Just 3 simple 3 steps:

1. Instead of using img, use a placeholder like a or span. Make it display:block.
2. Place the image as background image of this placeholder.
3. Set a border radius and a little shadow for the placeholder.

Sample CSS and HTML code:

<style type="text/css">
	a.user-image {
		background: transparent no-repeat top left;
		display: block;
		text-indent: -999em;
		width: 50px;
		height: 50px;
		border-radius: 5px;
                box-shadow: 0px 0px 3px #666;
	}
</style>
 
<a class="user-image" href="http://www.facebook.com/ajaxray" style="background-image: url(http://graph.facebook.com/667896332/picture)" title="Visit Anis's profile">Anis Ahmad</a>
 
<!--
Post: http://ajaxray.com/blog/rounded-thumb-image-with-css-3
Demo: http://ajaxray.com/Examples/cropped-thumb.html
-->

You’re done! Check the live demo.

You can get it from github –  https://github.com/ajaxray/Kohana-Log-Viewer

Installation

1. Download this module and add the logviewer folder it to your MODPATH
2. Enable it in the bootstrap file
3. Go to http://your-app-root/logs
4. You are done!

How to use?

It’s completely self explanatory. Here are some points for quick refs -

• All months are listed on top nav. e.g, 2011/11
• Left sidebar has a list of available log files in selected month
• If not specified, today’s (current month and day) log file will be displayed
• If you want to see a fresh log for next call, just delete today’s file. Kohana will generate it and add
• Formatted mode (default) may not extract all info correctly for displaying in rows. Use raw mode for those situations. NEED IMPROVEMENT here
• You can use Level listbox for filtering by log levels

Notes

• http://your-app-root/logs should display the log reports interface. If it don’t, please check the routing in modules/logviewer/init.php
• If you change the folder name, change the paths in modules/logviewer/views/logs/layout.php accordingly
• If you want to improve, please fork and participate
• If you’ve a suggestion or found a bug, please let me know at – anisniit(at)gmail.com
• And the last thing is, BE CAREFUL ABOUT USING ON PRODUCTION!

Kohana 3.0 Beginner’s Guide

Codeigniter was my first PHP framework. Though it works nicely for wide range of app types, slowly I felt uncomfortable in some points. For example, lack of OOP practices, untestable structure etc. (Sorry to say, unit-testing in codeigniter was a horror!) Later, among PHP frameworks, I worked a lot with Zend Framework and a little with Symfony . One day Emran Hasan shared IBuildings article about HMVC which presented Kohana as example HMVC framework. That was the starting, in a few days Kohana took the position of primary PHP framework for me. I built website, Enterprise application, Service layer for SOA and few more apps with Kohana comfortably.

But when framework newbies asks me with which one he should start, need to think twice before suggesting Kohana. The main reason is, it’s documentation was not as rich as Codeigniter or Zend Framework. And there was no book. BTW, Kohana unofficial wiki is a BIG try to help in this issue. Besides, recently Packt has published the first book on Kohana “Kohana 3.0 Beginner’s Guide“. Jason D. Straughan wrote this book for Kohana version 3.x. Few days ago, Snehman Kohli from Packtpub has contacted me and requested for reviewing this book. As a fan of Kohana, I’ve happily accepted. So, here is my view on this book.

The book discussed all major aspects of a generic MVC web application. With “how to do”, it have good explanation of “how it works” about most of the things. As a target of step by step learning, it takes a sample web application that will allow users to create simple profiles, post messages for their friends, and manage their public page. Throughout the book, the reader will build this application by learning the Kohana way of MVC components, Routing, Helpers, Session handling, Modules, Database interaction, Templating etc. Also have details discussion of some important Modules and Helpers like HTML, URL, ORM, Auth, Validation etc.

Lets have an overview and see how topics are organized. In first chapter, as obvious, have discussion about installation and setting up the framework. It has discussed different ways of installation, downloading from web, github etc. But I think, it’s logical to start with the easiest way for beginners and put other alternatives in somewhere in Appendix.

When introducing MVC, some flowchart, graphics could help to explain the workflow more clearly. But the current introduction is somewhat Kohana specific, but good enough to start. Techniques of using simple view, template view, composite views, binding global view variables etc. are shown beautifully. The idea of starting with basic Controller and slowly moving to generalized application controller will help to understand practical OOP practices along with how controllers works. Third chapter has enough example and explanation of Routing and Request object.

