PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (Paperback)

by David Powers (Author)
Key Phrases: community edition, article text area, php echo htmlentities, Japan Journey, Program Files, Mount Fuji (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In this book you'll learn how to:

• Create dynamic websites with design and usability in mind, as well as functionality
• Understand how PHP scripts work, giving you confidence to adapt them to your own needs
• Bring online forms to life, check required fields, and ensure user input is safe to process
• Upload files and automatically create thumbnails from larger images
• Manage website content with a searchable database

You want to make your websites more dynamic by adding a feedback form, creating a private area where members can upload images that are automatically resized, or perhaps storing all your content in a database. The problem is, you're not a programmer and the thought of writing code sends a chill up your spine. Or maybe you've dabbled a bit in PHP and MySQL, but you can't get past baby steps. If this describes you, then you've just found the right book. PHP and the MySQL database are deservedly the most popular combination for creating dynamic websites. They're free, easy to use, and provided by many web hosting companies in their standard packages. Unfortunately, most PHP books either expect you to be an expert already or force you to go through endless exercises of little practical value. In contrast, this book gives you real value right away through a series of practical examples that you can incorporate directly into your sites, optimizing performance and adding functionality such as file uploading, email feedback forms, image galleries, content management systems, and much more. Each solution is created with not only functionality in mind, but also visual design. But this book doesn't just provide a collection of ready-made scripts: each PHP Solution builds on what's gone before, teaching you the basics of PHP and database design quickly and painlessly. By the end of the book, you'll have the confidence to start writing your own scripts or—if you prefer to leave that task to othersto adapt existing scripts to your own requirements. Right from the start, you're shown how easy it is to protect your sites by adopting secure coding practices. The book has been written with an eye on forward and backward compatibilityrecommending the latest PHP 5 techniques, but providing alternative solutions for servers still running PHP 4.3. All database examples demonstrate how to use the original MySQL extension, MySQL Improved, or the PHP Data Objects (PDO) introduced in PHP 5.1, letting you choose the most suitable option for your setup. Summary of Contents:

• Chapter 1: What Is PHPAnd Why Should I Care?
• Chapter 2: Getting Ready to Work with PHP
• Chapter 3: How to Write PHP Scripts
• Chapter 4: Lightening Your Workload with Includes
• Chapter 5: Bringing Forms to Life
• Chapter 6: Uploading Files
• Chapter 7: Using PHP to Manage Files
• Chapter 8: Generating Thumbnail Images
• Chapter 9: Pages That Remember: Simple Login and Multipage Forms
• Chapter 10: Setting Up MySQL and phpMyAdmin
• Chapter 11: Getting Started with a Database
• Chapter 12: Creating a Dynamic Online Gallery
• Chapter 13: Managing Content
• Chapter 14: Solutions to Common PHP/MySQL Problems
• Chapter 15: Keeping Intruders at Bay

About the Author
David Powers is an Adobe Community Expert for Dreamweaver and author of a series of highly successful books on PHP, including PHP Solutions: Dynamic Web Design Made Easy (friends of ED, ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-731-6) and Foundation PHP for Dreamweaver 8 (friends of ED, ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-569-5). As a professional writer, he has been involved in electronic media for more than 30 years, first with BBC radio and television and more recently with the Internet. His clear writing style is valued not only in the English-speaking world; several of his books have been translated into Spanish and Polish.

What started as a mild interest in computing was transformed almost overnight into a passion, when David was posted to Japan in 1987 as BBC correspondent in Tokyo. With no corporate IT department just down the hallway, he was forced to learn how to fix everything himself. When not tinkering with the innards of his computer, he was reporting for BBC TV and radio on the rise and collapse of the Japanese bubble economy. Since leaving the BBC to work independently, he has built up an online bilingual database of economic and political analysis for Japanese clients of an international consultancy.

When not pounding the keyboard writing books or dreaming of new ways of using PHP and other programming languages, David enjoys nothing better than visiting his favorite sushi restaurant. He has also translated several plays from Japanese.

