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----- title: "CakePHP hybrids" content-type: article timestamp: 1145001300 tags: "cakephp|webdevelopment|php" ----- <p>When I first talked to gwoo, CakePHP’s project manager, I asked him if Cake had any potential <em>limitations</em>. I asked him – I was kidding actually – wether it would be possible to build an application like Gmail using the framework and he – very seriously – simply said <em>“yes, why not?”</em>. <br /> I repeat myself when I say that CakePHP leaves plenty of freedom to developers within the bounds of its <span class="caps">MVC</span> structure: once you grasp the basic logic behind it, your possibilities are endless. I don’t want to act as a Ruby on Rails fanatic and boast that <em>you can do anything with CakePHP</em> and things like that, but I can certainly say that CakePHP can be <em>extended</em> and <em>integrated</em> with other collections of scripts, frameworks and projects. With limitations, of course: you probably don’t want to force an integration between CakePHP and another <span class="caps">MVC</span>/Event Driven/Whatever framework, simply because it would be rather pointless and potential conflicts may occur.</p> <p>What I keep finding online is other open source projects adopting CakePHP as <em>backend</em> and <em>structure</em>. I’m sure there are many examples which could be mentioned here, but I chose two in particular: one has been around for a few months and the other is just born.</p> <p style="float:left;"><img src="http://base--/img/pictures/amfphp.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p><a href="http://amfphp.org/"><span class="caps">AMFPHP</span></a> is quite an interesting project:</p> <blockquote> <p>“[it] is an open-source Flash Remoting gateway. It’s fast, reliable, 100% free and open-source. Flash Remoting is a technology built into the Flash player core that enables sending data between the server and the client seemlessly.”</p> </blockquote> <p>In other words, it makes lifes much easier for developers who’d like to integrate their flash animations and script more tightly into their <span class="caps">PHP</span> application. If you are curious to see some results, head off to <span class="caps">AMFPHP</span> <a href="http://amfphp.org/showcase.html">showcase</a>.<br /> Cool, but what has this project to do with CakePHP? Well, gwoo recently created <a href="http://cakeforge.org/projects/cakeamfphp/">CakeAMFPHP</a>, a CakeForge project which just yesterday reached its <a href="http://rd11.com/posts/view/21">0.4.0 release</a>, and it’s fully compatible with <span class="caps">AMFPHP</span> 1.2.3 and CakePHP 0.10 final.<br /> Here’s an excerpt taken from CakeAMFPHP <span class="caps">README</span>.txt file:</p> <blockquote> <p>“[…] <br /> 1) get CakePHP 0.10 final (http://cakephp.org)<br /> 2) get amfphp 1.2.3 (http://amfphp.org)<br /> 3) get the <span class="caps">UFO</span> js http://www.bobbyvandersluis.com/ufo/<br /> 4) put amfphp into /app/vendors<br /> 5) put cakeamfphp into vendors<br /> 6) put the cake_gateway.php in /app/webroot<br /> 7) put the cakeamfphp.php in /app/views/helpers<br /> 8) put CakeMySqlAdpater.php in /app/vendors/amfphp-core/adapters<br /> 9) Voila: NetServices.setDefaultGatewayUrl( ‘http://localhost/cake_install/cake_gateway.php’);<br /> Access the service browser through<br /> http://localhost/cake_install/vendors/cakeamfphp/cakebrowser/”</p> </blockquote> <p>The installation doesn’t seem too painful at all. And – guess what – gwoo recently updated a very informative tutorial showing how to create a simple – but still impressive – bullettin board with CakeAMFPHP.</p> <p><em>“Cool, but I never liked flash, what about <span class="caps">AJAX</span>?”</em></p> <p style="float:left;"><img src="http://base--/img/pictures/qooxdoo.gif" alt="" /></p> <p>CakePHP has a nice <span class="caps">AJAX</span> helper to be used in conjunction with <a href="http://prototype.conio.net/">prototype</a>, but there are truly a lot of libraries, mini-frameworks, pre-built applications to create interactive desktop-like user interfaces. Some people may already know <a href="http://qooxdoo.oss.schlund.de/">qooxdoo</a>,</p> <blockquote> <p>“[…] an advanced open-source JavaScript-based <span class="caps">GUI</span> toolkit. qooxdoo continues where simple <span class="caps">HTML</span> is not enough. This way qooxdoo can help you implement your <span class="caps">AJAX</span>-enhanced web 2.0 application – easier than ever before.”</p> </blockquote> <p>In a recent <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/cake-php/browse_thread/thread/ba219c64cd794764/1d77973293514618?lnk=raot">discussion</a> on CakePHP user group someone suggested the possibility to integrate qooxdoo with CakePHP. Apparently qooxdoo people were <a href="http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A-qooxdoo-PHP-framework-project-p3799302.html">evaluating</a> various <span class="caps">MVC</span> frameworks, and Cake was obviously listed together with two other Rails clones for <span class="caps">PHP</span>. The good news is that <a href="http://cakeforge.org/users/a100rk/">100rk</a> just started a new project called <a href="http://cakeforge.org/projects/cqx"><span class="caps">CQX</span></a>, which – although still in pre-alpha a development demo is already available, and it <em>shows off</em> most of qooxdoo’s features… <a href="http://cqx.100rk.org/trunk/">Take a look</a></p> <p>Best of luck to 100rk and his brand new project, I really hope to see more of it soon!</p> |