Customer Reviews

PHP Hacks: Tips & Tools For Creating Dynamic Websites

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I tried several of the hacks in this book and quickly scanned some others. It offers numerous ideas for dynamic web page presentation. Hack 11, "Put an Interactive Spreadsheet on Your Page", provides a fresh way to present tabular data in an Excel-like grid format, using a proprietary solution called ActiveWidgets. I downloaded the free version of the ActiveWidgets code and ran this hack. It is giving me ideas for how to present the kind of tabular data that might look good on a web page. At no cost, you can study a given bit of PHP code and decide for yourself if you can put it to further use.

I also tried Hack 10, "Send HTML Email". It works fine as stated, and for the first time I learned how to construct a multipart email. That is what prompted me to implement the hack, I have always wanted to do exactly this. I have some work to do with my sendmail mail transfer agent (MTA) software for this to work even better. The hack can be improved by showing how to avoid the problem of the MTA writing the wrong from and to email addresses and how to work around potential mail relaying issues. The bottom line, however, is that the code presented works as indicated.

I experimented with Hacks 4, "Build A Breadcrumb Trail", and 12, "Create Popup Hints". These work acceptably.

An exciting hack that I haven't tried yet is #44, "Scrape Web Pages For Data". I would like to use this one to scrape weather-related data from http://nws.noaa.gov/ for my zip code.

Another attention-getter are the hacks presented in Chapter 8, "Testing". I have not tried these hacks myself, but I think unit testing needs more attention in web pages that utilize heavy scripting, and I'll be sure to experiment with these hacks in two projects of my own that are currently ongoing. I definitely feel the need of automated testing.

Other good points about this book is that it offers hacks which cover graphics tricks such as implementing Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). SVG deserves attention because the image renditions possible are stunning, and you can render them right now. Recent builds of Mozilla and Firefox support SVG natively and you do not need the Adobe plugin with these browsers. Author Herrington neglects to state this in Hack 28. When you see the graphical renditions you realize they are worth implementing in your PHP code.

I like the numerous screen shots the book provides. They offer a way to check my own results against what he suggests or shows are possible.

I would have given this book a 5 star rating if I had seen hacks that implement PHP Data Objects (PDO) with databases such as MySQL and SQLite. PDOs have been available in PHP for a long time now, I use them in most of my coding because they work so well and offer a cleaner interface to the database engine than the "traditional" PHP code taught in a lot of books. Likewise, there is a focus on PEAR programming, but in PHP version 6, which is now in development, there is no longer a default install of PEAR. Herrington also didn't test his Hacks code on different platforms. He appears to have settled on the Windows versions of Firefox 1.x, Apache server, and PHP. There is some reliance on Internet Explorer. I can see the results when I test his hacks in Mozilla and Firefox on the Linux OS. Indeed, it doesn't look like Herrington did extensive research for the book; otherwise he would have quickly learned that SVG is supported natively in Firefox. There is too much code printed, and not enough discussion about the code itself. I can download the example code easily enough; why print it at the expense of discussing it? The book index also needs improvement. You can see entries for "ActiveWidgets", for example, but not a related one for "widgets".

I ran all my tests of these hacks on Fedora Core 4 Linux, running MySQL 5.0.18, SQLite 3.2.x and higher, and development versions of PHP 6 available from http://snaps.php.net/ . I did not test these in Microsoft Windows XP.

This book belongs on your desk as you code PHP. I recommend studying it for the ideas it offers.

'PHP Hacks' by Jack Herrington truly is a book of hacks, tips, and tricks that I have found to be very useful. Covering 100 different ways to use PHP to perform a myriad of different tasks, this book covers many of the neat things that can be done to turn your web site from 'bland to grand' with little effort required!!

Some highlights of what this book will enable you to do with your PHP-based web site:

Create a skinnable interface
Add tabs to your web interface
Put an interactive spreadsheet on your page
Create drop down lists
Create dynamic menus for your site
Make a DHTML slideshow
Create an interactive calendar
Create thumbnail images
Read XML easily with regular expressions
Create RTF and Excel documents dynamically
Turn any object into an array
Create a login system for your web site

Aside from these top hacks/tips that I especially enjoyed, there is also time spent on better object oriented development with PHP, advice for testing your site out, and a whole myriad of other outstanding things you can do!

If you use PHP at your job and you want to tack on some more skills, you would be at a loss if you didn't pick up a copy of PHP Hacks.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I've read at least a dozen books on web development with PHP. This book is the best, by far!

The good:
* Excellent coverage of elegant PHP for dealing with databases and XML
* Outstanding explanation of automated code generation (a must for professional PHP developers)
* Description (and code implementation) of how to use design patterns with PHP. Former J2EE guys will love this.
* High quality prose and clear descriptions. I did not find any grammatical or spelling errors.
* Light sense of humor (without the unnecessary banter that one finds in most "... for Dummies" books)

The bad:
* Nothing.

As a software developer of 10 years, I give this book my highest recommendation.

Do you use Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)--an open source, server-side, HTML embedded scripting language to create dynamic Web pages? If you do, this book is for you. Author Jack Herrington, has written an outstanding book that covers the entire PHP spectrum--offering hacks that are focusing on everything from HTML and Ajax to code generation and database-driven message queuing.

