For the last few months, with Devrim,  we were very busy working on a new project which focuses on easing the web development tasks of any web person (so, the title is a little self-promotion but not an exaggeration -: )-).

It is called ioDeck and launched, built with PHP and it is installed into (runs from) a single website and serves its features to any number of websites.

Like said, it focuses on easing web development tasks and we started simplifying the biggest headache for many: forms (the most simple looking yet complicated web elements).

Creating a simple form is not a big deal but integrating validations (on the client-side and server-side), sending the contents via e-mail, recording it to a database and having an interface for viewing them later requires serious effort. And, if this form has many fields (like a HR form), this gets worse.

ioDeck is an intuitive form builder where a form of any type can be created within seconds. It simply allows you to insert form elements (textfields, radio buttons, select boxes, buttons, etc.), set the validations, re-order the items with drag 'n' drops and build any simple-to-complicated form so quickly.

There are many built-in validation rules (required, e-mail, URL, min, max..), they are validated both with JavaScript + PHP and there is support for reCaptcha for spam protection.

You can also define the default values of a field and set a CSS class for it to customize it.

ioDeck is so good in notifying users when a form is submitted. It can send the notifications via e-mail (with PHP mail() or SMTP authentication), Twitter and Facebook. Btw, you can create and customize the templates of these notifications so they look exactly as you want and reflect your brand.

Also, forms can display a custom message and redirect to a given URL after submissions.

Once the form creation is complete (it really takes seconds, give it a try in the demo), we can go to the embed menu and select its look from a list of styles (the forms HTML structure uses Twitter Bootstrap's form structure which is so flexible to customize). Or select a bare-bones version to customize it yourself completely.

After that, simply choose the embed method that fits to you the best:

• a shortened URL to the form (in case you want to share the form via Twitter, e-mail, etc.)
• embedding via JS or iFrame
• getting the HTML code of the form (for max customization)

And, voila! A fully-functioning, customizable and secure form is ready for collecting submissions.

When a submission occurs, you (+ your customers, friends..) will be notified, these submissions will also be stored and can be viewed from ioDeck anytime.

As mentioned in the beginning, ioDeck will ease multiple tasks. Forms was the 1st app, 2nd app will be Newsletter for sending unlimited newsletters to your lists (and e-mail fields of forms). Let's keep the 3rd app as a surprise. ioDeck is priced $69 one time fee (no monthly payments), a "use it forever" license and comes with 6 months of free upgrades + support. And, any future apps will have their own prices.

P.S. By clicking the "Demo" in ioDeck, you get a full-featured custom installation that will be available for 48 hours so that you can play with it.

Early Birds Special For WebResourcesDepot readers

First of all, thanks very much for being an awesome reader of WRD.

And, here is an "Early Birds Discount Link" for WRD readers that will bring down the price to $59 for the next 1 week.

Looking to hear your feedback and have a great day!

Gantti is an open source PHP class for generating Gantt charts on-the-fly.

The charts created are pure HTML5-CSS3 with no JavaScript involved. The output looks very nice by default but can be customized with ease (with SASS stylesheet).

It simply works by defining an array of start/end dates and calling a single function. Also, charts are cross browser (IE7+).

Infinite-Social-Wall is an open source PHP-MySQL application for presenting any social activity in a Pinterest-like interface.

The application can actually grab the content from any number of given RSS feeds but it has built-in styles and icons for social networking sites like Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Github and more.

It makes use the awesome Isotope plugin for the layout and can scroll infinitely by loading new items while scrolling.

Infinite-Social-Wall uses the database for storing the parsed content from the feeds in our not to parse them each time.

For anyone willing to create such a self-updating website, the application is a very handy resource.

As web designers/developers, MS Office files are pretty far from our daily lives. We usually don't need to create one and, if needed, there are web apps for that.

However, for web apps that host lots of information, enabling users to import/export the data is a huge time-saver and Excel (XLS, CVS) files are the most popular format for that job.

For standard content, we can always export it as a HTML file but, depending on the audience, providing Word files can be a better option.

If you are a PHP developer, working with MS Office files (Excel, Word and Powerpoint in our case) is so easy with the help of mature libraries out there.

Here are alternatives (both simple and complicated) where you may choose the one that fits the best to your project.

PHPExcel

A full-featured PHP library for handling and creating Excel files which can read from many different spreadsheet file formats like Excel (.xls), Excel 2007 (OfficeOpenXML -.xlsx), CSV, Libre/OpenOffice Calc .ods, PDF, HTML, etc.

It has support for setting any meta data of spreadsheets (author, title..), adding worksheets/rows/columns, merging cells, manipulating formulas, formatting and much more.

You may also want to read more about its features here.

SimpleExcel PHP

This PHP library is simple-yet-powerful and supports both writing + parsing files with Microsoft Excel XML/CSV format.

It accepts getting all the cells in a row or only a single cell (the same goes for the column).

PHP-Excel

A simple library for only generating Excel files.

It takes a 2-dimensional array and converts the data with a single function.

PHP Export Data

The library is based on the PHP-Excel mentioned above and can export data to Excel-friendly XML, CSV, or TSV.

