Tutorials and Resources for Learning PHP

What Is the JavaScript Equivalent To The PHP sleep() Function?

Editorial Team — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 09:36:09 +0000

JavaScript does not have a direct equivalent to the PHP sleep() function, which pauses the execution of a script for a specified number of seconds. However, there are a few ways to achieve similar functionality in JavaScript.

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: Email, admin, landing page & website templates

Starting at only $16.50 per month!

Using `setTimeout()`

The setTimeout() function is a built-in JavaScript function that allows you to run a piece of code after a specified amount of time. You can use it to create a delay in your script. Here’s an example:

console.log('Before Sleep');
setTimeout(() => {
  console.log('After Sleep');
}, 3000);

In the example above, the console.log('Before Sleep') statement will be executed immediately, followed by a 3-second delay, after which the console.log('After Sleep') statement will be executed.

Using `async/await`

Another way to create a delay in JavaScript is to use the async/await syntax. With async/await, you can write asynchronous code that runs in a way that is similar to synchronous code. For example:

async function sleep(ms) {
  return new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
}

async function main() {
  console.log('Before Sleep');
  await sleep(3000);
  console.log('After Sleep');
}

main();

In this example, we’ve created an async function called sleep that returns a Promise that resolves after a specified amount of time. The main function uses the await keyword to wait for the sleep function to complete, effectively creating a 3-second delay.

Note that async/await is only supported in modern browsers and requires a runtime with support for Promises.

Both of these methods can be used to achieve a similar result to the PHP sleep() function, but with different syntax and limitations. Choose the method that works best for your use case.

Further reading.

How To Get a User’s IP Address With PHP

Editorial Team — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 09:45:05 +0000

In PHP, there are several methods to retrieve a user’s IP address. We will explore two of those ways in this article.

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: 500,000+ WordPress & Design Assets

The most reliable way to get a user’s IP address in PHP is to use the $_SERVER superglobal variable.

The $_SERVER superglobal variable contains information about the server environment, including the user’s IP address. Here’s an example:

The $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] element returns the IP address of the client (i.e., the user’s device) that is making the request to the server. This method works well for most cases, but there are a few situations where it may not return the correct IP address, such as when the user is behind a proxy server or using a VPN.

To handle these cases, it is recommended to use the following code to get the user’s IP address:

In this code, we first check if the $_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'] element is set. If it is, we use its value as the user’s IP address. If not, we then check if the $_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'] element is set. If it is, we use its value as the user’s IP address. If neither of these elements is set, we use the $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] element as the user’s IP address.

This method provides a more robust solution for retrieving the user’s IP address, as it takes into account the possibility that the user may be behind a proxy server or using a VPN.

Learn more here.

PHP Contact Form: Create Forms Using HTML & PHP

Editorial Team — Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:00:48 +0000

Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Many WordPress plugins come with fully functional contact forms that can be installed and used right away, but we believe in beautiful design and in your right to style it however you choose. Therefore the first video will focus on how to create, but mainly how to style, your contact form using CSS3.

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

There is not much HTML5 in this video tutorial, as the contact form is built with code available in previous versions of HTML, but you can use this first video tutorial as a way to reinforce many of the things we learned together in the previous tutorials. So without any further discussion, here it is.

Contact Form HTML and CSS Tutorial For Dummies

What you will learn:

the basics of CSS3 styling
how to create an HTML5 contact form
how to create an elegant CSS3 contact form

By the end of this HTML contact form tutorial, you will have something similar to the screenshot above. Feel free to view the demo just after the video tutorial to get a feel of what you will be making in under 25 minutes. It’s a good exercise for both beginners and experts alike!

Challenge: Making Contact Form Responsive and Validation

Can you make this contact form responsive? I will give you a hint, but it will be somewhat irrelevant to a contact form, but surely you are smart enough to work your way through it, yes?

Hint: It’s all about the media queries!

Of course, it is crucial that you validate the fields so that you will not receive any unnecessary information, or secure that all the information you need from your contact form are all useful. In order to do that, you will need to include HTML5 validation in your code. It is pretty easy to do, all you need is patience and the willingness to test new stuff!

How to Make the Contact Form HTML Work

Although making it functional will require a little bit of server-side programming, I’ll be glad to point you in the right direction!

To make this form function for your website, you’ll need to code it with PHP.

Note: the PHP contact form tutorial focuses on just making it work functionally, but you will just need to add security features to it yourself (Google it!).

Good luck!

I am sure that almost everyone can agree on the importance of contact forms for use on everything from static HTML websites to WordPress powered websites. I found myself many times creating custom PHP contact forms for clients and always changing things around to suit the needs of the client.

After going through this tutorial, you should have a better understanding of creating custom PHP contact forms. These can be really useful in your own projects, as well as projects for clients.

I have used these for basic contact forms, surveys, and even to create simple help desk ticket systems for clients. The list is endless, just be creative. I will discuss everything that you will need to know to make your own custom HTML and PHP forms.

View the Demo and Download the Source Files.

How To Create a Simple PHP Contact Form

First things first – To create a form in our HTML document, we will need to select the location we will be placing the form. Generally, most forms will start with:

and end with the closing tag of:

The form action will tell this form what to look for when the submit button is pressed. In this example, we will be working with below, this is a second file that we will be creating called mail.php

The beginning line of our code that begins our form shows our action of mail.php – and the method of POST – which will trigger the PHP script to send the email when the forms are filled out, and the submit button is pressed.

Action and Method of mail.php

The last thing we will need to understand before starting our form is the use of INPUT – which will tell browsers to allow an input of text type, to complete a field. Using this along with textarea will allow us to create our form and create a space for users to input information that we will later use PHP to send via email.