In Codeigniter, the helpers were all open functions. But Kohana boxed the in classes as static functions which seems more organized and logical for their purpose. This book talked about helpers generally and showed examples from URL, Date, Arr and some other helpers. Has a chapter for another great power of Kohana, easy and powerful Module system. Along with explaining how modules works, this book has separate chapters for Database, ORM and Auth modules. And I think yes, these modules deserves such focus.

In my view, Database and ORM could be discussed together in one chapter. Because of importance, Image and Message module also could be described with some example. Though Message module is used in showing Form errors, it deserves more space. The book explained common security issues and Kohana way of protecting them in deployment chapter. Some of those could be explained earlier in appropriate context. For example, SQL injection could be discussed in “Interacting with the Database” chapter.

Okey, now lets talk about some friendly complains. The form validation is discussed, and it’s good enough. But another good example of handling ajax submitted forms and their validation could make it complete. Though easy i18n is a good feature of Kohana, it didn’t get any focus at all. When I was switching to Kohana as my promary PHP framework, one big inspiration was it’s testability. PHPUnit fits with Kohana beautifully through UnitTest module. But this book have no recommendation or inspiration for testing anywhere.

Before starting to learn something, many people like me, likes to see what most I can do from learning this thing. It can be a demo or some screenshot. Though the author ignored the presentation of sample app in screenshots, I think it’s also important. A beautiful interface could give more impression and inspiration to the learner.

In chapter 8, Error Handling and trouble shooting, examples are shown using Kohana::debug, Kohana::debug_source. You won’t find those methods in newer version of Kohana. Debugging related functions are moved to a new Helper named Debug. So you have to use Debug::dump(), Debud::path() etc. In profiling section, I was expecting some initial talk about manual profiling along with Kohana default benchmarks. There was some minor printing issues, but can be problematic for beginners. For example, in many places, single quots(‘) changed to ‹ and › characters.

Overall, the book is well organized, focused and will be helpful on it’s purpose. I felt it’s capable to teach Kohana to a new guy, in a smooth way. Yes, there have some printing mistakes, old (because they are changed in new version) function use and some other minor issues, but seems ignorable to me. I’d recommend it for Kohana beginners. A little experience with CodeIgniter or other MVC framework can make the learning faster. But if you don’t have, don’t worry, just start from here.

Our (me and Mohammad Zakir Hossain Raju) session was about jQuery and jQuery Mobile. Here is the slide -

BTW, SlideShare has featured this slide on homepage.

There was total 6 sessions in this half-day seminar. Here are the sessions(Sequentially)

1. Turbo boost your web UI with Javascript
2. Take your JS skills to the next level with jQuery and jQuery Mobile
3. Building mobile apps using Phonegap
4. Javascript as a server side language
5. Game Development in Unity3D using JS
6. Building iOS and Android apps using Titanium

You can see details about the event, sessions, speakers and get all slides from event page.

Assumptions

I’m assuming that –

• You have already worked with Drupal and understand it’s basic terminology.
• You understand and can manage Roles, Permissions and Blocks.
• You have worked (at least can work) with Views module.

The Solution

Suppose the node-type we will let the client manage (add/edit/delete) is “property”. Now, within few steps, we’ll build a Manage Property panel. We’ll use Admin and Client to mean the role of you and your client. Let’s start.

1. Create a view using views module (type will be “node”) and name it “manage_properties”.
2. In Filters section, add node-type = property. Add additional filters if needed e.g. is_published, user etc.
3. You can add some exposed filters (e.g. node title, category etc.) so that the client can search/filter contents easily.
4. In Fields section, Add node title first. Then add 2-3 other fields that will help client to identify and find out property. e.g. property type, location etc. At last, add Edit link and Delete link fields. Change label of Edit link as “Actions”
5. In Basic setting of view, set title = Manage Properties, Style = Table, Use pager = Yes, Distinct = Yes, Access = Role (select client’s and admin’s role from Access options)
6. From Style options, place Edit and Delete links in Actions column together. Check Sortable checkbox for title and other appropriate columns.
7. You can sort results by post_date, DESC from Sorting section.
8. We’re almost done. Now add a page display of view and set the path of this display as ‘manage/properties’. If you want, you can add this page to menu as well.
9. Set the Add Property link In Header of page view. Style it (e.g. right aligned, bold etc.).
10. Save the view and check the output. Tune up for your clients use.

