26th April 2008
Its been a while since I have posted anything on BackendPro, mainly due to me having such a hectic last 2 weeks. But hopefully things will pick up from here.
I know quite a lot of people have downloaded BackendPro so far (400+) so I hope some of you are finding it helpful. Hopefully it will with this new bit of news get a little bit better. Currently I am developing it all locally, now the issue with this is any changes I make aren’t released until I upload a new version. I have wanted to make the SVN commits more public but never found a simple way which worked, I tried Google Code but that just failed in so many ways. Now with Assembla I think I have it sorted.
So from now on BackendPro’s development home will be here. So whats differen’t? Well you will be able to get the full project source out of SVN at any time. There is also a full issue tracking system to make sure bugs are reported and fixed.
I also hope to have a new version coming out soon which should implement some new features I have been meaning to put in. So take a gander and I hope you find the new development features helpful.
13th April 2008
A new build has been released to fix some minor problems and also some PHP4 compatibility issues.
- Replaced the use of static $_container in MY_Controller.php to use var $_container. This was due to static only being available in PHP5. Please run a replace command on all your user created files to replace Site_Controller::$_container with $this->_container to use the new variable naming.
- Deprecated _generate_random_string() in Userlib.php to use CodeIgniters string helper function random_string()
- Updated the admin menu view file so the System item would have language support
- Added language support to the application/controllers/admin/settings.php file for defining preference groups
- Removed passing $obj by reference to passing by argument due to issue if allow_call_time_pass_reference is false in INI file, in modules/auth/models/access_control_model.php
- Moved the modules folder into the root dir
Please check out the BackendPro project home page for details.
6th April 2008
The first public release is now available. Please see Projects > BackendPro for more details.
4th April 2008
Being a part time web developer its important I find to use the right tools to get a job done. Now normally every morning I get about 10 blog posts on my RSS feed saying “50 most needed tools for developers”. Half of them do the same as the other half and the other half have no point in life. So, I feel to be a good web developer you don’t need a lot to get the job done, they always say quality over quantity.
Firebug (Firefox)
This is probably my most important extension for firefox. With the built in javascript debugging and tools to see http requests it actually makes ajax and css quite fun. Its the sole reason I use firefox over other browsers. Along with many other features including page loading time statistics, it greatly helps you see what’s taking that extra 0.2s to load on your page.
HTML Validator (Firefox)
Now I don’t know how many of you actually check that your web pages are both HTML and CSS valid but this is getting an increasing issue. (I cannot claim all of my sites are valid since I am currently in the process of making them valid with this new tool). This tool sits in your status bar and tells you of any errors in the HTML code. You can also specify that it will only be enabled on websites of your choosing (e.g ones you are developing)
SVN
Its happens too many times, change a file and something breaks but you forget what you changed and then take several hours trying to get it working again. SVN is a version control system which means you will always have every change you made to your code. It can be unusual to use at first but after a while its a real godsend. If your just a small developer and don’t have an SVN server then try Tortoise. Its not just an SVN interface but also can create local repository’s on your computer.
IE Developer Toolbar
This does nearly everything Firebug does, but for IE. It even does a bit more. Another must since not all CSS designs work in both IE and FF.
Multiple IE’s
This is a great tool for windows which allows you to install multiple versions of IE on your computer at once. No more having multiple computers running IE6 & IE7. Also it means you don’t need to use BrowserShot websites to test every page. Another must have.
A Text Editor
There is no link here since this is a very personal choice. But find a good text editor you like and get on with and stick to it. I have tried a few (all for windows) and can say for small time developers HTML Kit Tools is rather good but for bigger developers PhpED is perfect.
So there you go. That’s what I use. Its not a lot but it gets the job done. I don’t belive in hundrends of programs to do everything for me, and what I do use I only want to help me if I ask for it.
2nd April 2008
Well April the 1st has passed, I both love the day and hate it. Me being quite gullible I tend to believe some of the subtle jokes. But on the other hand I do try to make a few myself. I feel it’s great that even in this day and age when companies are looked upon so much that they still find time to make the odd joke. I also feel that it shows a lot about a company and what its work ethos is depending on if it goes along with April 1st. So shame on all you who didn’t do anything.
So did anyone find any good ones this year? Here are a few of my favourites.
My personal one was to do with CodeIgniter. Since there is a lot of talk about CodeIgniter 2.0 at the moment, I thought I would see how many fellow CodeIgniter’s I could catch out. At first I had no idea what to do, I didn’t want to do anything too silly, CodeIgniter 2.0 cancelled was out of the question. In the end I went for CodeIgniter 2.0 to be charged for. I felt this was just in the realms of plausibility. Here is the thread of the main post and peoples replies.
Well I hope everyone had a good day yesterday, hope no one played any horrible pranks on you.