Each one of these areas we create on our form will be given a NAME that we will also be using on our PHP document to mark the information being sent.

Taking a Look at Contact Form

Now let’s begin our example. We will create a very simple starting point that I will show you how to modify for your own needs. Understanding the code and how it works will help you use it better and help ensure you have less problems when placing this on a live website.

I will start with a very basic contact form to get us started. Here is the basic HTML that we will use to create our contact form.

HTML Form Code

Name

Message

Using the code above – You can insert this directly into your HTML document to create the form itself. Later we will look at modifying this more and creating something a little more custom.

Contact Form PHP: How To Actually Create It?

Now, to make our form work, we will need to use a little PHP. This part is actually easier than most people think. We will be using the PHP $_POST function, and creating labels for each name that we have created in our form. This will allow us to further customize the form later on as well.

Now we will create our mail.php file – This is what will generate the email from the form and actually mail it:

mail.php

Notice our three name tags we have created. We have Name, Email, and Message. These are the three that we created in our form. This is the information that will be sent from our contact form via email.

The $recipient area will need to be modified to fit YOUR email address where you wish to have the email sent to. You can also modify the other information as needed such as the subject, and success message. We will get more into these later when we begin customizing the form even more.

Add More Customization To Contact Form

Now since we have the basic idea of the contact form HTML, and tying it together with our PHP to create a basic contact form, I will begin to go a step further and now show how you can customize this form even more to fit your needs for your project.

I will show how to add a dropdown option box, and explain adding checkboxes or radio buttons for selection items to be chosen, and emailed from the form.

Adding Dropdown Option Boxes

To add a dropdown box, we will need to add the section within our HTML code to create the area for the form, as well as add the proper code to our PHP to recognize the input from the HTML and be able to send it.

Here is a simple example HTML contact form dropdown box:

Dropdown Box

In the example above, we have created a dropdown box with options 1 through 4. The option value will be what is actually submitted, and the Text within the will be what the user actually sees when making a selection. Remember that this will need to be inserted into your HTML document within the form fields.

Here is an example of the completed HTML contact form we have created with the dropdown box included:

HTML Contact Form with Dropdown Box


Name
 
Email
 
Phone
 
Dropdown Box



Message

Now we will need to change our contact form PHP to make sure the information from the HTML form is rendered and submitted to the provided email address.

Let’s take a look at our modified PHP that will now have the dropdown box readable.

Notice that we have added “dropdown” as a $_POST variable that will now be sent. The dropdown name itself comes from the HTML portion that is labeled as

The size option lets you select how many rows will be viewable at one time. The most general setting for this is “1” but you can change it to more if you would like.

Adding Radio Buttons and Checkboxes To a Contact Form

To add Radio Buttons and Checkboxes, the same will apply as the above. We will need to add it within our HTML code, and then modify the PHP to take the input from the contact form HTML and properly send it.

Here is an example of the HTML code for adding Checkboxes:

Request Phone Call:

Yes:
No:

Full Example Using All Elements In Contact Form

For this example I have changed some of the names to we can create a custom contact form for our completed example now that we have a basic understanding of the way it works.

Our HTML Contact Form Code


Name
 
Email
 
Phone
 

Request Phone Call:
Yes:

No:


Website
 

Priority




Type




Message

And again, our PHP that will correspond with this HTML form to make it work:

Our completed PHP Contact Form Code

Customizing the Thank you Message on Contact Form Success

Now for the final part of this tutorial, I will explain how to customize the very last line of our PHP script we have created. The basic way will just echo “Thank You” on our screen, but we need to make a better way so our viewers can easily have a way to get back to another page.

This will be useful in creating a custom page redirect, or a link to bring the user to a different area after completing the form. Remember that when working with PHP, some of the HTML will be different as to not disrupt our PHP code.

We will need to use single quotes “instead of double quotes” within this one, so we don’t end our PHP arg.

We will be adding a space after the “thank you” message, and adding a link back to our “form.html” document (Or whatever link you wish to create) – and also changing the color of the link using inline styles.

Let’s take a look at the modified echo command in our mail.php file:

echo "Thank You!" . " -" . " Return Home";

You can play around with the example above to create your own thank you message for your site. Inline styles are not required; I just used them for this example instead of including a stylesheet. Remember that the echo command is only seen on a successful send of the message. Otherwise, the error message is sent.

Download The Contact Form Files

I am providing the download for the completed form for you to play with. Feel free to use it any way you wish, and customize it for your own projects. There are still many other things that can be done with PHP for your contact forms.

One that you might want to consider is CAPTCHA, which prevents spam email. You can also customize the other portions of the form and create your own! Have fun, and I hope that everyone has enjoyed the article and finds it useful for their own needs.

You can download the example files by clicking [HERE]

Note: I have included a few styling examples using CSS in the demo download. This will allow you to see the forms styled and understand how to style them using CSS.

Contact Form PHP Tutorial: How to Create a Multi-Step Form Using RhinoSlider

Editorial Team — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 23:38:53 +0000

How do you feel when you see a long Sign Up form for a website or service? Generally, people get bored when the Sign Up form is too long. Ideally, you should keep the form as simple as possible with minimum fields, and if that is not possible, try using a multi-step form.

The reason why Facebook Connect and Sign In with Twitter has become so popular these days is because of their simplicity, since users can sign up just by logging into their Facebook or Twitter account.

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

If you are using normal Sign Up forms and still require a lot of data from your users, a multi-step form is the best solution. So the form is broken into small sections and the user only sees one section at a time. Also, multi-step forms reduces the space you need on the page.

