The blog application’s full source code so far - PHP

This series of articles is aimed at demonstrating how to build a blog application with the Code Igniter PHP framework, which relies on the functionality offered by the MVC approach to create full-featured PHP programs. Thus, if you’re interested in learning how to build a program like this, then start reading this tutorial now! It is the fifth part of the six-part series.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

By: Alejandro Gervasio

Poor Best

Rating:

/ 2

January 06, 2009

print this article

SEARCH DEV SHED

TOOLS YOU CAN USE

Before I show you how to polish the visual presentation of this blog application, I first want to list all of its source files. This will reacquaint you with how it was built using Code Igniter, and give you some ideas as to how we can improve its look and feel.

Having said that, please take a look at the signature of the following files, which are the building blocks of the blogger. Here they are:

// definition for 'blogger.php' file (located at /system/application/controllers/ folder)

class Blogger extends Controller{

function Blogger(){

// load controller parent

parent::Controller();

// load database class and connect to MySQL

$this->load->database();

// load pagination library

$this->load->library('pagination');

// load helper

$this->load->helper('url');

}

// display all blog entries

function blogs(){

$data['title']='Blog Entries Listing';

$data['result']=$this->db->get('blogs',3,$this->uri->segment(3));

// set pagination parameters

$config['base_url']='http://127.0.0.1/codeigniter/index.php/blogger/blogs/';

$config['total_rows']=$this->db->count_all('blogs');

$config['per_page']='3';

$config['full_tag_open']='<div id="paginglinks">';

$config['full_tag_close']='</div>';

$this->pagination->initialize($config);

// create pagination links

$data['links']=$this->pagination->create_links();

// load 'blogs_view' view

$this->load->view('blogs_view',$data);

}

// display all blog comments

function comments(){

$data['title']='Blog Comments Listing';

$this->db->where('blog_id',$this->uri->segment(3));

$data['result']=$this->db->get('blogs_comments');

// load 'blogs_comment_view' view

$this->load->view('blogs_comment_view',$data);

}

// insert new blog comment

function insert_comment(){

$this->db->insert('blogs_comments',$_POST);

redirect('blogger/comments/'.$_POST['blog_id']);

}

// definition for 'blogs_view.php' file (located at /system/application/views/ folder)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<head>

</head>

<body>

<?php foreach($result->result_array() as $blog):?>

<?php endforeach;?>

<?php echo $links;?>

</body>

</html>

// definition for 'blogs_comment_view.php' file (located at /system/application/views/ folder)

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<head>

</head>

<body>

<?php if($result->num_rows()>0):?>

<?php foreach($result->result_array() as $comment):?>

<p><strong>Author: </strong><?php echo $comment['author'];?></p>

<p><strong>Comment:</strong></p>

<?php endforeach;?>

<?php endif;?>

<?php echo form_open('blogger/insert_comment');?>

<?php echo form_hidden('blog_id',$this->uri->segment(3));?>

<p>Author:</p>

<p>Enter your comments below:</p>

</form>

</body>

</html>

Even at first sight, the three source files listed above seem to be pretty simplistic. They are all the source code required to get this MySQL-driven blog application working as expected. In this case, the first file, called “blogger.php,” is the program’s controller. It is responsible for fetching both blog and comment entries from the respective database tables, as well as for inserting new posts via the corresponding web form.

In addition, the view files are utilized by the controller class simply for embedding blog data into a couple of web pages. Now that the complete structure of the blogger has been put at your disposal, do you realize how easy it is to create database-driven applications with Code Igniter? I bet you do!

However, this educational journey isn't over yet, since the blogger's visual aspect looks primitive and unprofessional. Definitely, this issue needs to be fixed quickly.

Thus, in the following section, I’ll include a few basic CSS styles in the first view file, which will make it look much more appealing. Of course, to learn how this styling process will be performed, please click on the link shown below and keep reading.

Next: Improving the blogger's visual presentation >>