jqmPhp is an open source project that aims to simplify using jQuery Mobile with PHP.
It is a pack of PHP classes that can generate the HTML outputs which jQuery Mobile is expecting within few lines.
The classes are on separate files (with names parallel to the JQM's features) so you can choose to only use the necessary ones.
It covers almost all the features of the framework, it is very well-documented and supported with examples.
When designing websites and testing prototypes, we usually need realistic filler content to better guess how things will look like when the real content is added.
We can use Lorem Ipsum (or alternatives) and placeholder image services for easing the process.
Dummy, a PHP toolkit, takes this one step further by automatically inserting retina display-optimized images in any size and text in any length/format with few lines of code.
Besides paragraphs and titles, it has options for inserting usernames, dates, author names or cities. And, for the images, you can ask it to insert avatars and banners too.
The toolkit simply make it possible to test how a layout will behave with images and content in different sizes and amounts.
Detector is an open source PHP library for detecting many things about the browsing environment of a user.
It can get the browser used and browser's HTML5-CSS3 capabilities, analyze whether it is mobile, tablet, desktop or a spider and other stuff like color depth, viewport dimensions, cookie support, etc.
The library can automatically adapt itself to new browsers, versions and devices using the unique user-agent string of each browser. Simply, no need to update a browsers database.
Detector makes use of Modernizr to get the HTML5-CSS3 features and runs the majority of the tests only once per user for a faster usage.
It offers a very useful grouping feature which allows us to define groups of browsers (like Chrome and Safari as a WebKit group, etc.) to take "per-group actions" easier.
This PHP library is a must-bookmark for serving browser-specific styles, JavaScript and content.
Authenticating users with well-known providers (like Google, Twitter or Facebook accounts) is widely used and an easy-to-use model for end-users.
However, when it comes to applying the feature, you need to deal with the requirements of each provider.
Opauth is an open source PHP library that removes the inconsistencies between providers and offers a standardized method for dealing with them.
Currently, 3 providers are almost plug 'n' play: Google, Twitter + Facebook and there are more to come. Also, there is support for dealing with any other Oauth provider.
Also, it integrates well with PHP frameworks including CakePHP, Yii and others to be added soon.
Previously, WRD had shared Pubwich, an open source application that can fetch data from different sources.
It is not updated since 2010 and there is a regularly updated fork named PubwichFork.
To remind, the application can aggregate any published data from multiple sources including websites + social networks and display them in a single-page.
The sources supported include Atom, RSS, Delicious, Youtube, Vimeo, Flickr, Last.fm and more.
PubwichFork is built with PHP and it is a handy project for quickly having a personal website that you almost do nothing to update but manages to keep fresh.
Previously, a post at WRD had shared the 9 well-known and free forum softwares.
Here is a fresh alternative named esoTalk, which focuses on removing the complexity of forum apps with a simple + modern interface and functionality.
It is built with PHP-MySQL, includes the main features a forum would need and has a plugin system for extending it more.
esoTalk is still in the early stages of its development, not as feature-rich as many other alternatives. But, maybe, something simpler is what you are looking for.
The purpose of this tutorial is to show how to create a realtime location aware visitor tracker for a web site or application.
When a visitor navigates to the page on your site, or accesses your mobile web app, the visitor tracker will display the new visitor hit in realtime, displaying the page they've landed on and where each visitor is on a Google map (lat/long and locality). For the purposes of the tutorial, we'll write our server code in PHP, but you could use any server side language you like.
Here is how the end result will look like:
For the realtime functionality we'll use Pusher, who I work for. Pusher is a hosted service for quickly and easily adding realtime features into web and mobile applications. The service is used for all sorts of features such as notifications, game movements, chat, live data feeds and much more, so it fits the bill nicely here too. We'll be using the Pusher JavaScript API and the Pusher PHP Library.
Here's the order in which we'll cover things:
strftime, the popular function for formatting date-time (with PHP, Ruby, Python and C) has many parameters which are usually hard to remember.
There are several web-based references that ease the usage of strftime by enabling us to view the details of each parameter and test them instantly. Here they are:
Strfti.me simply lists the parameters for dates + times separately with an explanation to each and allows us to view the output of any custom format.
The website displays all the parameters where each of them can be clicked to create the custom function.
P.S. It would be much better to see the result of the function instantly (feature request).
Besides presenting the parameters, there are presets for for the widely-used formats.
Also, there is a drag 'n' drop custom format builder.
With the regularly increasing number of retina-screen devices browsing web pages each day, we may want to display images with better quality to such devices.
Here are 3 easy-to-use solutions for serving high resolution images to retina-display devices:
Retina Images is a JavaScript/PHP solution which stores the devicePixelRatio in a cookie and displays the high-res version of images (if exists) by checking whether that cookie's value is 1 or not (if 1, then the device has a retina screen).
With a simple setup, it works on images that defined in both CSS and HTML.
This open source script checks for every image on the web page to find out if there is any high-res version hosted on the server.
If such an image exists, it swaps that with the original one.
P.S. For the high-res images, It looks for the Apple's prescribed high-resolution modifier (@2x) version.
This jQuery plugin also follows Apple's prescribed high-resolution modifier (@2x) format, searches for the high-res versions and replaces them with the original one if exists.
It is a plug 'n' play solution, nothing to edit (just add the high-res versions of the images to the same folder with other images).
ArrowChat is a jQuery-powered, PHP/MySQL (or MSSQL) application for quickly adding chat support to any website so that visitors/members can easily communicate with each other.
The application features a Facebook-like chat system which sits in the footer of websites, presents the online users and allows them to chat instantly.
Users can choose to chat in private or inside full-featured chatrooms (which can be password-protected with moderators, kicking, etc.). And, they are instantly notified about new messages or friend requests.
ArrowChat also has video chat which is Flash-based and works smoothly. This is specially great for social networking websites.
It has a set of integrated applications from games to social sharing or instant web page translation to offer more features to users.
The application is also great for sending announcements as they are sent in real-time and you feel sure that each user logging in sees them.
Managing the application is easy for both the end users and the system admin as users get an options panel to customize everything and admins have an admin panel to control each and every feature.
It is possible to customize the look and feel of the application with theming support and also customize/improve the functionality as ArrowChat is fully open sourced.
And, best of all, ArrowChat has integrations for many popular apps including forum softwares, social networking softwares and others like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. Once installed, the system works with existing users, avatars and profiles.
P.S. The system works with all major browsers including mobile.
ArrowChat provides 10% discount to all WRD readers who use the coupon code "WRD" (the coupon will expire on 5/31/2012 and Credit/Debit Card must be selected at checkout to use the code -PayPal can still be used with this method-).
ArrowChat is giving away 3 KickStarter Licenses ($45/each) to WRD readers.
If you want to join the giveaway, you can choose one of the methods below or do both to increase your chances:
Winners will be selected randomly on 12 April 2012 (1 week later). Good luck to all.
Here are the winners:
Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone for joining.