View the Demo and Download the Source Files

Why Use RhinoSlider For Contact Forms?

In a multi-step form, once you complete the first step, the second step will be displayed and Step 1 will be hidden. Normally we use sliding effects in step transitions. So this a scenario where we can use a Slider differently from its default behavior of creating image slideshows.

There are plenty of great sliders available and no point of reinventing the wheel by creating a slider from scratch. So I chose Rhinoslider for this tutorial as it provides great effects and is very easy to customize. So let’s get started on making a multi-step form.

Introduction to Rhinoslider

Before we create the multi-step form, you should have a basic idea of how RhinoSlider works. They recommend that you generate a custom version instead of a full version with all the effects. So I have downloaded the default version for our tutorial.

You can open the demo file in the browser and it will look something like the following screen.

So let’s look at the demo file code first.



 
 
 Multi Step Form with Rhinoslider 1.05
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
		
			
				;
				;
				;
				;
				>img src="img/slider/05.jpg" alt="" />;

You can see that 5 images are placed in the unordered list called #slider.
Once you initialize Rhinoslider with $(‘#slider’).rhinoslider(), all the images will be assigned to slider and will slide automatically.

Now we have a basic idea of how to use Rhinoslider. So Lets get started on creating multi-step form.

Creating the Multi-Step Contact Form

We need to do some modifications in initializing the code to suit our multi-step form creation process. Consider the modified initialization code below.

$('#slider').rhinoslider({
controlsPlayPause: false,
showControls: 'always',
showBullets: 'always',
controlsMousewheel: false,
prevText: 'Back',
slidePrevDirection: 'toRight',
slideNextDirection: 'toLeft'
});

In the image slider top button is used to control automatic play and pause. We don’t need it in a multi step form. So we remove it by setting controlsPlayPause: false.
The controls and numbering on the slider are shown on hover by default. We make it permanent by setting showControls: ‘always’ and showBullets: ‘always’.
Slider moves on mousewheel by default. So we disable it by setting controlsMousewheel: false
Finally we change the previous button text to Back.

Creating Form Elements for Steps

Instead of images we want sections of form elements. So in this demo I created a simple registration form with 3 steps called PERSONAL DETAILS, ACCOUNT DETAILS and CONTACT DETAILS. Each section will have some form elements. I am going to replace the unordered list of images with my form elements as shown below.


 Account Registration
 
 
 
 
 First Name *
 
 
 
 
 Last Name *
 
 
 
 
 Gender *
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Address
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Username *
 
 
 
 
 Password *
 
 
 
 
 Confirm Password *
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Email *
 
 
 
 
 Mobile No

First I have added a div called wrapper and a heading called Account Registration.
Then I have replaced the ul with a div called #slider.
Next I have replaced the list items of images with divs with the class “form-step”.
Then necessary input fields for each section are added accordingly.
Once the slider is initialized divs with the class containing form-step will turn into a slide.

Now copy the images in the project folder to your demo folder and include the following CSS styles in the demo file.

Now the slider will look something like the image below:

So let’s compare it with our final output screen.

Left button should be changed to Back
Right button should be changed to Proceed
Numbering menu should change to steps on the top bar

Converting Rhinoslider Icons to Buttons

First we have to make sure that we remove the default icons displayed for previous and next buttons and insert buttons for back and proceed. Open the CSS file in the Rhinoslider CSS folder and change the styles for rhino-btn as follows.

.rhino-btn {
    cursor: pointer;
    display: block;
    position: absolute;
    right: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    -moz-user-select: none;
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #6F95DC;
    border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
    color: #FFFFFF;
    display: block;
    margin: 0 20px 20px;
    padding: 10px;
    text-align: center;
    width: 125px;
    z-index: 10;
    font-weight: bold;
    text-decoration: none;
    background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#94b9e9), to(#4870d2));
    background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(#94b9e9, #4870d2);
    background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(#94b9e9, #4870d2);
    background-image: -o-linear-gradient(#94b9e9, #4870d2);
    filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#94b9e9, endColorstr=#4870d2)";
    -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#94b9e9, endColorstr=#4870d2)";
    font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;
}

Take a look at the updated form below.

Converting Numbered Menu Into Step Menu In Our Contact Form

We need to change the CSS styles related to the numbering menu in order to get it to the top part and make custom steps instead of just numbers. So update the styles of Rhinoslider CSS file with the following code:

.rhino-bullets li a.rhino-bullet {
    display: block;
    width: 100%;
    height: 90px;
    cursor: pointer;
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #F8FDFF;
    border: 1px solid #EEEEEE;
    font-size: 10px;
    text-align: center;
    padding: 10px 0 5px 0;
    color: #000;
    text-decoration:none;
    -webkit-user-select:none;
    -moz-user-select:none;
    user-select:none;
    font-family:"Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;
    font-size:13px;
}
.rhino-bullets {
    position: relative;
    top: -438px;
    z-index: 10;
    background: #fff;
    padding:0;
    float:left;
}
.rhino-bullets:before, .rhino-bullets:after {
    position:absolute;
    display:block;
    left:-16px;
    content:' ';
    width:16px;
    height:26px;
}
.rhino-bullets li {
    float:left;
    display:inline;
    margin:0;
    width: 233px;
}
.rhino-bullets li a.rhino-bullet.rhino-active-bullet {
    color:#000;
    background:#fff;
    border-bottom: none;
}

Now the CSS changes are completed and our screen will look like this:

Adding Step Descriptions

Instead of using numbers for steps we planned to use descriptive text about the step with an image. So add the following code right after the initialization part of slider.

var info = ["PERSONAL DETAILS","ACCOUNT DETAILS","CONTACT DETAILS"];
 var images = ["personal-details-icon.png","account-details.png","contact-details.png"];
 $('.rhino-bullet').each(function(index){
 $(this).html('
'+info[index]+'');
 });

We got 2 arrays for images and descriptions. Insert the text and images in the order of your steps.
Each step has a class called rhino-bullet. So while looping through each step we replace the number with the image and text from the array.

