In a new post to his blog Manuel Pichler takes a look at the first release of the staticReflection component - his component provides a unified interface to both reflection versions, which makes it easy to switch between different implementations.

A few weeks ago I started just another script that utilized the tokenizer extension to extract some information from source code files. At that point I thought that the time had come to realize a project that was on my todo for a very long time. And here is the result of the first iteration.

He includes a few code examples and how to install it from the PHP_Depend PEAR channel (and, of course, how to report issues).

As announced on the Zend Developer Zone today, there's a new version of the extension for PHP that lets it interface directly with a Solr instance.

The Apache Solr extension is an extremely fast, light-weight, feature-rich library that allows PHP developers to communicate easily and efficiently with Apache Solr server instances using an object-oriented API. It effectively simplifies the process of interacting with Apache Solr using PHP. The Solr extension already has built-in readiness for Solr 1.4

The post lists some of the features of the API the extension exposes (like connection reuse and a simpler interface to response data) as well as a list of supported components.

On the I-Programmer.info blog there's a recently posted tutorial about creating a component for Joomla in the Eclipse IDE (with the PHP development tools installed).

Although there are a lot of good tutorials describing how to create a new component for Joomla it can still be difficult to organise all of the material into a procedure for developing using an IDE and a local test environment such as Eclipse for PHP. So here are some more specific instructions about the whole process with nothing left out (I hope!).

They step through the process - making the Eclipse project, creating the XML definition, packaging it up into a zip file and installing the new package in your Joomla! installation. Sample XML and screenshots are provided to make the component creation easier.

Whether you're new to using Joolma or just need a refresher on the security side of setting it up, you might want to check out this new post on the ProThemer.com blog about locking down your Joomla site.

It is a safe assumption when you first discovered Joomla, the last thing on your mind was how to handle security on your new website. I know it was for me. [...] By itself Joomla is a very secure CMS that sometime get's a bad reputation.

He suggest two components to install to help harden your installation - ConfigServer and RSFirewall - both provide some extra security features on top of the base ones that come with the application. The second (RSFirewall) is a bit simpler than the first and might be a better starting place if you're not used to thinking about application security.

Padraic Brady has posted a new tutorial to his blog about making a Twitter client using the Zend Framework's Zend_OAuth component for user validation.

During yesterday, I finally got around to patching and finishing Zend_Oauth's Consumer implementation for the OAuth Core 1.0 Revision A specification. Once I had it finished, I used it to write a quick and simple interface to post some Tweets on Twitter while I was testing it out. [...] In this article I'll explore how to writea quick Twitter client so you can post tweets (those short messages of less than 140 characters) once authorised across the OAuth protocol.

He starts of by explaining what OAuth is and how it can help provide a better level of authentication than just the usual username/password combo. His example code shows how to connect your OAuth provider's settings with the Zend_OAuth object and pass the request token over for authentication. You'll have to approve the mini-application to allow access to your Twitter account, but once you do, it should be smooth sailing.

In case you hadn't heard by now, the symfony project's components sub-project of the main framework has gotten its own website:

Some time ago, I have introduced the new "Symfony Components" project. It is a sub-project of Symfony that aims to give more importance to some of the great libraries we have developed for Symfony. [...] Today, I am happy to announce that the Symfony Components now have their dedicated website.

Each of the current components (YAML, Event Dispatcher, Dependency Injection, Template - though the last three are "coming soon") have documentation, info about the API, examples of how to install and use it and how to give back to the code for the component directly.

Noupe.com has posted a list of twenty useful PHP and jQuery components (and tutorials) that could be useful in everyday projects:

When you combine some neat functionality courtesy of PHP with the cleverness of jQuery you can produce some pretty neat effects. In an effort to help you take it up a notch, we'd like to share some methods for helping your site anticipate a user's next move.

Included in the list are components/tutorials like:

• Create a Photo Admin Site Using PHP and jQuery
• PHP ajax login form using Jquery
• Newsletter module
• PHP & jQuery image upload and crop v1.2
• Reddit-style Voting With PHP, MySQL And jQuery

See the full post for even more great PHP+jQuery information.

Till has recently made a post to his blog looking to help other developers avoid some of the common issues that he's seen with the Zend_Test component of the Zend Framework.

I feel like I've wasted a great deal of time last week with basics that were nowhere to be found or required debugging to no end. The following is the outcome, a rather random list of things to watch out for when you're starting on Zend_Test.

He has notes on a few different topics like debugging, environment control, crating an AllTests file, avoiding direct calls to PHP and bootstrapping correctly. A knowledge of PHPUnit and unit testing is recommended.

In this recent article from the Zend Developer Zone Jack Herrington takes a look at the component of the Zend Framework that lets it talk directly to Flash and Flex applications - Zend_Amf.

Reading and posting to Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based services with Adobe Flex is easy. But what's even easier is using Adobe's Action Message Format (AMF) to send messages between the Flex client and the server. It's as easy to use as a method call on an object. This article shows how to set up an AMF service [so you can use this method] on your PHP web server using the Zend Framework and Zend_Amf.

As his example application, he sets up a contacts database he'll pull information from and insert data into from his Flex form. You'll need to already be familiar with working in a Zend Framework instance before you get started - he dives right into the code. Screenshots and code for both the PHP and Flex sides of things are included

Tony Bibbs has made a release of an MVC framework that's been a few years of his development time in the making - MVCnPHP.

I will start this blog entry by saying I like Zend Framework. I really do. However, the part of ZF I don't use is the MVC implementation. No, it's not bad. Actually it's a good implementation that is the product of a lot of hard work by Zenders and non-Zenders alike. I use bits and pieces of ZF in my PHP projects and, admittedly, Zend's MVC implementation never made the cut.

He decided a while back on his own implementation and has stuck with it over the years. He still uses the components of the Zend Framework but not the routing and model/view/controller setup of it all. Instead he's opted for his own MVCnPHP methods for his own applications. You can check out these resource for more information: a sample application, the user guide and, of course, the framework's download page.