APF 2.1 released!

The APF team today released version 2.1 of the Adventure PHP Frameworks. IT's the section version of the 2.X series and brings a couple of new features and improvements of the previous release.

The best feature for us is certainly the implementation of the extended templating syntax offering a short hand notation for place holders. This saves typing and integrates better with the IDE. Further, a notation for accessing objects from a DOM node has been added. Details cen be found under Templates.

The front controller and the LinkScheme implementations delivered have been improved to be able to define shorter and more user friendly URLs. Long namespaces and action names are history. Details can be found under Front controller.

Besides the two big changes this new version includes further enhancements of performance, error handling, and security. A detailed summary can be found under Revision history or Adventure PHP Framework Issue Management tool as usual.

In order to ease update to the new version the APF team has added a migration script. It updates existing configurations in less than a minute automatically. Please find a howto and additional hints under Migration from 2.0 to 2.1.

The entire APF team wishes a lot of fun with the new release and Happy Coding to you!

APF 2.0 arrived!

The APF team is proud to announce the first stable release of the 2.X series after more than 9 months of intensive work on code, documentation and project management!

APF release 2.0 is a huge milestone in history of the framework and smoothes the way for new functionality to come. Download the new version today and benefit from various new features!

The biggest change of this new version is about the totally re-designed class loading according to PSR-0. This both ensures better compatibility and interoperability with other products as well as being able to use PHP namespaces natively within your application.

Within more than 300 commits the team has introduced various code and performance optimizations. Details can be taken from the Adventure PHP Framework Issue Management-Tool.

In order to ease update to the new version the APF team has added a migration script that updates existing applications in less than a minute automatically. Please find a howto and additional hints under Migration from 1.17 to 2.0.

The entire APF team wishes a lot of fun with the new release and Happy Coding to you!

APF 2.0 to be release soon!

The APF team is proud having reached the next milestone of improvement of the Adventure PHP Frameworks after more that six months of hard work! As of now the first preview version of APF 2.0 is available!

The biggest change of this new version is about the totally re-designed class loading according to PSR-0. This both ensures better compatibility and interoperability with other products as well as being able to use PHP namespaces natively within your application.

Furthermore, 200 commits have introduced various code and performance optimizations as well as new features. Details can be taken from the Adventure PHP Framework Issue Management tool. It replaces the Roadmap that has previously been managed within the wiki.

In order to ease update to the new version the APF team has added a migration script that updates existing applications in less than a minute automatically. Please find a howto and additional hints under Migration von 1.17 auf 2.0 (German).

The entire APF team wishes Happy Coding to you!

In order to improve the APF 2.0 version feedback is highly appreciated at any time! Please report your experience using the Forum or create an improvement task for the implementation within the Adventure PHP Framework Issue Management-Tool. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

New documentation structure

Along with the technical changes for APF 2.0 the documentation has been updated and enhanced for a large number of the chapters! We are convinced that getting familiar with the Adventure PHP Framework becomes much easier now.

Here are the chapters with the biggest changes or new sections:

• Basics
• Hello World!
• Download, installation and first steps
• My first website
• Class loading
• Front controller
• Creation of objects
• Services
• URL rewriting
• Implementation of tags

Due to the fact that APF 2.0-beta is a preview version APF 1.17-stable is still supported. Thus, documentation is available for both versions. By default, the newest version is selected but you can easily switch to the Version 1.X line at any time.

In order to improve documentation feedback is highly appreciated at any time! Please report your experience using the Forum or create an improvement task for the documentation within the Adventure PHP Framework Issue Management-Tool. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

Version 1.17 (stable) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the stable release of version 1.17. It understands itself as a maintenance release but however includes several new features.

This version contains all features described on the roadmap.

The major feature changes are:

• Within this release the largest clean-up of tag class and method names in the history of the APF was conducted. This includes removal of old conventions for tag class names as well as of names of private and protected methods and variables. A full list of changes and migration hints can be taken from Migration from 1.16 to 1.17.
• The APF parser is now able to resolve nested structures of tags with the same prefix and name within one document or a file. This eases the implementation of tags compared to the previous version once again. Details on this feature can be taken from the tutorial Implementation of tags.
• This new release includes full support for PHP's APC extension with the ApcCacheProvider (see CacheManager) and the ApcConfigurationProvider (see Configuration). Both can be used to store application data within an APC in-memory store which can accelerate applications by factor 4-5.
• With the present release the Logger has been redesigned from the scratch. Besides the consolidation with the adding more flexibility and increase the extensibility has been the focus of 1.17's work.
• The state model of APF form controls has been added a visibility indicator. You are now able to hide form fields and their dependent controls programmatically. Details can be taken from the Usage of forms chapter.
• Besides the new functionality this APF release contains several bug fixes and optimizations to code and documentation.

All features within this release can be taken from the Roadmap (German).

The whole set of changes can be taken from the revision history.

The migration to this release is described on Migration from 1.16 to 1.17.

Version 1.16 (stable) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the stable release of version 1.16.

This version contains all features described on the roadmap.