Here is our form after the text and image integration.

Adjusting Control Buttons In The Contact Form

In the slider we saw the previous and next buttons for each slide. But for multi-step form we don’t need a previous button in first step. So let’s see how we can remove that.

 $(".rhino-prev").hide();
 $('.rhino-next').after('Proceed');
 $(".rhino-next").hide();

When the page is loaded, active slide will always be the first section. So we hide the Back button by using $(“.rhino-prev”).hide().
Then before we go into the next step we need to validate the form. So we hide the default next button of Rhinoslider and insert the Proceed button as shown above.

Validating Contact Form Steps

Generally we have to complete a step before we go to the next step in a multi-step form. In this section I’ll explain how to add validation to each step.

$('.form-submit').live("click",function(){
$('.form-error').html("");
var current_tab = $('#slider').find('.rhino-active').attr("id");
switch(current_tab){
case 'rhino-item0':
step1_validation();
break;
case 'rhino-item1':
step2_validation();
break;
case 'rhino-item2':
step3_validation();
break;
}
});
var step1_validation = function(){
var err = 0;
if($('#fname').val() == ''){
$('#fname').parent().parent().find('.form-error').html("First Name is Required");
err++;
}
if($('#lname').val() == ''){
$('#lname').parent().parent().find('.form-error').html("Last Name is Required");
err++;
}
if($('#gender').val() == '0'){
$('#gender').parent().parent().find('.form-error').html("Please Select Gender");
err++;
}
if(err == 0){
$(".rhino-active-bullet").removeClass("step-error").addClass("step-success");
$(".rhino-next").show();
$('.form-submit').hide();
$('.rhino-next').trigger('click');
}else{
$(".rhino-active-bullet").removeClass("step-success").addClass("step-error");
}
};

Our Proceed button has a class called form-submit. So every time we click on the proceed button the above validation function is called.
You can find the current tab using rhino-active class. Then based on the step you call a custom validation function.
I have shown the necessary validations for step 1 in the above code. Validations for the other two steps can be found in the project files.
If validation error is found, we display the errors in front of the field and make the highlight the step in red color by adding step-error class to active step.
If there are no errors, we make the step green by adding class step-success.
Then we hide our custom proceed button and display the default next button of Rhinoslider.
Then we make the next button click automatically by using $(‘.rhino-next’).trigger(‘click’) function which will move the form to the next step.

Following screens shows the contact form on validation errors and validation success.

Customizing the Rhinoslider Plugin

Now we are coming to the final part of the tutorial. We need to make some changes to the default Rhinoslider functionality to get things done as we need. You can click on the steps and move to the other steps in the demo we have now. So let’s see how we can disable it.

Disable Click Event for Steps

Open the rhinoslider-1.05.min.js file in the js folder and comment the following code section which provides the clickable functionality.

vars.buttons.bullets.click(function(){
var itemID=$(this).attr('id').replace('-bullet','');
var $next=vars.container.find('#'+itemID);
var curID=parseInt(vars.navigation.find('.'+vars.prefix+'active-bullet').attr('id').replace('-bullet','').replace(vars.prefix+'item',''),10);
var nextID=parseInt(itemID.replace(vars.prefix+'item',''),10);
if(curID&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;nextID){
next($slider,settings,$next);
}else if(curID&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;nextID){
prev($slider,settings,$next);
}else{
return false;
}
if(settings.autoPlay){
pause();
}
});

Customizing the Previous Button Functionality

I have made the previous button hidden in the initial step. Now we need to show it in other steps. So let’s customize the Rhinoslider previous button functionality to meet our requirements.

vars.buttons.prev.click(function(){
prev($slider,settings);
if(settings.autoPlay){
pause();
}
});

The code above shows the default functionality of previous function. So let’s change it to the following.

vars.buttons.prev.click(function(){
$(".rhino-next").hide();
$('.form-submit').show();
$('.form-submit').html("Proceed");
if(($slider.find('.rhino-active').index()) != 0){
prev($slider,settings);
}
if($slider.find('.rhino-active').index() == 1){
$(".rhino-prev").hide();
}
if(settings.autoPlay){
pause();
}
});

Each time you click the previous button, by default the next button will be loaded. So we have to manually hide it and show our custom form submit button first.
Line $slider.find(‘.rhino-active’).index() will give you the index of the active step.
If step 1 becomes active, we hide the previous button. Otherwise we call the default previous button functionality by calling prev($slider,settings) .

Customizing Next Button Functionality

Also we need to customize the Rhinoslider next button functionality to meet our requirements. Let’s see how it works.

vars.buttons.next.click(function(){
next($slider,settings);
if(settings.autoPlay){
pause();
}
});

Above code shows the default functionality of previous function. So let’s change it to the following.

vars.buttons.next.click(function(){
$(".rhino-next").hide();
$('.form-submit').show();
$(".rhino-prev").show();
if($slider.find('.rhino-active').index() != ($slider.find('.rhino-item').length -1)){
next($slider,settings);
}
if($slider.find('.rhino-active').index() == ($slider.find('.rhino-item').length -2)){
$('.form-submit').html("Submit");
}
if(settings.autoPlay){
pause();
}
});

We need to hide the next button and display our custom form submit button on each next button click as we did earlier with previous button.
Also we need to show the previous button(Back button).
Then we display Submit as the button text if the form is on the final step.
If the active step is not the final one, we need to call next($slider,settings) to slide to next step.

