Well I must first apologise to everyone for taking so long to get this next release out, but the last 2 months have been so busy with University finals, but they are all behind me now so as promised a new release. The majority of this release is a few new features which I was planning to incorporate in BeP for a long time. Examples of these are a dashboard for the control panel, conditional CSS files (for IE), features to use CSSTidy to optimise CSS code and many more.

Additions

• Added a dashboard to the control panel front page.
• Added cancel buttons to forms.
• Added new CSS styles to create buttons.Added icon() to Page library.
• Added a generate password feature to the member administration area
• Added CSS caching using CSS Tidy in the Page library.
• Added output_variables() to Page library.
• Added conditional CSS files in the Page library.
• Added meta tag creation into the Page library.

Modifications

• Added a value option to <button> elements so the form can submit.
• Updated some of the documentation so its simpler to navigate around.
• Updated getUsers() in User_model.php to also fetch user profile columns.
• Changed the version control system from including a date to release candidate, purely to be shorter.
• Updated Nested_sets_model.php to remove the public attribute from the constructor

So head over to the BackendPro Development home and download it. Please as usual if you find any problems raise a ticket or post on the forum thread. As always if you want the latest updates keep an eye on the SVN repository.

The first public release is now available. Please see Projects > BackendPro for more details.

Download Now

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.

As I am nearing the end of my initial development phase of BackendPro there’s some useful bits of code I came up with to handle annoying but simple tasks. Over the next week or so I will be releasing a lot more small applications and libraries but felt this may help a few people. Its a small script to check and un-check multiple html check boxes. Its prime use is to save the user time from having to check/un-check many check boxes. It uses jQuery and is only 1/2 lines long.

$("input[name='all']").change(function(){
var parent = $(this);
$("input[name='"+parent.val()+"[]']",parent.parents('form:first')).each(function(){$(this).attr('checked',parent.is(':checked'));});
});

All you need to use it is the following HTML code.

<form>
<input type="checkbox" name="all" value="myitems">
<input type="checkbox" name="myitems[]" value="1">
<input type="checkbox" name="myitems[]" value="2">
<input type="checkbox" name="myitems[]" value="3">
</form>

So when the user clicks on the check box with name all, all check boxes with the name specified in the value attribute of this ‘all‘ check box will be toggled. I hope someone finds it helpful.

Yes its nearly ready, not long now. BackendPro alpha release should be available for download as soon as I finish off a few last bits. Its been quite a while but I have only been able to work on it about once a week for the past few months, so progress has been slow. It has also undergone many redesigns, trying to make the interface simpler but still very usable. I think I have the final version now, its not my own but it was so good I had to use parts of the original. Many thanks to Steve Smith for the ideas and his Tiger Wordpress theme.

What is BackendPro?

BackendPro is a control panel for developers. This means it includes a load of useful things which a developer would fine useful. Its not a CMS, its not built so all the work is done for you but so it can be used to speed up development. It has many features which I feel are lacking from other authentication libraries.

Features

• User Authentication using ACL
• Site preferences (allows you to create your own site preferences and use the built in form creation to update them, instead of using config files)
• Simple breadcrumb creation
• Asset library (set default assets, load assets on the fly, server asset caching)
• PHP to javascript variable conversion
• Default styles for forms and other useful HTML elements
• Status messages (create success/info/warning/error messages to display to the user in a pretty form)
• ReCAPTCHA
• Language detection

Over the next weeks ill try to polish off the rest of the control panel and get some documentation written up for it. There’s no point releasing it and no-one knowing how on earth it works. I suppose you could look at it. So that’s it for now, but check back for news on the alpha, ill try and get it out soon.