minutes and 4 lines of code to work with the Twitter API. Jump to around the 15 minute mark if you’re already up to speed on Zend_Config_*. I’m trying to cover the basic classes required to write a web service in the video next week. I’ve gotten a couple emails about covering Zend_Db. Since this podcast has covered Zend_Controller_* and Zend_View_* classes, the Zend_Db_* are starting to appear as the odd class out. I’m hoping to introduce Zend_Db by mid April. View / download the source on Google Code

This screencast covers Zend View Partials, an often overlooked portion of the Zend_View_* collection of classes, however, I’ve found them super handy when writing complex templates. Running time is a little under 10 minutes. Download the project code.

This is the second part of last weeks tutorial. Here we add some JQuery code and look at how Zend_View_Helper_* classes can be written in such a way that they behave the same when they’re invoked on the server and called asynchronously via an AJAX request. Feel free to follow along by downloading the project code.

This video covers how to setup and user Zend View Helpers. I also cover how state is managed within the class. Next week I’ll show you how you can use this technique with a bit of AJAX to make those View Helpers shine! I’ll post the project code for both videos with part 2.

I started this video thinking it would be short and it ended up close to 30 minutes. If you find these videos too long, please let me know and I’ll break them up. In my own defense, this video covers a lot of ground. I introduce JQuery and immediately put it to work for sending and receiving JSON requests to our Zend_Controller. The JSON is automatically generated from a set of PHP classes in a PHP array, thanks to Zend_Json. also, download the project file for this episode.

This video is part 2 of my introduction to Zend_Form. These last two videos have been a bit long since Zend_Form has a lot of behavior. I’ve also included the source code for this video. Hopefully this will help you follow along. download the source here, I haven’t included the Zend Framework itself, but I imagine you can grab a copy off of the Zend website.

This screencast ran a little long, and unfortunately I’ll have to post the rest next week. We start with creating a DTO (Data Transfer Object) that will house our data as we pass it from the Controller, to the form and then back to the view. Zend_Form is used for validation and rendering. enjoy!

This video covers the Zend_Session_Namespace class. It’s a short introduction to how we can use this object to simplify passing data from Zend_Controller action to another during a user’s stay on our web application.

A look at how you can create custom routes and pass parts of your query string into a Zend_Controller as a named parameter.

This video looks at the HeadLink view helper and how blueprint can easily be integrated into an existing zend_layout.

Using zend_layout, a CSS file and doctype will be set through some helpful tools provided in the Zend Framework.