We have completed the multi-step form creation process using Rhinoslider. Now you should have something similar to the provided demo. I suggest you download Rhinoslider and follow the tutorial steps to create the form instead of just looking at the project files.

Finally compare your version with the demo version and make the necessary changes.

Customizing Multi-Step Contact Form

Now we have a 3 step form. Its easy to add or remove steps according to your needs. Use the following guidelines for customizations.

Add or remove step descriptions from info array.
Add or remove step images from images array.
Add or remove validation functions for steps.
Adjust the width of rhino-bullets li class to match your needs.

Contact Form Tutorial Conclusion

It will take you around 2 hours to get used to Rhinoslider and create this Multi-Step contact form. But I think it’s worth doing it since you will have a form which can be used any time you require a multi-step form. You can add or remove steps as you wish.

In real-life projects you will not have the time to do everything from scratch. So tools such as this are useful to learn as you might need to customize existing plugins.

PHP vs Ruby vs Python: The Three Programming Languages in a Nutshell

Editorial Team — Sun, 11 Dec 2016 14:00:13 +0000

In today’s article, we’re going to take a look at the three popular languages: PHP vs. Ruby vs. Python

We will check how they work, how they differ from each other, who uses them and how popular each language is.

At the end of this article, you will have an idea about which one to learn and which the best option is for each particular task.

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

PHP: Most Popular Scripting Language for the Web

PHP (Hypertext PreProcessor) is a server scripting language designed by Rasmus Lerdorf, a powerful tool to create dynamic and interactive websites. It is fast, flexible, widely-used scripting language for everything from a simple blog to the most popular and dynamic websites in the world.

Advantages of PHP

Free software released under the PHP license
Easy to learn (Short learning curve)
Large community of users and developers
Provides extensive database support
Offers great number of available extensions and source codes
Allows execution of code in restricted environments
Offers native session management and extension API
A great alternative for competitors like Microsoft’s ASP (Active Server Pages)
Can be deployed on most web servers
Works on almost every operating system and platform

Disadvantages of PHP

Not suitable for making desktop applications
Error handling is traditionally poor
Global configuration parameters can change language semantics, complicating deployment and portability
Objects are CallByValue by default, which is the opposite of most languages and catches lots of programmers off-guard
Generally considered to be less secured than the other programming languages

Who Uses PHP?

Zend
Yahoo
Facebook
Google
NASA
W3C

Popularity

As of January 2013, PHP was installed on more than 240 million websites (39% of those sampled) and 2.1 million web servers.

Syntax

A PHP script starts with < ?php and ends with ?> The default file extension for PHP files is “.php”. A PHP file usually contains HTML tags, and some PHP scripting code.

 <?php // PHP code goes here ?>

Python: General Purpose Programming Language

Python is a widely-used high-level (but it also used in a wide range of non-scripting language) design for programmers to express concepts with fewer lines of code. It was conceived in the late 1980s and was implemented by Guido van Rossum.

Python code resembles the pseudo-code just like all the scripting languages. The elegant design and syntax rules of this programming language make it quite readable even among the multi-programmer development teams. It supports multiple ways of building the structure and elements of computer programs, including object-oriented and functional programming.

Advantages of Python

Easy and quick to learn
Runs in multiple systems and platforms
Readable and organized syntax
Offers rapid prototyping and dynamic semantics capabilities
Great community support
Easily construct applications by testing and importing crucial functions
Reusability through carefully implementing packages and modules
Object Oriented Programming-driven

Disadvantages of Python

It doesn’t really do multi-processor/multi-core work very well
Smaller pool of Python developers compared to other languages, such as Java
Absence of a commercial support point, even for an Open Source project (though this situation is changing)
Database access layer limitations
Reputed to be slower than languages such as Java

Who uses Python?

Yahoo Map
Zope Corporation
Linux Weekly News
Shopzilla
Ultraseek

Popularity

Since 2008, Python has consistently ranked in the top eight most popular programming languages as measured by the TIOBE Programming Community Index. It is the third most popular language whose grammatical syntax is not predominantly based on C, e.g. C++, C#, Objective-C, Java.

Syntax

Invoking the interpreter without passing a script file as a parameter brings up the following prompt:

$ python
Python 2.4.3 (#1, Nov 11 2010, 13:34:43)
[GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48)] on linux2
Type <"help<", <"copyright<", <"credits<" or <"license<" for more information.
<><><>

Typing the some text to the right of the Python prompt and press the Enter key will output the text:

<><><>print <"Put some text here!<";

Job Demand

Based on Jobs Tractor which analyzed more than 45,000 developer jobs advertised on Twitter during the past 12 months, the results are the following:

PHP – 8,238
Ruby – 2,937
Python – 1,587

Although PHP still has the higher statistics on this site, remember not to use statistics as the basis for learning or using a programming language.

Ruby: Interpreted, Pure Object-Oriented Programming Language

Ruby (programming language) runs with Ruby on Rails or simply rails, an open source, full-stack web application framework. It is a dynamic, imperative object-oriented programming language developed by Yukihiro Matsumoto in Japan.

It was influenced by Perl, Eiffel and Smalltalk. It a has dynamic type system and automatic memory management.