Herrington, begins by walking you through the basics of installing PHP and MySQL; as well as, using the Pear library. Then, he covers how to use HTML tricks in conjunction with PHP to jazz up your interface. The author continues by using the powerful combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript known as Dynamic HTML in conjunction with PHP to show just what you can do in a web browser. In addition, he shows a wide variety of methods that you can use to display data in a graphical form. The author also shows you how to make flexible database objects and even to build your database layer automatically using code generation. Then, the author takes the coverage of PHP up notch and discusses techniques that you can use to develop applications quickly and reliably. Next, he shows you how to use several design patterns to make better PHP applications. Next, the author covers testing techniques that will find bugs for you and continuously monitor the operation of your site. Then, he shows the use of different user interfaces to work with your PHP code. Finally, the author shows you how to use the fun stuff on the Web to monitor multiplayer games, use Google Maps in your applications, and much more.

This excellent book offers more than just canned solutions. It offers ideas and techniques that you can use in your own applications.

It's very packed full of php solutions that, instead of having you thinking: "I might need this particularly obscure thing later, but then again probably not", like a lot of other books, you'll very likely consider getting a lot of use out of at least 75% of the "hack" recipes eventually.

They're not really hacks by the way, in the negative sense of the word. (Maybe the Recipes book came out first and "Hacks" was the next best word for the title, who knows). But these hack/tips are based on fundamental technologies such as reading/writing XML, preventing double submission on ecommerce sites, making use of design patterns in PHP, great UI tips ( I immediately put one of them to use, which had a url to a popular dhtml library I didn't even know of).

A major portion of the hacks involve excellent user interface advice such as dhtml menus, generating images, etc..

Excellent real-world MySQL tips that include a basic login system, or a PHP recipe that you can use over and over to auto-generate sql CRUD (create/read/update/delete) PHP code. And the other way around. Auto-create mysql code from xml files that contain the schema for the tables.

Also recipes that involve basic knowledge in adding a paypal buy button, php unit testing, testing with simulated users. I shouldn't even attempt at trying to be specific with the types of tips. There are so many of them, varying through different levels of categories

I'd consider it a must-have for all PHP coders. And the reason why I say this, is it's very likely that you will find value in your situation, in at least 2 or 3 of the included "hacks", that would easily cancel out the price of the book. But that's a worst case scenario

The hacks (PHP scripts) may be good ones, but who is this book for?

If you need to learn PHP, get a tutorial book. There are several. This is NOT one. Strangely, it walks you through installing PHP as if you were a beginner, but then it dives right into the hacks with no real discussion of the language. And there are no details about the lines of script within each hack -- you're essentially being asked to take each hack as a wonderful black box from on high.

If you already know PHP pretty well, then you know you can find nearly an infinite supply of great scripts for free on the web (for example, at PEAR, the PHP Extension and Application Repository). Many of them are updated based on feedback and have detailed explanations and discussions to go along with them. Why pay for a small sampling from a book?

And if you're a PHP programmer and want a reference book for looking things up quickly, well, this certainly isn't THAT either.

So I'm again left wondering, who does that leave?

(Edit: I think O'Reilly is a great book company. I own several other O'Reilly books, recommend them highly, and use them all the time. I just have reservations about this particular book's value given that PEAR is free, has user feedback, and is constantly updated.)

When trying to figure out how to implement something, do you ever wish that the examples you find would just 'cut to the chase'? ... skip the theory & just show me a rough idea of how to go about it?

This book contains 100 hacks/recipes, satisfying the above need. Each is 2- 3 pages, which can (mostly) be run right from their folder (~100 folders in the downloaded code samples, of course). A hack-folderName cross-refernece would have been nice, but, hey ...

They put you on the track in moments - no need to read the whole book for any hack/recipe - just jump right in (to the problem of your day) ... and you can modify/enhance, as your needs dictate.

Code documentation is non-existent and explanation is sparse; but, they do, indeed, satisfy the need for quick examples in 2 - 3 pages!

`lovin it! NICE format ...

I like this book, it has very good examples, well elaborated explanation. If you know PHP well then this is good book for you otherwise some of the example are hard to understand. Over all this is the must have book for PHP Programmer/

The book has a lot of hacks, to be sure! And if the author presents a hack that EXACTLY fits your need, then the book is worth a read (not a buy). WAY too often, though, the 'hack' is "How to use some other, non-PHP product to get PHP to do what you want."

The book is like bizarre combination of "Look what I can do!" and "Buy this book where I tell you, quickly and poorly, how to use someone else's product that really IS great!"

The book is barely worth checking out at the library.

All in all, this is a pretty good book.

It covers many advanced things that most people would be able to think of, but it is a very good way to spark the lightbulb in your head into thinking up something really useful. For example, after reading the chapter about HTML bar grapsh, I thought of using one-pixel table elements to use a line graph.

I would suggest this book to anyone with a functional background in HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ajax, XSLT/XML, because this book is not really about the cool stuff of PHP itself, it's about what you can produce with it.