It’s been a long time since I have updated PHPSimpl. It doesn’t mean changes have not been happening, it has just been at a comfortable place for me. Expanding it would mean committing myself to many more hours when other resources are already available. So for now I will continue to maintain the framework while adding stability and speed enhancements. I don’t have any new features in the queue.
A rundown of the complete changes include:
Updated example
Fixed an issue where the Insert() function does not work if there is a primary key that is not auto_increment
Fixed an issue with the radio form multi select to validate
Added a h() function to output right from the DB, it does htmlspecialchars(stripslashes($text))
Fixed the XML Output to include a “raw” parameter which only takes array options
Added the ability to send $options['fields'] to the DbTemplate->Save() function to only save certain fields in the DB
Updated the SetValues() to urldecode hidden form fields because they were not in the past
Fixed issue #58 where SetValue() time was stripping the seconds off
Made some changes to the regex for php5 latest
Made some changes to help with php5.3 deprecations
Fixed most of the Notices in PHPSimpl
Fixed the Email validation in the Mail() class. It now allows .’s and -’s in the address
Now allow the ability to change the encoding of an Email when setting the Body(). Basically for base64 content
Questions or Comments? Feel free to leave them in the PHPSimpl Group. There is always someone to help available. By the way we love feature requests, keep them coming.
So I attended the Refresh Detroit meeting a few days ago in Ann Arbor, MI. The speaker was Barb Hernandez, User Experience Manager at TechSmith. She talked about refreshing the UI of SnagIt.
SnagIt is a screen capture application for Windows. I am not familiar with too many trialware applications for windows since its not part of my daily routine. But I know there are quite a few programs like this out there since it is not a built in feature.
She went over the previous UI and some initial problems they identified. Then brought everyone through how they do user testing and what methods they found useful to make changes to the UI.
My opinion was they did a good job, I am not use to software being so clunky since I work mainly on the web and on Apple products so the UI changes they made looked pretty good. Hard to relate them to the web tho since Windows has a pretty constricting (boring imo) layout options.
It was interesting how their process worked. They did impression testing where they showed the mockup for 5 seconds then asked the participants to sketch as much as they remember. They also used emotion cards but she did not explain exactly how they conducted it, she just showed a list which seemed to be completely contradictory items, not very much help.
One thing I was disappointed about was how she made a big deal about Ethnographic Testing but could not explain how they conducted it or really explain it in any detail because it would ruin their “next release”. Funny because all the people in the room were pretty much from the web world and they are releasing it in the next few weeks, its not like we would have stole their idea and recreate their software.
Anyways, all in all it was a good meeting. Talking more with the Refresh Detroit leadership really got me excited for the upcoming meetings.
To see if there is a refreshing meeting near you checkout the Refreshing Cities site. It is a great way for web developers, designers and usability professionals to get together and learn from each other.
Long awaited features now implemented. Main highlights include cross database join’s. Functions on DisplayList() fields and a way to change where the required indicator (*) is on forms and the character that is displayed after the label.
A rundown of the complete changes include:
Updated example
Completely rewritten Export class with CVS, JSON, XML and SQL support
Export() function on DbTemplate for seamless exporting
Removed the requirement to have DB_DEFAULT defined
DisplayList() now places a for NULL table values for IE border support
GetList() and Join() now support cross database queries
Added the “required” class to the field items that are required
DisplayList() $options can now take a function name as a value for a field.
Added the DateTimeDiff() function to the global functions to produce a human readable “time ago” output.
Added a type of “settings” for forms to manipulate the Form::Form() function output.
Questions or Comments? Feel free to leave them in the PHPSimpl Group. There is always someone to help available. By the way we love feature requests, keep them coming.
Yay! New Year, New Release. Its been a while since our last release and we apologize, all of us have been pretty busy and we were down two full time developers in the department. This release is a mix of additional features and bug fixes. We hope to release more often this year since we will have filled one and will fill the other position shortly. The updated below are all to the PHPSimpl core there has been no updates to the examples or the wiki API documentation. 0.8.5 will bring a massive update to documentation and optimization, hold tight we hope to have it out within the next two months.
Removed all dependency on a Primary Key except for the Move() function
Added the IsConnected() function for the DB object
Added the Insert() and Update() functions for tables without primary key
Added the ID attribute to the hidden form fields
Fixed issue with double quotes being in hidden fields, the would close the HTML tag
Fix for 12/31/1969 problem in DbTemplate:SetValue()
Fixed problem with IE-7 and popup-calendar location
Fix for invalid date input on Form::SetValues()
Fixed an issue with the export when there is no display passed
Questions or Comments? Feel free to leave them in the PHPSimpl Group. There is always someone to help available. By the way we love feature requests, keep them coming.
Overseeing the current Wayne State University homepage is like running with a tiny pebble in your shoe. You feel it every step but your going so fast you cannot stop to take it out.
Working with a site so large it can become discouraging but taking one step at a time one can accomplish anything. Yesterday we took our first step, moving the site to a new server in an environment that we are comfortable and flexible in.
The old version of the site was sitting on an NT box, a requirement of the company who built it over 4 years ago. When I started I had a few goals, one was to get the site off that server and get it validated and rewritten in POSH. Well that day has come and we managed to sprinkle in a few other goodies along the way, here are some highlights:
It took some work to get here but we made it. There is still some tweaking to go but all in all its setup. Now its time to concentrate on the content, we are going to be doing a page by page overhaul and adding greater functionality and layout to each child page.
In addition to the content we will also be shrinking the file size and HTTP requests further and further down to the base minimum. Right now we are ~90k depending on the panel that loads and 16 HTTP requests with an empty cache, we hope to cut the size down by a third and get rid of 2-4 requests.