The major feature changes are:

• The biggest change in release 1.16 was done behind the scenes affecting one of the key components of the APF: the tag parser. With the new style of tag definition naming and reusability of tag implementations have been improved considerably. XML prefix and name can be now defined freely and tags can be used within any level of hierarchy. Further, the performance has been increased by 10-10%.
• The APF form support now includes a multi-file-upload by Werner Liemberger. The feature is based on jQuery and integrates into APF forms seamlessly.
• APF user Coach83 contributed the implementation of the roadmap feature permanent log-in for the user management module. Users that have logged-in once stay logged-in even after closing the browser.
• Release 1.16 now supports a native integration of ReCaptcha - the CAPTCHA service by Google. Similar to the existing implementation - of course the existing implementation is still supported - ReCaptcha can be integrated via tag.
• Nicolas Pecher finished the work of Werner Liemberger creating a new set of file system tools. The APF now contains a brand new abstraction for accessing folders and files.
• Besides the new functionality this APF release contains several bug fixes and optimizations to code and documentation.

All features within this release can be taken from the Roadmap (German).

The whole set of changes can be taken from the revision history.

The migration to this release is described on Migration from 1.15 to 1.16.

The APF team

On the Team page the APF team introduces itself. At present, it consists of 10 persons who take care about the development and enhancement of features, the documentation and answering user questions. In case of any questions, don't hesitate to contact us.

References of the APF

Under References you can see projects of the members of the APF community.

Are you still searching for a strong, flexible, but approved tool to create web pages and applications, than you may have a look at the strength of the APF!

Professional support for the APF

Ralf Schubert now offers professional support and development for the Adventure PHP Framework under develovision.de.

His portfolio includes standard and individual development and Content Management System based websites using the APF.

Besides, Ralf is part of the APF developer core team.

Browsergame tutorials by Tobias Lückel

Tobias Lückel has created a tutorial series within the past two months that introduces beginners to the development with the APF. He has chosen a browser game to step you through the single milestones of the tutorials.

Advanced developers are also welcome to learn more about installing and applying the User management module or create data models using the Generic o/r mapper.

You can finde the tutorials on the Articles page or directly in Tobias' Blog under http://gagugaming.de/.

Version 1.14 (stable) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the stable release of version 1.14.

This version contains all features described on the roadmap.

The major feature changes are:

• Re-design and optimization of the link generation and url abstraction. This change enables you in combination with the input and output filters to change the url layout without code changes.
• Input and output filter are now executed with a filter chain. This allows multiple filter execution during one request as well as adding or removing filters on runtime.
• The usermanagement module was added a generic login functionality that can be added to any kind of application without code changes. Further, the module now saves password data in a more secure way using static and user-dependent dynamic salts.
• The famous o/r mapper of the APF has been added domain object handling. This feature supports the implementation according to the domain object software design pattern. Moreover, the update tool and the query facade GenericCriterionObject have been enhanced.

All features within this release can be taken from the Roadmap (German).

The whole set of changes can be taken from the revision history.

The migration to this release is described on .

Version 1.13 (stable) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the stable release of version 1.13.

This version contains all features described on the roadmap.

The major feature changes are:

• Redesign and refactoring of the configuration mechanism to have more flexibility and easy enhancement.
• Extension of the form validation and introduction of XSS protection mechanisms.
• Enhancement of the GORM API to ease relation queries.
• Redesign of the Sandbox.
• Performance optimization of the XmlParser and the output filters.
• API clean-ups and optimization to the PHP 5.3.X support.
• Reworking of the CacheManager to address more complex cache keys.

The whole set of changes can be taken from the revision history.

The migration to this release is described on .

Version 1.13 (RC1) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the first release candidate of version 1.13.

This version contains all features described on the roadmap.

The major feature changes are:

• Redesign and refactoring of the configuration mechanism to have more flexibility and easy enhancement.
• Performance optimization of the XmlParser and the output filters.
• API clean-ups and optimization to the PHP 5.3.X support.
• Reworking of the CacheManager to address more complex cache keys.
• Enhancement of the GORM API to ease relation queries.
• Extension of the form validation and introduction of XSS protection mechanisms.
• Refactoring of the HtmlHeader extension and new ForwardMessage extension.

The whole set of changes can be taken from the revision history.

Version 1.12 (fixpack) released!

Today, revision 1.12-2010-09-04-1536-php5 is released. This fixpack version corrects errors within version 1.12-2010-08-09-2006-php5. Details can be taken from the release notes page.

Version 1.12 (stable) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the final release of version 1.12.

This version contains all features described on the Roadmap and the feedback on the beta and RC1 release. It is now ready for production use.

Besides several improvements and bug-fixes the major feature changes are:

• Enhancement of the user management module adding visibility permissions
• Special validators and new error marking within the form taglibs
• New extension for client side validation without one single JS line
• New index and data type definition facility to the O/R mapper
• New MySQLi database driver
• ...

All changes can be taken from the Revision history page.

As of this version the PHP 4 support ends.

Version 1.12 (RC1) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the first release candidate of version 1.12.