There is support for streaming the data to a file or as a download.

Excel Writer (XML) for PHP

A set of PHP classes for dynamically generating Excel XML files.

Besides the initial Excel document, it can create sheets and style the output.

PHP Excel Reader

This PHP library is only for parsing and retrieving data from XLS files.

It allows targeting any specific cells, counting number of rows and format the output (alignment, colors, borders, etc.).

PHPWord

A powerful PHP library for creating Word files. Actually, .docx files (Office Open XML) which can be opened by many office programs.

Using the library, we can insert text, text breaks, page breaks, headers/footers, tables, list elements, hyperlinks and format all of them.

PHPPowerpoint

A PHP library that makes it possible to create a presentation, add slides to it (including test and images), format them and more.

The presentation can be exported as a PowerPoint 2007 (presentationML) or PHPPowerPoint Serialized Spreadsheet file.

Movim is an open source social network application which follow the decentralised approach like Diaspora.

The application is built with PHP-MySQL and includes features like a wall, an instant messaging system, a contacts list, photo gallery, news feed etc.

It gives users the maximum control over their own data and allows them to import/export all the data from one Movim-powered network to another.

There is a special focus on privacy where all user setting are set to the max-private by default and they can customize them later on.

Movim is multilingual and doesn't require anything complicated to setup an instance.

P.S. You may also want to check out other open source social networking applications.

If you are using Git (can be GitHub, other services or your own Git installation) as the version control system, you may want to present the repository "under your website's domain" nicely.

GitList is an open source PHP application with an elegant interface for enabling anyone to view the repository.

It has support for viewing files under different revisions, commit history and diffs.

The application uses Twitter Bootstrap for the UI and it is built on top of Silex and the Twig template engine (check other PHP template engines).

ImageWorkshop is an open source and free PHP class for managing and manipulating images.

The class has an "image-editing-software-like logic" based on layers which enables superposing many layers or even layer groups (with the option of each layer being manipulated differently).

It has support for many functions like placing an image (or many images) on another one (good for watermarks), cropping, moving, resizing, rotating (with any degrees), superposing, writing and more.

ImageWorkshop works with the GD library, and also, allows us to apply filters provided with the library.

Around 2 years ago, Microsoft had announced the first version of WebMatrix and it was shared at WRD.

Lately, they have made the release-candidate of WebMatrix 2 available and it has become an exciting product for many.

The tool now has support for the most recent web-dev technologies including HTML5-CSS3, Node.js or jQuery Mobile.

It has a one-click installer for many popular apps including WordPress, Joomla, DotNetNuke and more. Also it can instantly install IIS, MSSQL, MySQL, PHP, Python and many others.

There is built-in support for Windows Azure cloud and the project scan be pushed to the remote environment to any FTP address or to the Azure.

Although WebMatrix 2 is a Microsoft product, it is well-integrated with PHP, any PHP functions hovered bring the docs from PHP.net and there is code completion.

Users can share extensions written for the platform and there are already good ones like iPhone/iPad simulator or a color theme manager.

A common PHP-powered website is expected to run a script on the server, its content being rendered as HTML, the output is displayed and connection is closed

Using Ratchet, a WebSockets library for PHP, the connection stays open and both the client + server can push data to each other which is perfect for live-apps.

It consists of multiple components including:

• IoServer (the core to handle the events)
• WsServer (for communicating with W3C WebSocket API)
• SessionProvider (for handling the sessions)
• WampServer (provides the RPC and PubSub patterns)
• FlashPolicy (Flash fallback for unsupported browsers)
• IpBlackList (prevent any IPs from opening connections)

Ratchet is very well-documented and a nice chat demo exists which show its capabilities.

QR Codes, a tracking code technology which was created in 1994 by Denso<Toyota to keep track of vehicles, is now a standard being used everywhere from websites to magazines, apps or stores.

In the web, considering the mobile devices are used as the barcode reader, QR Codes are usually used as an alternative way to show app download/purchase links, wi-fi passes, mobile version URLs of websites, etc.

I needed to create few of them in the past, used online QR Code generators and I was done in a few minutes.

Recently, a project required hundreds of them being generated automatically and I have played with many different JavaScript + server-side solutions. I have faced solutions that are -sometimes- not working correctly, not supporting too short or long texts or they were not simple enough. Here is the list of solid and good-quality QR Code generation resources that all work very straightforward:

P.S. I ended up using a JavaScript library which is so easy to implement, flexible in all levels, and, I knew that it would always be used by a modern browser. You can choose the solution that  fits the best to your case from the list below.

Online QR Code Generators

QRhacker

QRhacker is a beautifully implemented online QR code generator with many options for creating the QR code we want.

It allows many different input types (text, URL, phone number, VCard and Wi-Fi access) and offers customizations like the roundness of the blocks, their foreground/background colors, using images for them and more. Also, the code can be painted pixel-by-pixel.

Once the QR code is created, it can be downloaded either as an image or PDF.

Unitag

QR codes have a built-in error-correction mechanism and codes that are slightly morphed can still be recognized correctly.

Unitag makes use of this and allows users to transform QR codes by curving the blocks, adding extra shaped and more.

Read the rest of this entry »