Weaving The Web - PHP

Looking for a RAD tool to help you quickly and efficiently develop PHP-based Web applications? Or just new to PHP and MySQL in general? You might want to spend some time with Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia's latest revision of their venerable HTML editor, which comes with some nifty new ideas designed to minimize hand-coding of PHP scripts.

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By: Harish Kamath, (c) Melonfire

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December 18, 2002

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The thing worth noting about the examples on the previous pages is that I was able to execute them very rapidly, with no actual hand-coding of PHP function calls - Dreamweaver did most of the heavy lifting, with me just clicking my way through menus and dialog boxes. If you're new to PHP, or just looking for a RAD tool to quickly develop basic PHP applications, Dreamweaver MX, with its built-in behaviors, could be just the ticket to get you up and running in as little time as possible.

That said, while Dreamweaver MX represents a definite evolution in Macromedia's support for PHP developers, the program is certainly not perfect. Among the things that would help to make the PHP coding experience even more pleasant in Dreamweaver MX: automatic syntax checking, automatic code completion, automatic variable registration and binding, more built-in behaviors, greater PHP toolbar functionality, and support for related plug-in applications (such as the Zend Optimizer). Maybe next time...

More information about Dreamweaver MX can be obtained at the following links:

The Macromedia Designer and Developer Center (PHP section), at http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/topics/php.html

The Getting Started With Dreamweaver MX tutorial, at http://www.dmxzone.com/ShowDetail.asp?NewsId=3707

The official Web site for "Dreamweaver MX: PHP Web Development" at http://www.dmxzone.com/ShowDetail.asp?NewsId=3340, a book that teaches Web professionals how to use Dreamweaver MX to produce PHP-backed Web sites.

Extending Dreamweaver MX and PHP: The PHP Login Suite for Dreamweaver MX, at http://www.dreamweavermxsupport.com/extensions/phploginsuite/, which contains 16 Server Behaviors and 2 objects designed to allow you to quickly and easily create a MySQL-backed authentication system for a Web site.

Until next time...be good!

Note: All examples in this article have been tested on Windows (8 with Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Trial Edition. Examples are illustrative only, and are not meant for a production environment. Melonfire provides no warranties or support for the source code described in this article. YMMV!