Advantages of Ruby

Open-sourced
Works on multiple platforms
Can be embedded into Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
A Very High-Level Language (VHLL)
Offers encapsulation of data methods within objects
Pure OOP (Object-Oriented Programming)
Super advanced string and text manipulation techniques
Can easily be connected to DB2, MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase
Scalable and big programs written in Ruby are easily maintainable
Has a clean and easy syntax that allows the new developer to learn Ruby very quickly and easily
Ability to write multi-threaded applications with a simple API
Offers advanced array class
Able to write external libraries in Ruby or C
Allows “reserved word” to be used as an identifier as long as the parser doesn’t perceive an ambiguity
Better security features
It has a debugger
It has flexible syntax
Powerful string handling

Disadvantages of Ruby

Learning it can be difficult
Lacks informational resources
Slower processing time (CPU time) compared to other programming languages
Development and updates are slower

Who uses Ruby?

Google Sketchup
37signals
GitHub
Shopify
Indiegogo
ThemeForest

Popularity

According to the Ruby website, it is ranked among the top 10 on most popular programming languages worldwide (such as the TIOBE index). Much of the growth is attributed to the popularity of software written in Ruby, particularly the Ruby on Rails web framework.

Syntax

All Ruby files will have the extension “.rb.” Using the Ruby interpreter available in /usr/bin directory, you can run Ruby codes.

#!/usr/bin/ruby -w
puts "Put something here";

Time to Ruby dooby do! It can take a lot of time, and be quite boring, to learn a new programming language. A .Net developer will jump up and say why should I even learn it? I am a professional .Net developer and my day job doesn’t give me time (and scope) to learn a new programming language.

But, it isn’t like that. You learn a lot with new programming languages especially when they are a refined version of other optimized ones. Ruby is that sort of language. I agree that the transition from being a noob developer (in a particular programming language) to a pro is arduous but you will appreciate the experience. As of now all that I can do is let you guys know that if you stick around with Ruby, then you won’t be at a loss. Just be positive.

What is Ruby?

Ruby, as I said before, is a refined combination of various programming approaches. Ruby is the perfect mixture of python’s easy to understand flow, Smalltalk’s elegance and Perl’s easy to learn syntax style. Ruby is a high-level object-oriented programming language (as is the case with most of the programming languages these days) which came into existence in mid-1990s in Japan. With time Ruby has started to become more dominant in the U.S. and Europe too.

Ruby is famous for its dynamic type system and automatic memory management. By dynamic type, I mean that most of the type checking in a Ruby program is done during run time which means you don’t have to worry about integer and string types. Ruby will do that for you. We will see more about this in a short example later.

The basic purpose of launching Ruby was to make it easy for humans to interact with machines and understand codes. Yukihiro Matsumoto, the father of Ruby, insists that Ruby was designed for programmer productivity and not for machine optimization.

Often people, especially computer engineers, focus on the machines. They think, “By doing this, the machine will run faster. By doing this, the machine will run more effectively. By doing this, the machine will something something something.”

They are focusing on machines. But in fact, we need to focus on humans, on how humans care about doing programming or operating the application of the machines. We are the masters. They are the slaves. – Yukihiro Matsumoto

What is Rails?

Rails is an extremely productive application framework written in Ruby by David Heinemeier Hansson. It is said that developing a web application on Rails is ten times faster when compared to that of a Java-based web application framework. Rails is open source (of course!) Ruby based framework that can be used for easy (and fast) database integration.

Rails is famous for over-the-top ideas which resulted in shunning conventions and picking up a dynamic programming structure. The basic application code and the updated database will always contain everything that Rails will require to execute a program from start to finish.

A Basic Ruby Program

See how interesting (and easy) things will get after this:

Code:
personal = “I don’t love my girlfriend”
puts personal

Output:
I don’t love my girlfriend

Yep! That will actually be it to print an output in console. No initialization, semicolons and main methods.

Now, let us see a quick difference in programming between PHP and Ruby when we have to reverse a string:

PHP:
strrev(“string”);

Ruby:
“string”.reverse

Voila! Your string will be reversed in no time. See the difference in effort in both the programming languages. A Ruby based programming language will make it easy for you to write a program. It is more like writing in English than in coded language. It is the future of programming languages.

Advantages of Sticking with Ruby (and Rails)

I know the world of Ruby is big and I haven’t scratched the surface of it but a blog post will prove to be overly small to dive into the world of Ruby. Henceforth, let us directly go through the advantages of Ruby:

Elegant – As I have pointed out before, this happens to be the strength of Ruby. As a programming language Ruby is super elegant and almost like English. It is this similarity to English that makes it easy for noobs to take on Ruby without being afraid of it.
Concise and Powerful – Our example above itself explains how concise a Ruby code can be. As short as it can get. Also, Ruby is as powerful as any other language as it is Object Oriented High-Level Programming Language just like other trendy programming languages.
Never Reinvents the Cycle – Rails (based on Ruby) is one programming interface that will never let you reinvent the cycle. It generates codes that can be reused over and over.
Built in Testing – Rails is famous for its harness and fixtures which act as supporting codes that will make it easier for programmers to write their test cases. Also, Rails creates simple test stubs that can be extended by programmers.
Dev, Test and Prod Environments – Rails smartly starts your project in three different environments namely Dev, Test and Prod. All three environments behave a little differently from each other and each complement the original software development life cycle.

Conclusion

You are not done yet. You really aren’t. Hang around with Ruby and keep riding the journey on Rails. Someday you will call yourself a Ruby Pro and who knows, your article might just come in handy for me. Ruby has its disadvantages, and the most obvious of them all is the that it is very new to this game. It is still evolving and has a lot to prove. Still, we know that it is going to go places.

Now, it is in our hands. Either we can wait and let it grow or else jump in and evolve as an expert when there is high demand for Ruby professionals.

