Tools & Frameworks • Inchoo

Category / Tools & Frameworks

Free Flash Graphs Tool

21st SEP 2008 | Posted by Tomislav Bilic in Tools & Frameworks

It is very common in the process of building custom web application that we need to produce some sort of visual reports. Those reports have to quickly display tabluar data in human more readable format – graphs. Although there is a way to create them yourself in PHP using some image functions, you’ll have to spend a lot of time to make the chart look superb. This is where Open Flash Chart project jumps in.

PHP form data binding

21st SEP 2008 | Posted by Branko Ajzele in Tools & Frameworks

I am working on a project that has a lot of user input forms. Forms are used to submit entries to MySQL database. Submitting values to forms and processing them trough some PHP logic is no news for PHP.

The problem I encountered while developing my application was the mapping of values from database to $_POST variables and vice verse. This may not sounds like a that big of a deal but when you have more than a dozen of functions returning array of information that needs to be edited trough forms that mapping all those can be a overkill task. Read more

PHP tricks with object oriented programming

11th SEP 2008 | Posted by Branko Ajzele in Tools & Frameworks

Programming PHP the right way as with any other OOP language requires knowledge and understanding of OOP concepts. For those of you who don’t know this by now, OOP stand for Object Oriented Programming. Working on a small project where developer goes trough just a few files is a no problem since your most likely memorize all your properties and methods.

However, working with big project like Magento, or even WordPress can become real pain in a neck if u use only text editor trough your development process. On the other hand, don’t think your off the hook using some fancy IDE studio like NetBeans, NuSphere, or ZendStudio. Problem is that each of them has it’s own problems and glitches resolving object context across multiple project files and so on. Sometimes when you hit $this-> code completion wont return any methods that go with it. So what do you do? Read more

Figuring out Magento object context

10th SEP 2008 | Posted by Branko Ajzele in Magento, Programming, Tools & Frameworks

One of the problems working under the hood of the Magento CMS is determining the context of $this. If you are about to do any advanced stuff with your template, besides layout changes, you need to get familiar with Magento’s objects (classes).

Let’s have a look at the /app/design/frontend/default/default/template/catalog/product/view.phtml file. If you open this file and execute var_dump($this) your browser will return empty page after a short period of delay. By page I mean on the product view page; the one you see when you click on Magetno product. Experienced users will open PHP error log and notice the error message caused by var_dump(). Read more

Website Launch Flowchart

4th SEP 2008 | Posted by Tomislav Bilic in Tools & Frameworks

Did you ever wonder what does it take to build a successful website? Bob Misita from Virante helps us visualize the process. He made a flowchart of 40 steps that need to be completed before actual website launch. Although the list is quite comprehensive, this steps really occur even in medium sized projects.

I hope this will help all of you who want to build a self-money-generation sites with the deadline of 3 weeks. Look at the flowchart, analyze it and don’t start the development until you planned at least 80% of this boxes.

FogBugz – Project Management Tool

23rd JUL 2008 | Posted by Tomislav Bilic in Tools & Frameworks

Working on a project as only developer having direct contact with the client gives you the freedom not to think too much of a communication tool you will use. Couple of meetings, phone calls and an email will be just fine. After 3-4 weeks, you deliver the project and the communication is over. If that is your common scenario, than skip evaluation of this tool.

Making and breaking the grid with “960 grid system”

27th JUN 2008 | Posted by Tomislav Bilic in Tools & Frameworks

There are millions of distinct designs on the web horizon. They all have more or less the styles on their own, like: 3D, cartoon, clean, dark, futuristic, geometric, grunge, minimalistic, retro, corporate, urban, vector, and many more. If we put out design diversity, most of them share the similar structure. They have header, menu, content area, sidebar or sidebars, footer, some secondary space and many more.
Read more

FancyBox – Fancy image zooming tool

4th JUN 2008 | Posted by Tomislav Bilic in Tools & Frameworks

There are many Lightbox clones this days. Some are fancier, some are lighter, some use jQuery, some do not. In this wast set of options, I found one I think I will prefer from today: FancyBox – fancy image zooming tool

It is based on jQuery and is a cool alternative to existing solutions. Here are some features: