Archive for the ‘Labs’ category

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Problem with mysql_real_escape_string when Sanitize your data.

February 28th, 2010

When building applications is always smart to check and clean the user input. This is a must when you building a website or public application.

I create always an instance of Sanitize class in my AppController and then using it in all of my controllers like this
» Read more: Problem with mysql_real_escape_string when Sanitize your data.

4 comments »

Posted in CakePHP, Development, General, Labs, PHP

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Detecting if the cookies are enabled with PHP

January 16th, 2010

For my current project I need a detection if the cookies are enabled or not in the user’s browser.

The easiest way to do this is by using this code:

<?php
setcookie('test', 1, time()+3600);
if(!isset($_GET['cookies'])){
    header('Location:/info.php?cookies=true');
}
if(count($_COOKIE) > 0){
    echo "Cookies are yummy!";
} else {
    echo "You didn't bring any cookies here. We are hungry!";
}
?>

The CakePHP way is almost similar:

<?php
$this->Cookie->write('test', 1);
if(!isset($_GET['cookies'])){
    header('Location:/info.php?cookies=true');
}
if(count($_COOKIE) > 0){
    echo "Cookies are yummy!";
} else {
    echo "You didn't bring any cookies here. We are hungry!";
}
?>

Ok, it’s not rocket science, but it helps :)

2 comments »

Posted in JavaScript, Labs, PHP

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How to use aggregation SQL functions with CakePHP

September 10th, 2009

Have you ever wondering how to find MAX, MIN or AVG of a database table column in CakePHP way? Well I haven’t since yesterday. The solution is quite simple and obvious.

Lets say you want to show the average views per post (in the example we have the views field in every post).
The SQL should be something like this:

SELECT AVG(views) FROM posts

Instead of using query() function you can use the CakePHP way:

$this->Post->find('first', array('fields'=>array('AVG(views) as avg_views')));

Hope this will help someone.

1 comment »

Posted in CakePHP, Development, General, Labs, PHP

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linxspy.com – track your links

July 17th, 2009

Today I want to present you a small service which I wrote for a week /including the design/. :)

I’ve wrote it, because few times I’ve exchanged some links with strangers and few weeks after this, my link was disappeared from their sites while their was on mine. It is a bit unfair isn’t it? I know that link exchange is not promoted from Google, but people still do it. Do you? :)

The service is called Linxspy.com and in general it is a simple interface, where you can define your links and partner’s websites. On a regular basis /at this moment every week/, the service will check the partner site and will look for your link. If everything is ok and link is there, no action will be taken, but if the link is missing, you will be notified by mail.

It should be very usefull for web masters which exchanging or buying links with unknown or not well known partners.

Basically if everything is cool with your partners, you should forget about Linxspy, because it will bother you only for troubles. :)

A little bit for implementation: As I said it was build for a week and as you probably guess it’s CakePHP app. On this project I’ve used Console Shell interface for triggering the weekly check.

Here you could find more information on about the service page

Here are some screenshots from Linxspy:

Hope it would be useful for you.

4 comments »

Posted in CakePHP, Development, Labs, PHP

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CakePHP ajaxed pagination and sort

May 16th, 2009

Here I will describe how I did an Ajaxed pagination for one of my projects using jQuery and Livequery Plugin. Currently I am working on a huge project which, hopefully, will feed me with some ideas for blog posts and this is one of them :) . So:

1. Loading the javascript libs

Loading the jQuery and Livequery was done by Autoloader helper, but if you don’t use it just include jQuery and Livequery in your layout with following code

<?php
echo $javascript->link('jquery.min');
echo $javascript->link('plugins/jquery.livequery');
?>

» Read more: CakePHP ajaxed pagination and sort

14 comments »

Posted in CakePHP, Development, General, JavaScript, Labs

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Passing variables to all Models from the Controller – strict MVC way

April 21st, 2009

It’s really easy to find inspiration when you developing on CakePHP. For the current project I need to create global (for all models) behavior which stores creator and modifier as well as deleter and deleted (for soft-delete).

What are the requirements

1. For every table (or at least the most of them) there are fields 6 fields:

  • creator (int) – user who create the the record
  • created (datetime) – date when the record was created
  • modifier (int) – user who modified the the record
  • modified (datetime) – date when the record was modified
  • deleter (int) – user who delete the the record
  • deleted (datetime) – date when the record was modified

2. Some tables doesn’t have such fields (like aros, acos, settings etc), so it should update tables which has such fields.

I’ve seen Soft Deletable Behavior as well as recently added WhoDidIt behavior, but I don’t like the approach of using _SESSION. I’ve also decided to use datetime field to determine if the record is active (field deleted is NULL) or deleted (if the field is set with date).

So the result was – I’ve write my own behavior who serves this.
» Read more: Passing variables to all Models from the Controller – strict MVC way

5 comments »

Posted in CakePHP, Development, Frameworks, Labs, PHP

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Autoload your javascript and css in CakePHP

December 20th, 2008

Have you ever wanted to have all your css or javascripts files loaded automatically once they are on place under /webroot/js and webroot/css folders? Well this is the solution.

What is all about

I’ve build a quick helper which will include all files under the js/ and css/ directories. So once the javascripts and css are there, they will be loaded automatically.

How to use it?

Using it is really easy. It’s like a normal helper:
1. add the file autoload.php under your /app/views/helpers
2. add it in the $helpers var in the controller
3. add the following snippet in your layout file. It should be under /app/views/layouts:

<?php echo $autoload->javascript();?>

This will include all files under /webroot/js

<?php echo $autoload->css();?>

This will include all files under /webroot/css

<?php echo $autoload->all();?>

This will include all files under /webroot/js and /webroot/css

Key features:

1. The helper includes all files recursively.
2. The helper includes also files under /root/vendors/js and /root/app/vendors/js too (same apply to css). Vendors are loaded first. (Thanks to suggestion from Juan Basso)
3. The order of the files in one directory is based on the name, so now you can control the order as well. (Thanks to suggestion from Juan Basso)
4. Files starting with . (dot) are not included, files under directories starting with . are not included as well, so you can exclude some files
5. if you want to load some files after other use directories. For example if you want to include plugins after the main lib (jQuery), place them in plugins directory like:
js/plugins/plugin_one.js
js/plugins/plugin_another.js
js/.hidden/plugin_third.js
js/jquery.js
the result will be:

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/plugins/plugin_one.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/plugins/plugin_another.js"></script>

(same apply to css as well)

Warning: I’ve noticed that this helper doesn’t work properly with scriptaculous, because the script tries to load the additional plugins and they fail, but for jQuery there is not a problem at all.

Finally here is the code of the helper:
» Read more: Autoload your javascript and css in CakePHP

10 comments »

Posted in CakePHP, Development, Labs, PHP

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Careful with JavaScript includes

December 11th, 2008

Ok, this is not a code snippet article. It’s just an experience which you probably already met, but it was nightmare to find and it took me 1/2 a day to fix this “stupid” bug.

So what is the case?

Working on a project including some advanced JavaScript and Ajax techniques my coworker Milen noticed that the Session is not behaving as expected. In a simple function like:

 function test($id = false){
  if ($id != false) {
    echo $id;
    echo $k = $this->Session->read('some_var');
    $this->Session->write('some_var', $id);
  }
  $this->set('tests', $this->paginate());
 }

The result should be quite easy to be predicted: if you pass for example 5 on the second reload the $k should be with the same value as $id. Unfortunately instead of 5 the $k was ‘images’. Yep, quite strange, isn’t it?

if you put die() at the end of the function, the result is as expected.

What was the problem

In our current project we are using jQuery and some of it’s plugins. So the problems was in the ThickBox plugin. If you remove it from the header everything works.

Digging into unpacked version of the plugin we’ve noticed that the loading picture is not where it should be. there is an variable

 var tb_pathToImage = "images/loadingAnimation.gif"

and as you may notice the path is not compatible with Cake convention and obviously it’s not in the http://server/cakeapp/tests/test/images/.

In the example above we were writing id into the session. Yes but calling: http://server/cakeapp/tests/test/images/loadingAnimation.gif mean that $id take value of ‘images’.

It was quite tricky, because if you loading CSS or JavaScript and the file is not there, FireBug or even the html /if there is no correct CSS the styling will fail/ will warn the developer, but image loaded into the JS function is quite difficult to find.

Anyway, the conclusion is “Watch you JavaScript libs and what files they require”.

5 comments »

Posted in Ajax, CakePHP, Development, Frameworks, General, JavaScript, Labs, PHP

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My first Wordpress plugin

November 28th, 2008

Hey,

I am very proud to present you, my first plugin for Wordpress platform – Autocompleter.

The plugin adding autocomplete functionality for the search input field of your blog. The values are the tags and categories existing in the blog and this way you will help your visitors to find easily the proper information in your blog.

My first implementation was with Prototype and Script.aculo.us, but because I like very much jQuery library and I found a wonderful plugin for autocomplete, I build it with jQuery.

You can check the demo in this blog – top right – search box :)

Hope you will like it and you will vote for it :) Thanks

The official page is: wordpress.org/extend/plugins/autocompleter

21 comments »

Posted in Ajax, Development, General, JavaScript, Labs

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Fixing Dead Centre approach with jQuery

October 17th, 2008

I was worked on a centred project design of a website. When I met such requirement I’ve always used Dead Centre approach.

Unfortunately I’ve noticed that when the content is larger than the screen the top-left corner is not visible. In that current project the logo of the site was exactly on that place, so it’s really confusing.

I had to solve this issue in order to satisfy the clients requirements. So, I’ve used jQuery to sort this out.

You can see the difference in these 2 examples:

Resize your browser window in order to see the difference.
How it’s working?

First of all there are 2 javascript includes:

<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.2.6.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.dimensions.min.js"></script>

After this there is a function which track the size of the screen and the content.

<script type="text/javascript">
        /*Track height and width of the window and the content*/
        function resize(){
            if($(window).height() < $('#content').height()){
                $('#horizon').css('top', '0px');
                $('#content').css('top', '0px');
            } else {
                $('#horizon').css('top', '50%');
                $('#content').css('top', '-'+($('#content').height()/2)+'px');
            }
            if($(window).width() < $('#content').width()){
                $('#content').css('left', ($('#content').width()/2)+'px');
            } else {
                $('#content').css('left', '50%');
            }
        }
       
        //Bind events on resize
        $(document).ready(function(){
            resize();
        })
        $(window).bind("resize", function(){
            resize();
        });
    </script>

The explanation of the code:
I am using jQuery plugin named jQuery Dimensions Plugin 1.1 which extract the proper dimensions of the boxes.
The function checking if the content screen is bigger than the window size, if so it change the CSS in order to fit properly. I guess that you can see the logic easily. So, no more explanations here.

Hope this will help someone.

No comments »

Posted in Development, Frameworks, JavaScript, Labs

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