Learning tool and reference combined-the only available coverage of the creation, modification and delivery of multimedia content using the most popular PHP4 extension libraries. Softcover.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
We believe that giving programmers graphical tools more often results in programmers creating things that make designers cringe, rather than programmers acquiring design sense and hence this book. The book is split into three parts: the extensions, the case studies, and the function reference -- that way someone looking to just read case studies has a definite place to start, and people looking for the descriptions without large amounts of code can read the beginning and the one's who want to stick it by their side for reference, know exactly where to go.
About the Author
Devon Dell has been designing Internet applications from the time he grappled with writing Perl CGI sripts in 1996.He has since expanded to using PHP,C,Java,Tcl for Internet applications. His PHP Projects have included database design,search engines,graphic processors,network monitor interfaces with SNMP,and more. He also figured as an author on Professional PHP4 from Wrox Press.
Jan Rosa is a medical doctor(although he practises it no more).He runs a professional literature publishing house and advertising agency along with 2 partners.It is one of the three leading medicine publishing houses in the Czech Republic. Most of his time is devoted to work. He is responsible for all production/technical stuff and has created most of their Information System in PHP/MySQL/PDFLib enviroment. He loves programming and automating real-world tasks. Besides work he likes biking, swimming, skiing, good music and films.
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More About the Author
Allan is a born and bred South African who still lives, works and plays in Cape Town. He has been programming in various languages and on diverse platforms for more than 20 years. He's currently the head of AtPlay, the digital division of Saatchi & Saatchi South Africa.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This book stands out in the crowd,
By
This review is from: Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming (Paperback)
Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming is a unique book in the midst of all other PHP books. No other book aims to cover the topics that this one does. If you are a PHP developer looking to expand you knowledge and integrate the multimedia capabilities of PHP into your applications, then this is the book for you.The goal of this book is to introduce the concepts and techniques needed to produce dynamic multimedia content. The extensions covered are Ming, GD, ImageMagick, PDF, and FDF. Each technology is thoroughly explained from installation through example use. A case study is then given to go into further detail on the use of each extension. I especially enjoyed the fact that they provided installation instructions for these extensions. One of the biggest hurdles people have with using Ming, GD, and the others is the installation process. Once someone gets past that stage they can at least experiment with how the extension works. It can be very frustrating when you can't even get something installed. Hopefully this book will help ease some of that frustration. The case studies used by the authors are superb. These are real would applications that people want to create every day! They include a headline grabber with Ming, a mobile web coffee shop finder with GD, an image gallery using ImageMagick, and a PDF template system. Each one of these case studies is designed to get you thinking. Sure, they you the code needed for the application, but they also show you how the design process works and detail possible enhancements. The one thing I found lacking in this text was some type of common problems section. Invariably, people are going to have difficulties when it comes to installation or use of these extensions. A simple google search will show the abundance of problems related to these technologies. A small chapter, or a section in each chapter, detailing some of the most common problems encountered, with their fixes, would have been great. Overall, this book is great. If you are looking to develop multimedia applications in PHP, it is a must have.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get this book,
By dvrx "dvrx" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming (Paperback)
Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming is an extremely handy book to have on your bookshelf, even if (and possibly especially if) you don't design and implement multimedia applications with PHP all the time. Within hours of getting the book, I realized that I could use PHP as a commandline scripting language to solve several problems. I've used it as a reference several times since, even though I do NOT consider myself a PHP Multimedia Applications developer.The book is organized nicely. As a "Professional" book, it assumes a decent understanding of PHP. This assumption saves you lots of time and unnecessary hand holding. There is a brief PHP refresher chapter for those who aren't quite as familiar with PHP as necessary, but after that refresher chapter, you're expected to understand things. You bought this book (or will, anyway) because you already know how to program in PHP but are not familiar with the various multimedia extensions. The next several chapters each dedicate themselves to a specific extension concept: Ming, Ming with ActionScript, GD, ImageMagick, PDFLib, and FDF. Each chapter gives an overview of the library, it's uses and limitations, and gives lots of example source code giving examples of all the functions in an extension and how they are used together. The next few chapters are full-fledged application case studies. Though you may not agree with the authors' coding styles, these case studies walk you through (from start to finish) several different applications to show you how the libraries can be used within the scope of a larger PHP application, not just example toy scripts. Following the case studies are several appendices. Each appendix is a language reference for a multimedia extension. Most of the information in the appendices is found online in the PHP manual, and I, for one, find it more convenient to look it up there, but having it in the book is a nice bonus. Another wonderful addition is a full-color screenshots gallery index, which shows you what various scripts from within the chapters should look like when run. This is great for two reasons: 1) You can "check your work" as you write the applications and sample code in the book, and 2) You can see the results of functions in the book while reading it away from the computer. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about writing even just ONE application in PHP that will manipulate any supported multimedia (Shockwave, images, PDF/FDF, etc.) The time you save by having this book as a companion will more than pay for the cost of the book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Case studies that worked!!!,
By "grahemeb" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Professional PHP4 Multimedia Programming (Paperback)
I bought this book a fortnight back and i have amazingly learned more than i expected.The 4 case studies in the book are amazing - I esp enjoyed working on the coffee shop finder app and got everything working in a zap.I recommend this book to the developer fraternity that wants to realise the true power behind PHPs extension libraries (multimedia). And oh! yeah this is my first WROX read that had color pages in it:)
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