This version contains all features described on the roadmap and the feedback on the beta release.

The major changes are:

• Refactoring of the API
• New extension (HTMLList, client validators, ...)
• Enhancement of the user management module
• Special validators and new error marking within the form taglibs
• Introduction of exceptions instead of trigger_error()
• New MySQLi database driver

The final release will be out in about 2 - 4 weeks. The team is looking forward to your feedback!

Version 1.12 (beta) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the first preview version of the 1.12 release.

This version is intended for preview on the features described in the roadmap. Only one feature is missing but will be included in the first release candidate.

The major changes are:

• Refactoring of the API
• New extension (HTMLList, client validators will come)
• Special validators and new error marking within the form taglibs
• Introduction of exceptions instead of trigger_error()
• New MySQLi database driver

The team is looking forward to your feedback!

Version 1.11 (stable) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the new website together with the 1.11 stable release.

Revision 1.11 comes up with a revised version of the form support on the basis of taglibs. Now generic definition of validators and filters on the basis of the observer pattern is supported and forms can be easier adjusted to own needs.

The OR mapper GenericORMapper, already added in the release 1.9, was extended with tools to automatically setup and update a database. Now the developer can completely concentrate on the development of the logic of the application since the storage of the objects is completely managed by the mapper.

Part of the release's performance optimization were optimizations in the core of the frameworks and the rework of the integrated BenchmarkTimer. It now supplies the developer with a better graphical representation of the measurements to find hot spots within an application. Thus an application can be optimally prepared for operation.

With release of version 1.11 the support for PHP 4 has been announced for discontinuation and the compatibility with PHP 5.3 has been improved. The coming version 1.12 will focus on the extension of the new form support and the rework of the configuration component.

Hacking & the APF 2009/2010

The APF Security Promise: Use the APF and profit by its security mechanisms! From scratch securely designed applications prevent the compromise of your system, guarantee the safety of your users data and of your reputation and let you put your mind at ease.

This article Hacking & the APF 2009/2010 describes, which mechanisms are included in the APF to face this danger and to secure your custom application. (read more…)

Download, installation and first steps

Ralf Schubert, an enthusiastic APF developer likes the framework giving the chance to easily develop reusable UI elements (aka. widgets). To support beginners, he wrote this article to give a brief introduction into the framework and to ease the first steps using the APF.

Download, installation and first steps describes step-by-step how to set up the adventure PHP Framework, beginning with the download and ending with an "Hello world" application. (read more…)

APF goes RPM: install the Adventure PHP Framework via RPM

As of today, the APF can be installed and distributed on RedHat based LINUX distributions using RPM packages. Reiner Rottmann has therefor created a new YUM channel, that serves the APF demo application as well as the sample config files, the code package and the API documentation.

The RPM Installation HOWTO describes the managing of the APF packages with use of the Yellowdog Update Manager (YUM).

Legal notice: the logo depicted on the left side belongs to RedHat and is thus subject to conditions of the legal conditions published on producter's website.

Version 1.10 (stable) released!

The APF team is proud to announce the stable release of the 1.10 series. Within this maintenance release, development entirely switched to PHP5. A compatibility version for PHP4 will be available since the beginning of 2010. Beneath some clean-ups and refactorings , several performance optimization tasks guarantee excellent performance. The probably biggest technical innovation is the introduction of the "dependency injection container" similar to the objection initialization of SPRING (JAVA). Further, this release contains many features, that were discussed in the developer forum to be included.

Morover, the final release of the 1.10 branch contains all changes concerning the feedback on the two release candidates.

Performance-Check: Yii vs. APF (und CakePHP)

The article Yii. vs APF re-performs the RPS performance test from http://www.yiiframework.com/performance and compares the canditates CakePHP, Yii framework and adventure php framework. The result: the APF passes the Yii test! (read more…)

Why APF?

You think: "The APF is just another framework", too? On Why APF? you can find reasons why you should definitely use use the Adventure PHP Framework (APF)!

This is the short, but complete answer: The APF supports you to rapidly create enterprise ready web applications or modules, that are fast, secure and reusable. The framework therefore includes approved development tools to solve standard problems and implement pattern related applications.

Your first steps with the adventure php framework!

The tutorial My first website with the adventure php framework in the tutorials section shows, how easy it is to create your own website. In addition, the author describes, how complex websites can be created like and how you can load dynamic content into your content view. German users may also refer to the corresponding Forum. thread.

AJAX and the adventure php framework?

The article AJAX & the adventure php framework shows you, how AJAX applications can be embedded into your common application architecture, which problems occure during implementation and how the adventure php framework helps you to implement standardizes AJAX applications. The last chapter presents useful hints and some questions, that have to answered. Please add YOUR comment!

What is the performance of the Adventure PHP Framework?

Since today (25th of Oct 2007) the article Tests on PHP Frameworks (German only) is online. It compares different frameworks available and shows the key features and benefits and gives some advice to help to make a decision for specific product. But the article should not only be seen as a comparison but also as a resource for code snippets or implementation hints.