The PHPedia blog has posted their top five list if scripts to replace the default listing Apache does for a directory without an index file.

Here's their list:

• phpFe - PHP file explorer
• fileNice
• Autoindex
• QuiXplorer
• GaMerZ File Explorer

Check out the PHPedia post for example screenshots of each.

Vidyut Luther has started up a new service that aims to help answer the question "what sites out there are running on PHP?" - PHP Powered:

Welcome to PHP Powered. The point of the site is simple. We want to create a comprehensive list of sites that use PHP. The list of sites here is contributed and updated by you, the users/visitors. To add a site, you must have a valid account with the site. Create an account, respond to the verification email, and proceed to add your site.

The site allows developers/users/anyone really to signup and add the sites they know are running on PHP to share with the world. You can also check out the listing page that lets you search and sort by the type of site, the PHP version that it's running, and the operating system it runs on.

In his continuing effort to redesign his blog, Shiflett.org, he's been working on one of the things that really makes a blog useful - the commenting system. Specifically, he wants site visitors to be able to add their own code listings to the comments they post. He gives more detail in this new post.

I've been playing with this tonight. Feel free to follow along as I go. The first thing you want to do is create an ordered list from the code you want to format ($code in these examples).

He gives an example of a listing using his system and explains how it all works. It's a mixture of:

• PHP for parsing the data inside the 'code' tags
• CSS to correctly style the information, whitespace and all
• Some ini settings to set parameters for...
• ...the use of highlight string on the PHP code contents

A little str_replace magic later and you have list items styled as code blocks on your page. Check out his demo for an example.

Patterns in PHP are becoming more and more popular, and sites like this one are doing well to provide summaries of each with code examples to help clarify.

Following my petty wingeing about the design patterns in php on the web I have to bite the bullet and do something about it. So here it comes a collection of design pattern examples, some from the GOF book, some collected from around the net, some (maybe) I have discovered.

The intent of these pages is to show the shapes of the patterns not a fully fledged implementation. In real life probably a combination of patterns will be employed. Everyone has their own favourites following their political, religious and style differences.

He admits that the pages are a work in progress and aren't complete, but they're a start to share his studies with the world. His list of patterns so far includes:

• Facade
• Hooks
• Protocol Method
• Singleton

with more to come. All of his examples under each pattern are written in PHP.