On Webitech.net there's a new tutorial showing how to combine PHP and jQuery to create a simple content editing system when you don't need a full-blown CMS to manage the pages of your site.

I'm going to show you how to use jQuery and PHP to build a content editing system that will allow you or your client to easily edit .html pages visually. [...] Our file structure is going to be really simple - just admin.php, the wymeditor package and jquery together in the demo directory.

The tool uses PHP's file_get_contents to pull in the source of the page into a textarea and edit it with jQuery and the WYM Editor. Full code is included for your cut and paste pleasure but if you need a quicker fix, you can download the source. There's also a demo to see it in action.

On Internet.com there's a new video tutorial showing you how to work with the Google Maps API and PHP to create a Google map with multiple points plotted from the coordinate data held in a MySQL database. The example doesn't use any sort of framework to get the job done - just straight PHP.

The Google Maps API makes it trivially easy for anybody to create a custom Web-based map, complete with features such as event handlers, route directions, and sophisticated overlays. However, the genesis of many such features stems from your ability to easily add map markers and store the corresponding coordinates within a database such as MySQL.

Unfortunately, there's no link to the sample code, so you'll just have to follow along on-screen. He does make it easy to tie the three technologies together - PHP, MySQL and jQuery - and make a simple multi-point map system. It's flexible too and can be easily extended to include more information in each of the map points (like a name for the location).

In a previous article posted to the Okada Design Blog, they showed you how to create a calendar using jQuery, CodeIgniter and the BackendPro toolset. They're back with a new article today showing how you can do the same thing without BackendPro.

I have some requests for a Event Calendar without BackendPro. Since it is not using BeP, I only used CRUD without individual calendar. So there won't be any mycal function. I took out all of the Bep thingy and made it simpler (I hope).

If you want the full tutorial on how the CodeIgniter part is set up, check out their previous article. If you're just looking for the new sans-BackendPro code, you can download it here.

As Developer.com mentions in a new article, there's a new video tutorial posted over on Internet.com about using PHP and JSON to pass around data in your applications.

Got seven minutes to learn how you can harness the power of PHP, JavaScript and JSON in a powerful AJAX-driven web application? This Internet.com Video tutorial shows you all you need to know to pass data between the client and server using JSON data format.

The video explains a bit about JSON+PHP and shows you how to send a simple message (book-related data) to the server and how to handle the response with a little help from jQuery's Ajax functions.

On the Tutorialzine site there's a recent post looking at the creation of an advanced timeline that combines jQuery, PHP and CSS similar to the one Google has.

Today we are making an Advanced Event Timeline with the help of PHP, MySQL, CSS & jQuery, that will display a pretty time line with clickable events. Adding new ones is going to be as easy as inserting a row in the database.

The tutorial includes the XHTML to create the items on the page (like the slider container and the bar), the PHP to get the data from the database and dynamically add the elements for each event, the jQuery code to make the fun slider work and the CSS to style everything.

On the ProDevTips.com site today there's a new tutorial showing how to create a simple CRUD (create, read, update, delete) interface to your database tables with PHP and jQuery (here's an example).

I recently made a very simple but functional administrational interface using jQuery and Ajax to avoid having to refresh the page all the time thus simplifying development. The only convention/requirement here is that any database table that uses the interface has a unique id column aptly named id.

Their example is pretty simple - it lets you view the contents of the cells, allows you to change their values in the form fields (or delete the record) and save the changes. Complete code - HTML, PHP and jQuery - is included.

Robert Basic has posted a review of the "jQuery 1.3 with PHP" book from Packt Publishing (by Kae Verens):

Although I never wrote about jQuery here, I use it quite often and can pull of nice tricks with it. [...] his book is aimed at PHP developers who have met only a few times with JavaScript and jQuery, but I believe even a novice programmer can gain knowledge from it '" just be warned, the PHP examples are here for the sake of the examples only; about which the author warns throughout the book. [...] The examples in the book are well explained and commented!

Robert also mentions some of the contents of the book - the introduction, a "quick tricks" chapter and more detailed chapters covering things like form validation, making a calendar and cropping/resizing images. He includes links to the table of contents and sample chapter if you'd like an example of what the book is like.

On the Tutsplus.com site today there's an new interview with Jason Lengstorf, a developer who specializes in PHP & jQuery applications and the author of the PHP for Absolute Beginners book (from APress).

He's the author of the recently released PHP for Absolute Beginners, which is an expert's voice in open source. Additionally, he co-authored an eight-part tutorial on Creating a Web App from Scratch with Chris Coyier. Join us as we discuss web development, PHP, and his life in general.

They talk about his background, how he got started in web development and what he thinks are the best ways to start learning PHP (and jQuery and CSS). They also mention some of his favorite resources, what kind of environment he's used to and other things he's involved in.

Over on NETTUTS.com today there's a new tutorial about combining the CodeIgniter framework with the jQuery javascript library to make a simple, dynamic shopping cart application.

CodeIgniter is an open source PHP web application framework with a lot of features. Recently, thanks to the latest update, a new feature was added to this framework, called the Cart Class. In this tutorial, we're going to take advantage of this new class, and write a shopping cart system, with a touch of jQuery added in.

You'll probably want to be a bit familiar with CodeIgniter and how it works before getting started, but it wouldn't take much. Configuration file changes and code snippets for the model, view and controller of the cart are all provided. You can also download the source if you want to get started right away.

Ken Guest has posted a book review of a new release from Packt Publishing - "jQuery 1.3 with PHP" (by Kae Verens).

This is the first book sent to me from Packt where I wasn't left dizzy from trying to understand just what it is the author was trying to get across. It looks like their proof-reader was awake for this one - totally awesome. [...] "jQuery 1.3 with PHP" is aimed "for PHP application developers who want to improve their user interfaces through jQuery's capabilities and responsiveness".

Ken mentions the main part of the book, the ten "quick tricks" and detailed sections looking at things like form validation, image manipulation, file management and writing your own jQuery plugins.

It was good to see Kae suggesting use of the PEAR Validate package (or similar) in the Forms and Forms Validation chapter (chapter 4). I had to wonder if there was a PEAR package for creating and shunting down jQuery validation rules to the client - and found that there isn't.

Overall Ken found the book "easy to read" and understandable and recommends it as good reading material for those wanting to combine this powerful duo.

You can also read Kae's own post here.