PHP Tips and Tricks

Currently we are working on social project. The platform that we are using is PHP/MySQL/Drupal.

I’ll list all modules that used to build this website.

Finally!

Now we are on Dedicated Server hosted at EZZI.net.

Box is cheapest one, but it’s much better than VDS at VPSLink.

Within next months we are planning to upgrade box to increase RAM and setup RAID.

My company just got new project making enhanced auction platform.

Requirements are very complex - lot of use cases.

Architecture discussed and clean, the problem is technology. .NET/MSSQL vs PHP/MySQL.

Client likes cheaper solution, but it depends. Here we have two criteria - expenses on development and expenses on support and hosting.

.NET development will not take so much time as PHP and may be at that point client will have more stable solution compared to PHP based solution since .NET Framework is commercial and it solving lot of problems what I can’t tell about PHP.

But .NET hosting as development/support is expensive.

PHP is cheap but poor - all staff should be implemented from null since solution is not standard. Most enhanced CMS/CMF’s will not be able to cover even 30% of functionality and they are restricting actions because of their internal rules.

Since we deal with  ZendFramework before and understand power and dynamics of growth of this framework decided to stick to.

But it’s till not covering basic needs of our system. In fact it’s not even depends from solution. Lets image that you need to build custom logic application based on PHP. ZendFramework is too raw and there will be needed to make lot of staff to make simple things working like User Authentication/Management.

After three days discussions we considered to use Magento Open Source eCommerce solution as platform.

Currently we are working on prototyping application on Magento base.

Wish good luck us.

Will write about problems that we experienced with cleaning of Magento business logic and how Magento Commerce business logic monolith with his core.

In order to enclose Drupal node forms with Panels you will need to:

1. Create panel

2. Setup context for corresponding form type (this will add forms section in content selection window)

3. Add form from content selection form and specify node type for which you are going to use this panel.

This is first time that we are using panels to enclose node create/update forms and got there problem.

It seems module panels moving node update/save buttons into top fixing these form elements weight. We tried to fix weight using content type management page (CCK), tried to use custom module with hook_form_alter without any result.

Will update post there we will find solution to this problem.

Since Google Chrome lightest web browser (at least for me) I’m using it for surfing and when need to test same project using different accounts.

The good thing in such cases is Incognito mode since it’s allowing to have as many sessions as you need. Simply open new Incognito windows.

The problems that I experienced in Google Chrome browser is focusing. I’t’s not focusing when you are switching from one application back to Google Chrome window. Since scrolling is working the feeling is that it’s using some kind of container that is not in focus when you are switching using CTRL+TAB (I’m talking about Chrome in MS Windows env.). And you have to click on to have window focused to work with short keys.

Another problem is controls. They are simply missing. Tried to reproduce without result.

It’s still very useful and I’m intensive using this browser and recommending to everybody.

If somebody have any experience related to these two issue and will share I’ll be very  thankful.

Experiencing problem concerning .htm files in goDaddy shared hosting.

Scripts that partner is using written in not standard way and all files have .htm extensions don’t know why!

Reason can be somehow related to SEO. But it does not matter since problem exists and need solution ASAP.

GoDaddy support is telling that it’s possible to solve problem via .htaccess file using AddType Apache directive like

” AddType application/x-shockwave-flash swf ” - source http://help.godaddy.com/article/375

Tried both directives

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .htm

AddType application/x-httpd-php .htm

But no results. Planning to contact again and clarify.

Will let you know when will find solution to this problem. I presume that problem specific to hosting since .htaccess file in sources was working on previous hosting service.

Update: Two days after found solution in help topics of same hosting service.

AddHandler x-httpd-php5 .php .htm .html

VPSLink.

Quite stable one.

Uptime is 99%.

During last month noticed that file system I/O is heavy and taking 1-3 sec only for response even if there only simple hello word in php script.

Might be related to small RAM (256) but sime ls -al command also taking long to run when there are 10-15 files in folder.

Thinking. We will need more RAM. So thinking about moving to dedicated hosting.

First topic of this blog is abut how hard to manage project alone!