If you prefer using proven tools and aren’t that hardcore programmer, read this article about what programming languages to learn.

So Which Is the Best Programming Language to Use and Learn?

The answer you’ll have from the most of the programmers is: “You can do everything with all of them”. All of them are good options. There is no real good or bad answer. It always depends on what you want to accomplish.

If you take a step to learn a programming language, chances are, you will use built-in frameworks to use for your projects. Basically, a web framework makes it easier for you to develop your application. Most sites have a common set of functionality (like handling sessions and data validation), and a framework is something that prevents you from re-writing this each time you create a website.

PHP has several number of developed CMS frameworks available if you already dived in learning it. The most popular PHP CMS are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal with most of them having loads of plugins. You can write new ones easily with a few days of patience and going through the tutorials.

There are others that are quite good too, but using the popular ones increases your probability of finding support quickly or finding that plugin you might need. For Python, there is the Django and CherryPy web framework, which give you quite a good tool kit.

If you go for Ruby, I think you’ll be a bit more limited (since that the language is newer) but its basic framework is Rails. You also need to consider which language offers the best support so that you can find answers quickly in case you encounter problems with your codes.

PHP is the best language for creating HTML pages
Python is a general purpose programming language. It can be used to build almost anything from web apps, crawlers, daemons, and desktop GUI applications.
Ruby is best at creating web application of data entities quickly so that you can focus on the special functionality rather than on the query operations: insert, update and delete.

And that’s it. Hope you gothad an overview of which programming language to learn.

20 of the Best Free Coding Editors

Editorial Team — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 17:22:35 +0000

Great editors can help you code faster, find syntax errors, and much more. Below is a roundup of code editors that will help your web development without breaking the bank.

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: Email, admin, landing page & website templates

Starting at only $16.50 per month!

Editors Choice: Atom.io

Now over the years, many text editors have been created, but only a few have stayed and improved over the years. Atom.io right now is used by all my programmer friends, myself include.

If you want to use the best WYSIWYG HTML editor, that will save you tons of time when coding or doing any editing use Atom. Just try it, you’ll thank me later. Oh and watch their demo video, it’s super cool as well. Best of all.. Atom.io is free and it’s made by Github!

If you don’t love it – come back here and you can call me the meanest words, but I know that will never happen!

1. Aptana Studio (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE)

Aptana Studio is a complete web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with thousands of additional plugins created by the community.

Features of Aptana Studio:

Unified Editing for Web Apps
Ajax and JavaScript Libraries
Ruby on Rails, Python and PHP
Desktop Ajax
Free, Open Source and Cross Platform

2. SlickEdit (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X)

SlickEdit is the multi-platform, multi-language code editor that gives programmers the ability to create, navigate, modify, build, and debug code faster and more accurately.

Features of SlickEdit:

Display symbol details with List Members, function/method argument help, and formatted Javadoc/XMLdoc/Doxygen comments
Analyze symbols and hierarchy with a rich set of tools including Symbols, Class, References, and Find Symbol tool windows
Check in and check out from version control
Diff files and directories
Preview the definition for the symbol under the cursor automatically without lifting a finger. The Preview tool window shows the definition and formatted Javadoc/XMLdoc/Doxygen comments.
Edit files up to 2 GB

3. jEdit (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE)

jEdit is a mature programmer’s text editor with hundreds (counting the time developing plugins) of person-years of development behind it.

Features of jEdit:

Built-in macro language
Plugins can be downloaded and installed from within jEdit using the “plugin manager” feature.
Auto indent and syntax highlighting for more than 130 languages.
Supports a large number of character encodings including UTF8 and Unicode.
Folding for selectively hiding regions of text.
Word wrap.
Highly configurable and customizable.

4. IntelliJ IDEA (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X)

IntelliJ IDEA is a code-centric IDE focused on developer productivity. IntelliJ IDEA deeply understands your code and gives you a set of powerful tools without imposing any particular workflow or project structure.

IntelliJ IDEA is your dream pair-programmer who knows its way around the codebase, makes great suggestions right when you need them, and is always ready to help you shape your code.

Features of IntelliJ IDEA:

Advanced Code Editing
Supported Languages
Technologies & Frameworks
Teamwork Facilitation
Code Quality Features
Integrated Environment
Customization & Extensibility

5. Notepad++ (Windows) (FREE)

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

Features of Notepad++:

Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
WYSIWYG
User Defined Syntax Highlighting
Auto-completion
Multi-Document
Multi-View
Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
Full Drag ‘N’ Drop supported
Dynamic position of Views
File Status Auto-detection
Zoom in and zoom out
Multi-Language environment supported
Bookmark
Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
Macro recording and playback

6. SCREEM (Linux)

SCREEM is a web development environment. It’s purpose is to increase productivity when constructing a site, by providing quick access to commonly used features. While it is written for use with the GNOME desktop environment in mind it does not specifically require you to be running it, just have the libraries installed.

Features of SCREEM:

Broken Link Checking
CTags Support
Cut / Paste
CVS Support
Document Structure Display
DTD/Doctype Parsing
Helper Applications
Inline Tagging
Intelliclose
Link Fixing
Page Previewing
Page Templates
Publishing
Recent documents / Projects
Search / Replace
Select Context
Spell Checking
Syntax Highlighting
Tag Trees
Task management
Wizards

7. EmEditor (Windows) (FREE Trial; €32.15)

EmEditor is a lightweight, but extensible, commercial text editor for Microsoft Windows. Although designed for Windows XP, the program is also certified for use with Windows Vista. Available editions of the program include the 32-bit edition and the 64-bit edition, and the program also includes a portability option to set up a removable drive, such as a USB drive, through an Import and Export Wizard.