Product Details

• Paperback: 488 pages
• Publisher: friends of ED; illustrated edition edition (November 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590597311
• ISBN-13: 978-1590597316
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #50,095 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly What I've Been Looking For, December 8, 2006

By	Carolyn S. Wood - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is exactly what I've been looking for, for a long time. I have been creating web sites for years, but haven't had much PHP experience. Some, but not much. Each time I looked for a "solution" online, I came across sloppy articles, conflicting information, difficult to understand code--just generally unsatisfactory, frustrating info for anyone who didn't already know PHP really well. Or, the info might be good, but it would take forever to find it. Not any more. I bought this book a few weeks ago, and started using things in it the other day. I have not read the entire book, but I've already incorporated some of the things into some sites I'm working on, and it was a breeze. The book is really well-written. If you have experience in web design but aren't a programmer, you will really benefit from this book. You'll painlessly add a number of really useful tools to your repertoire and be able to offer your clients more the same day you receive the book in the mail. I highly recommend it.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best, February 15, 2007

By	Nathan Smith (SonSpring.com) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I recently read PHP Solutions by David Powers, and have to say it has been one of the better ones I've come across in awhile - definitely one I will keep at arm's length. I think the best way to describe it is to use an analogy. What CSS Mastery is for CSS, PHP Solutions is for PHP. This book is full of practical PHP tips and tricks that can help you hit the ground running. It takes a learn-by-doing approach.

While this isn't a comprehensive how-to guide covering OOP, it does approach things with a future-proofing mindset. Powers is careful to point out where things are specific to PHP 5, and gives alternatives to making them work in version 4. He also talks about what features will be prevalent in PHP 6, such as PDO (PHP Data Objects) becoming the more standardized way to handle database connectivity.

The first few chapters start off with the basics, showing PHP syntax and explaining how to build dynamic templates using includes. He also shows how to protect includes from being accessed independently of their accompanying pages, storing them separately from publicly accessible directories. He also shows how to build a file-upload interface for use in a basic CMS.

He then goes on to build a photo blog, complete with auto-generated thumbnails. One cool solution he uses is checking the width of an image, and then using that numerical value to set the width of a paragraph which contains explanatory text. By constraining the width, it keeps the line of text from being longer than the image is wide. He also shows how to use PHP's date output to keep the copyright for your site on-par with the current year.

The latter part of the book gets into more advanced topics such as user management, remember sessions with cookies, and handling database security. By the time you complete this book, you will have the know-how to create a light-weight content management system that will uniquely fit your needs.

I really like that PHP Solutions takes you through the process of creating a dynamic site from start to finish, unlike many books which contain a slew of disparate examples. I would unreservedly recommend it to anyone looking to get into PHP. For another opinion, read the book review by Jonathan Snook [...]freelance web developer and member of the CakePHP [...] documentation team.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not exactly "easy" but easier than anything else I've tried so far., June 15, 2007

By	VMilo (Southern California) - See all my reviews

I was probably about two books shy of giving up on ever learning anything useful about PHP so I'm thrilled to have discovered this book when I did!

I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination but I know HTML, a fair amount of CSS, and I have a cursory understanding of how programming works. I've also successfully (but not often painlessly) installed and customized several ready-made PHP scripts so I've long been aware of how much more PHP could help me accomplish if I only had a better understanding of it.

I purchased several books on the subject over the years but could never get much past the first few chapters with any of them -- usually not even that much. Among my biggest problems was that it seemed I wasn't getting enough doses of practical information to stay motivated. This also made it difficult to be aware of any progress I might be making -- or if I even was. Sometimes the information didn't build up logically enough for me so it was harder to retain anything I might have learned. Often, even when a book claimed to be for beginners, in some areas it used jargon or presumed I knew things I didn't know at all while becoming excruciatingly basic in other areas. It was a constant struggle with little or no reward.

But none of this was the case with PHP SOLUTIONS.

I've been methodically reading just a few pages (rarely more) every night so as not to overload my circuits which were already weakened from so much frustration. The information is authoritative but the writing style is approachable, both of which made it so much easier for me to persevere. I also didn't allow myself to get too bogged down or frustrated: if there was something I wasn't getting, even after a few passes, I moved on with the hopes it would make more sense later, and it usually did. But I feel as though I'm at least grasping the majority of what's been presented. Although I have not been following along and performing the exercises as recommended (just reading and studying), I still sense definite progress and comprehension that I never felt with any of the other books. Once I decide on something I want to incorporate into a web site, I will revisit those chapters more thoroughly. This probably wouldn't work for most people, but it usually works best for me.

At any rate, I'm nearly half way through the book now and still eager to continue. That's enough to convince me. I can't say I expect to ever be able to write my own scripts from scratch (unless they're very simple), but if I'm at least able to find my way around many existing scripts (surely the ones covered in this book) and customize them for my own needs, it will be HUGE. And I CAN say I feel confident I'll be able to achieve at least that much, which I know will serve my needs and is much more than I expected after all the false starts and frustrations I've been through and how close I came to quitting.