PHP Topics
PHP has become a major web development language over the last few years. Its simplicity and web focus make it easy to develop complex dynamic web sites without spending any money in a short amount of time. Following are some articles dealing with PHP. They are aimed at beginners of PHP, but don't include any setup information. If you don't know about PHP or you are not sure if you have it on your server, check the PHP web site for basic instructions.
Preview images with DOM, CSS and PHP - 19th July 2005
Sometimes we want to offer the visitors a preview of the image a link points to. Depending on PHP and GD availability, this script will offer a preview link showing or creating a thumbnail of the linked image. The visitors can see if the link is worth opening without leaving the current page. (published at local)
How to simulate CSS constants - 12th May 2005
One feature designers often wished they had with style sheets are constants - the chance to define something once and reuse it over and over in the style sheet document. This article shows some techniques for how to achieve that and discusses their pros and cons. (published at devarticles.com)
Thumbnail generation with PHP and GD - September 2002
Ever wanted to batch process images on your server but didn't know how to generate the thumbnails? Get to know what your server needs to have, some nice functions and a full PHP example how to do that. (published at onlinetools.org)
Clever forms with PHP - May 2003
A technique to automatically highlight mandatory form fields that were submitted empty for easy and painless form validation. The article lead to the release of the easyform script. (published at Evolt.org)
Using XML with PHP without any apache changes - August 2002
This article introduces untag(), a small PHP function that enables the user to parse and use XML in PHP without the need to install the XML add-ons for PHP. (published at Evolt.org)
Recommended books about PHP
The PHP Pocket Reference
As handy as the PHP manual is, from time to time you like to have a book in your hands to leaf through. The PHP pocket reference has been of remarkable help to me when working on client sites without internet access.
The PHP Cookbook (Version 4)
The O'Reilly cookbook series has always been one of my favourites. This book of the series is no exception. Instead of evangelising about a technique or product, it explains how to solve different problems using PHP. For me, a much quicker and more interesting way to learn.
The PHP Cookbook (Version 5)
This book is much like the Safari cookbook. The only difference is that it covers PHP5 and not only PHP4. While the Safari book is a great helper in maintaining and fixing older products, this one gets you ready for the much cleaner, OO future of PHP.
