PHPit.net has a new article posted that starts a series on the "PHP:DataGrid Component", a script you can get from here.

One of the most common tasks in PHP is retrieving data from a database table, and creating a HTML table to output that data. It's done in almost every project, and it's usually a really boring task, because the code is always nearly the same, but not just same enough to be able to copy it.

t's a sad fact, but we've already written code like the above hundreds of times. And for every project and script, you have to do it again, again and again.

But why not use a solution that can do it for us? That's exactly what PHP:DataGrid is.

Unfortunately, the script isn't free, but at $24.99 USD, it just might be worth it next time you go to create that base layer of a new application. They go through the usage of the library, everything from the simple basics up to a full example of how it would look in your script. In this first part they're just concerned with getting it, getting it installed, and working with it basically. Keep an eye out for part two where they "pretty up" the grid and talk more about "its functions (e.g. templates, inline editing, sorting and more!)".