Ok. Now the page is ready. Create similar panels for other content types that your client needs to manage.
The next concern is, how the client will reach to these pages? There are two easy ways. Either create a menu and add these pages to that menu. Or Place a block on sidebar (or anywhere) containing the links of these pages.

Checklist

Please go through the following checklist when you think you’r done-

• This menu/links block (navigation for created manage pages) are visible and accessible by only Client and Admin role, not for the whole world.
• All links (add/edit/delete) are working. After edit/delete, redirecting to this panel.
• Client’s role has permission to edit/delete (at least edit/delete own contents) this node-type.

More Let’s do with Drupal are coming up! keep checking.

This time, my topic was about “Caching Basics in PHP”. Here is the slide -

Here is the full list of topics. BTW, the sequence was reordered and some titles were a little changed at the final show.

1. Professionalism, Inside out – Omi Azad
2. Configure your production server by yourself – S.M. Ibrahim Lavlu
3. Web Application Development using MVC Framework (Kohana) – Arafat Rahman
4. HTML5 – Zakir Hossain Raju
5. JavaScript Wash – M A Hossain Tonu
6. Git: Stupid, Fast, and Distributed Content Tracker – Mozammel Haque
7. Standard Coding, OOP Techniques and Code Reuse – Rayhan Chowdhury
8. Running at Maximum HP without Tearing Apart – MS Alam Trivuz
9. jQuery plugin development – Ziaul Haq
10. Desktop Apps With Web Technologies – Abu Ashraf Masnun
11. Up and running with Doctrine 2 and Zend Framework 1.10 – Nurul Ferdous
12. Caching Basics in PHP – Anis Uddin Ahmad
13. Even better debugging – Murshed Ahmmad Khan
14. CodeMan! with noSQL! – NHM Tanveer Hasan Khan
15. ACL in CodeIgniter – Mizanur Rahman
16. Facebook Graph API – Saidur Rahman Bijon
17. Developing better PHP projects – Emran Hasan
18. Kickstarting your Startup – Hasin Hayder

Thanks to everybody who were attended, involved or watched the exciting event from webcast.

The important thing I need to ensure for testing database is, It’s in a known state before running a test. And, changes on database made by one test will not impact on another test. So, I’ll have a separate database for testing. Which will be loaded with a predefined dataset before running each test and will be truncated after test is done. Also, I have to be careful about that, my models are executing quires on test database in testing environment. Here is how I’ve done it? -

• Created a database with the same structure of project database. lets say it “project_test”. Add it’s configuration to database module as instance name ‘test’.
• Created 2 files named setup.sql and teardown.sql in Kohana’s application/tests/data directory. Wrote this template in both of these files.

  [sql]
  START TRANSACTION;
  SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;

  – My SQL here –

  SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;
  COMMIT;
  [/sql]

• In setup.sql, wrote the sql for inserting some logical, related data that will be used as my “known” data state. Yes, of course by exporting data project database and altering. And, in teardown.sql, wrote sql for truncating all tables. (Though the recommended way is using DbUnit Extension and loading dataset from XML.)
• Added a function to Kohana_Unittest_TestCase class -
  [php]
  public function runSchema($schema)
  {
  $testDb = Kohana::config(‘database.test’);

  if(is_null($testDb)){
  return false;
  }

  $command = "-u{$testDb['connection']['username']} -p{$testDb['connection']['password']} {$testDb['connection']['database']}";
  $filePath = APPPATH . ‘tests/data/’ . $schema;

  exec("mysql $command < $filePath ");
  }
  [/php]

• Now, I can load my dataset anytime in my testing and also can clear it. I am doing it in setUp() and tearDown().
  [php]
  // In setUp()
  $this->runSchema(‘setup.sql’);

  // In teardown()
  $this->runSchema(‘teardown.sql’);
  [/php]

Thats all, Now I can test using database manipulations. Please note 2 important things, -
- When initializing models, I have to pass the db instance name ‘test’. This name can be set in phpunit config file and be used from that config.
- The execute() function is not using this db instance name for executing queries. I had to tell him again to use this instance name. So, all execute()s are now execute($this->_db).

OK. Now my Kohana v3 is ready for Database Testing.

