First of all I decided to add an Entries Model and Authors Model to the mix, primarily to get ready for when we can add new entries to our blog. This leads to where we can create new Entries; we add an Administration Module to the application with it's own distinct Layout.

He starts by making the database schema, an entries and authors table, before starting in on the models. They're made based off of the Zend_Db component's structure and they let the application interact with the data in the tables easily. His code for the modules is included as well as the controller and view for the admin module.

It's almost obligatory when introducing a new programming topic, that the author present the simplest possible example. Usually this means getting a programming language or framework to print "Hello World" to the screen. I'm going to be no different. So much for originality...

He shows how to set up everything, down to the Apache VirtualHost directive and hosts file to get the web server and localhost working correctly. He includes the code for the boostrap file and how to create your first controller (along with its view, of course).

Like Action Helpers, which I've discussed in a previous article, Front Controller Plugins in Zend Framework are often considered an esoteric, advanced subject. They are, however, remarkably simple to implement, and provide an easy way to extend the functionality and behavior of your entire web application.

The article (from Matthew Weir O'Phinney) looks at the hooks defined in the controller, like routeStartup and preDispatch, and how to work with the controller to add in/get plugins from it. He provides a two examples too: Application Initialization Plugin and a Caching Plugin.

Action Helpers in Zend Framework are often considered a fairly arcane subject, something for experts only. However, they are meant to be an easy way to extend the capabilities of Action Controllers, negating the need to create your own base controller with custom functionality. The aim of this tutorial is to show you how to quickly and easily create and use Action Helpers to your advantage.

He covers some of the basics - setting up a controller to extend Zend_Controller_Action - and assigning helpers to it. He looks hat hooking in events, registering and retrieving the helpers with a Broker and how to create your own custom helper. Their example is a form loader that lest you load the code for a form by submitting its class name.

Orchid is a small framework with bare necessities to kick start developing killer php web applications. this framework is not flooded with unnecessary features and libraries. it only contains the essential helpers and libraries to boost up your development, not slowing it down. orchid features a very short learning curve, which will keep you trouble free.

He documents the step he followed - downloading the latest release (from the svn repository), making a first controller and adding a view to make his first "hello world" application.

The typical issue is that they're unsure how to combine: an authentication adapter, a login form, a controller for login/logout actions and checking for an authenticated user in subsequent requests. It's not terribly difficult, but it does require knowing how the various pieces of the MVC fit together, and how to use Zend_Auth. Let's take a look.

He gives the complete code for a loin controller to cover most of that functionality and an example showing how to check for and keep track of which users have been authenticated.

This guy [making comments at PHP London] apparently works for the Agavi project. [...] The comments for that [reddit] post are really interesting too, as people take their usual swipes at PHP, and CakePHP, and the Symfony guys come out in droves to talk up Symfony, and on and on it goes. Sadly, this is not a unique occurance on the web.

Chris took a closer look at Agavi to see what made its MVC so special - only to find that it just does it different, but not necessarily "right" (he includes a code example to illustrate). He also quotes Wikipedia's definition of an MVC framework and notes that CakePHP seems to fit it to a tee.

To reduce the typing effort for the most common tasks in creating a Zend Framework based application, which are creating action controllers including their hosted actions and creating new models for accessing the underlying database, I spent some minutes to figure out how to create and add these valuable snippets to the default PHP bundle.

The contents of the examples snippets are included - one to set up a controller, one to add an action to it and an third that will automatically set a table name property.

Traditionally in a CakePHP application, to do static pages you have two options: use the built-in Pages controller or set up an empty action in a controller.

Feeling that neither of these two options met how he wanted things to work, Jonathan (and Nate Abele) developed a class that extends the error handler in the CakePHP framework to handle "missing" actions and controllers. This means that, if an unknown controller/action combo is called, this script will check in its correct location (in the structure of the site) and try to find it to render it.

Basically, Zend_Controller_Action is the parent of all of the controllers in your application. This controller is what C stands for in MVC, a design pattern used lately in web application development, especially in RIA development.

The post includes a tutorial on using the parameters in an example of a design pattern.