On his blog today Jani Hartikainen looks at his experience learning Wicket (a Java application framework) from the perspective of a PHP developer.

My starting point with Wicket was basically zero, at least Java-wise: I had never used any Java web app framework, so I didn't really know what to expect. Since as I said I've mostly used PHP and Python, I assumed the program flow would be something like in them. Of course, this was a completely wrong assumption.

He includes one specific example - handling a form submission. In PHP you work with the POSTed values and do something (insert into a database, email, etc) but with Wicket you really just display the form again - with a few other bits of configuration of course. You worry more about what's in the form instead of how to handle the results. He notes that it's a lot like working with a desktop application environment and recommends it as "an interesting way to do things".

New on the Ask About PHP blog today there's a tutorial about using PHP and jQuery to submit a form without having to submit the entire page.

Lately, I've been chancing on quite a number of posts at various places asking about how to perform a web action without the webpage reloading/refreshing? For example, dynamically updating a list on a page without a reload or submitting a form to PHP without leaving the webpage the form sits on. I guess this is as good a time to start branching into some posts on PHP and Javascript, or more specifically, jQuery.

You can just download the code of you want to get started right away or you can follow along with the tutorial for code, flow diagrams and a full definition of how it all works.

If you're constantly hungering for more PHP news, there's a new resource (a Digg-like one, too) that wants to give PHPers the latest from the community and give them a way to show which they like the best - abcphp.

abcphp.com is a social news website made for people to discover and share PHP related content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories.

The site lets you vote (with a registered account) on the PHP-related articles they've posted ala Digg.com and breaks them up into categories like "New Releases", "PHP Dev Tools", "Database" and "Security". You can even create groups of people that share the same interests. Check it out and maybe submit a story while you're there.

Kevin van Zonneveld has posted seven steps that you can follow to help the documentation for your PEAR class come out better and be more useful in the end.

If you've written a PEAR package, it's probably a good idea to submit some end user documentation. Here's how to do it.

He explains what it is (XML in CVS, easily convertible with phpd) and how the process flows - save the current docs, add your own, build locally and submit to CVS. Here's his tips to help things go smoothly/turn out better:

• Gather the prerequisites
• Save current documentation
• Try building the docs
• Write your own XML docs
• ReBuild peardoc
• Commit your XML
• (There is no seventh step - you're done!)

As Lorna Mitchell has pointed out, the Call for Participation is open for this year's O'Reilly Open Source Convention - but the deadline is February 3rd!

We want to hear about your winning techniques, favorite life-savers, and the system you've made that everyone will be using next year. We'll have tracks for sessions and tutorials on Linux, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, Databases, Desktop Applications, Web Applications, Mobile, Administration, Security, People, Business, and Emerging Topics.

They have a few suggestions to consider when submitting your idea - things like "keep it free of marketing", "Straightforward titles are best" and "Explain why people want to attend". You can submit your idea via their proposal form.

As a reminder, today is the last day to get in talk proposals for next year's php|tek conference:

Today is the last day of the Call for Papers for our upcoming php|tek 2009 conference, which will take place in Chicago between May 19 and 22nd. Don't forget to send in your proposals before it's too late!

You can get more information about submitting a talk from this page on the conference website as well as where to send the proposals and what kind of speaker compensation package they have to offer.

Thinking about trying your hand at submitting a talk to an upcoming PHP conference but aren't exactly sure where to get started? You might want to check out Lorna Mitchell's suggestions on some of the steps.

Speaking at conferences is a great way to share ideas and meet people - but actually getting the opportunity to do is a little more tricky and usually involves proposing a talk. [...] If you want to go to a conference, and there is a topic you'd like to share some thoughts on, then write them down and submit!

She talks about making the most of the submission form - submitting your abstract and including details why you and your talk should be selected for their conference. The comments include a few other suggestions like "don't submit the same one talk over and over", "try for something different" and remember that you always have something to contribute.

The PHP Quebec conference group would like to announce the Call for Papers for their 2009 PHP Quebec conference happening March 4th through 6th in Montreal:

PHP Quebec is pleased to announce the seventh edition of the PHP Quebec Conference. The Conference will take place in Montreal, Canada between March 4 and 6th, 2009. We are looking for speakers willing to share their expertise with Canadian and United States PHP professionals.

The Conference features technical talks and Labs dedicated to advanced software development techniques with PHP5 and PHP6, XML, web services, databases, etc., project management where speakers and visitors will try to find solutions to actual business problems.

You can find out more about the submission process at this page on their site. Submissions are accepted for both English and French talks.

On his blog, Roshan Bhattarai shares a few tips on keeping your application safe by filtering user-submitted data.

Yesterday, I saw one of my friend was working on the the contact form and was filtering the user input data(posted variables) individually. He was using a function in PHP to filter the input and using tedious approach while calling the filtering function for each variables with coding each of them in single line . Today, I'm going to show you how can you filter the posted variables easily using callback function in PHP.

He shows how to create a filter_data function (for removing HTML embedded in the data) and how to implement it around your data. It could be extended pretty easily to do more than one filtering method to protect your information even more.

Daniel Cousineau posted copies of his submissions to the PHP Women group's Article Contest (Best Practices) that finishes up today.

I made a few posts to the PHPWomen.org Article Competition and felt I should share them here.

His three submissions are:

• Flash Your Errors: It's Illegal In 28 States! on combining flash messages and error reporting
• David Copperfield Wasn't This __magical: __autoload() is Awesome! on using the __autoload functions and PEAR style namespacing
• Path Secrets Of The Most Awesome on making your path operations indestructible across operating systems.

There's still (a little) time to get your own submission in to the contest to get over and submit your article for your chance to win a copy of Zend Studio and maybe get your article featured in Linux Pro Magazine.