This seminar was arranged by PHPXperts, the leading PHP community of Bangladesh

Now, if we try provide this feature in Zend Form, that’s possible. We can create three individual Zend_Form_Element_Text objects and join there value together to make the phone number. But, in this case, validating them together is a hassle. Again, placing them inline in the form and putting separators needs some Decorator magic. What if we can make it simply another Zend Form Element which renders three text box (optionally with separator)? And consider their value jointly and validate them together using ordinary Zend Validators? Lets try.

What we are going to make?

Let’s visualize our Phone number field first and list what we want from it.

• It’s Simple. It’s rendering, validation everything is like any other ordinary Zend From Elements.
• It prints 3 text boxes for different parts of Phone number.
• When we validate it or take it’s value, the input of these three boxes jointly will be considered as the value.
• We can set a separator character to be printed between text boxes.
• We can include/exclude this separators from value.

Assumptions

Assuming that, you have used Zend_Form, Zend_From_Element_* and understand how the directory hierarchy, naming convention, Autoloading of Zend works. Also, in library directory, you keep a directory beside Zend for additional project based classes. We will refer it as Project directory and classes under it will be Project_<dir-name>_<class> etc.

Let’s do it

It’s already done . So, please download it first.

Now I will go through the code and will tell you how it’s working. The form element class is created in “Project/Form/Element/Phone.php”. So our class name is Project_Form_Element_Phone. This class is extending Zend_Form_Element_Xhtml for getting common form element functionalities by default. Then, declared some public properties as below -

• $codeLength : array. default lengths of phone number parts
• $ignoreSeperator : boolean. flag for ignoring/including separator characters in value
• $helper : Name of default form view helper to use for rendering

In constructor, checking if codeLength and ignoreSeperator is set as attribute (using Zend_Form_Element::setAttrib). If not, adding them with attributes array with default values. Then calling parent’s constructor. Also, overwriting isValid() function for joining values of three parts. From where these 3 parts coming? Find the answer in view helper which rendering this filed.

Each Zend Form Element needs a view helper to be rendered with. Our view helper for Project_Form_Element_Phone is at “Project/View/Helper/FormPhone.php”. So, set the value of Project_Form_Element_Phone::$helper as ‘formPhone’. The secret is here, in formPhone() function. Here, I am printing three text fields named <filed-name>_country, <filed-name>_operator and <filed-name>. They will have additional class name phone_country, phone_operator and phone respectively so that we can style them from CSS. Also, the length of each part will be set as maxlength.

Check ‘Project/View/Helper/’ has been added as HelperPath and ‘Project_’ is added in Autoloader Namespaces.

BTW, if you still fetch problem in loading files or don’t want to use separate directory (referred as Project) for additional classes, you can put the Phone.php in “Zend/Form/Element” and FormPhone.php in “Zend/View/Helper” directory. Then change the class names.

How to use?

Seems everything is done. Let’s see an example how it will be used.

[php]

$primaryPhone = new Project_Form_Element_Phone(‘primary_phone’);

$primaryPhone->setLabel(‘Primary phone’)
->setAttrib(‘class’ ,’some class’ )
->setAttrib(‘separator’ ,’#’ ) // Separator between Phone number parts
->setAttrib(‘ignoreSeparator’, true) // Ignore seperators from in field value
->setDescription(‘Phone number format: XXX # XXXX # XXXXXX’)
->setValue(isset($data['primary_phone']) ? $data['primary_phone'] : ”)
->addValidator(‘digits’);

$form->addElement($primaryPhone);

[/php]

So, is all our expectations in above list full-fulled?

But I’ve come to realize soon, in back of my head, I am thinking how it can be made for web. And, LED banner has landed on earth within few hours using the wings of jQuery. Here is the fun!

How it works?

It’s pretty simple!

1. createLights() makes the board (the target div) empty and create lights (span elements) in it as row and column.
2. I have an array named ‘map’ that stores which lights should on for a character in 3 dimensional format.
3. Using getMap() , I am creating an array of all columns for boards text.
4. draw() is drawing (turning on required lights) the text.
5. scrollText() make it moving. This funciton just take leftmost column and place after rightmost.
6. LED Banner is scrolling. Done.

Let’s talk a bit more about map array. For eaxmple, take this line -

map[")"] = [[0,7],[1,6],[2,3,4,5]];

Here, this element of map store information for printing ‘)’.
it has 3 elements which means 3 columns will be used to print this.
[0,7] is first column for this character where 0th and 7th light (from top) should keep on.

Later, if I can manage some more time, hope to make it as a jQuery plugin.
However, if you are interested to make it as a plugin, go ahead!