Feature-wise, the program includes unicode and large file support, a tabbed window design, and is extensible via plugins and scripts (macros), many of which have been written by the users.

Features of EmEditor:

New Snippets Plugin
Brackets/Quotation Mark Auto-Complete
Narrowing
CSV, TSV and DSV
Full Screen View
Clipboard History
Wildcard Support
Workspace Including Undo Information
New External Tools
Pin to List
Save in Protected Folder
Supports Windows 7 Jump List
New Buttons on Toolbar

8. Programmer’s Notepad (Windows)

Programmer’s Notepad is an open-source text editor targeted at users who work with source code.

Features of Programmer’s Notepad:

Bookmarks (both numbered and plain)
Code Folding/Outlining
Docking tool windows
Excellent external tool support with user-configurable output matching
Export to HTML (using CSS) and RTF
File association manager
In-file method/definition navigation (using Ctags)
No limit on file size (although large files may take a while to load)
Non fixed-width font support
Projects and Project Groups with multi-level folders and file system mirroring
Quick Search toolbar with links to Google and Google Groups
Regular expression search and replace
Support for unicode files
Support for windows, unix and macintosh file formats
Syntax highlighting for many languages through “schemes”.
Tabbed MDI interface
Text Clips
Unlimited number of schemes supported, powerful syntax highlighting supporting both user-defined and built-in schemes
User-defined schemes (XML)
Word-wrapping

9. PSPad (Windows)

PSPad editor is a freeware text editor and source editor intended for use by programmers.

Features of PSPad:

Work with plain text
Create web pages
Want to use a good IDE for their compiler

10. HTML-Kit (Windows)

HTML-Kit is an HTML editor for Microsoft Windows. The application is a full-featured HTML editor designed to edit, format, validate, preview and publish web pages in HTML, XHTML and XML -languages.

Features of HTML-Kit:

Navigate tags and scripts
Code Folding
Batch Search and Replace
Upload Options
Incremental Search and Go-To
File Versioning and Auto Backup
HTML-Kit Shorthand
Not Lost in Translation
Remote Editing with Local Copy
Dockable Plugins
Paste Plus
Native Unicode Support
Multi-Page Templates
Re-order Document Tabs

11. EditPlus (Windows)

EditPlus is a text editor, HTML editor, PHP editor and Java editor for Windows. While it can serve as a good Notepad replacement, it also offers many powerful features for Web page authors and programmers.

Features of EditPlus:

Multiple document interface
Overlappable windows
Tabbed document interface
Window splitting
Spell checking
Regex-based find & replace
Encoding conversion
Newline conversion
Syntax highlighting
Multiple undo/redo
Rectangular block selection
Bracket matching
Auto indentation
Auto completion
Code folding (Text folding)
Compiler integration

12. Crimson Editor (Windows)

Crimson Editor is a professional source code editor for Windows. This program is not only fast in loading time, but also small in size (so small that it can be copied in one floppy disk).

Features of Crimson Editor:

Edit multiple documents
Syntax highlighting
Multi-level undo / redo
Project management
Directory tree view window
Find & Replace
Column mode editing
Natural word wrapping
Spell checker
User tools and macros
Edit remote files directly using built-in FTP client
Print & Print preview

13. Coda (Mac OS X))

Coda is a $99 commercial web development application for Mac OS X, developed by Panic.

Features of Coda:

Plugins
Open quickly
Smart Spelling
Subversion
Find across files

14. BBEdit (Mac OS X) (FREE Trial; From $49 to $125)

Whenever you need to work with text, whether you want to create or maintain a website, write a program or shell script, search log files and extract data, or write a few paragraphs (or pages, or books), BBEdit offers what you need to make accomplishing your task quicker and easier.

BBEdit 9 adds over one hundred new features and over one hundred improvements over the previous version.

Features of BBEdit:

Text Handling
Web Development
Programming
File Handling
Display
Search
UNIX & Admin

15. TextMate (Mac OS X)

TextMate brings Apple’s approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

Features of TextMate:

Ability to Search and Replace in a Project
Auto-Indent for Common Actions Like Pasting Text
Auto-Pairing of Brackets and Other Characters
Clipboard History
Column Selections and Column Typing
Completion of Words from Current Document
CSS-like Selectors to Pinpoint the Scope of Actions and Settings
Declarative Language Grammars for Graceful Mixing and Hacking
Dynamic Outline for Working With Multiple Files
Expand Trigger Words to Code Blocks With Tab-able Placeholders
File Tabs when Working With Projects
Foldable Code Blocks
Function Pop-up for Quick Overview and Navigation
Plug-able Through Your Favorite Scripting Language
Recordable Macros With No Programming Required
Regular Expression Search and Replace (grep)
Run Shell Commands from Within a Document
Support for Darcs, Perforce, SVK, and Subversion
Support for More Than 50 Languages
Switch Between Files in Projects With a Minimum of Key Strokes
Themable Syntax Highlight Colors
Visual Bookmarks to Jump Between Places in a File
Works As External Editor for (s)ftp Programs
Works Together With Xcode and Can Build Xcode Projects

16. SubEthaEdit (Mac OS X)

SubEthaEdit is a powerful and lean text editor. And it’s the only collaborative one that is a joy to use. By combining the ease of Bonjour with the world’s best text collaboration engine, it makes working together not only possible but even fun…

Features of SubEthaEdit:

SubEthaEdit includes various advanced features: A UNIX command line utility to enable complex and interactive pipe workflows with your terminal. Overhauled printing, including all bells and whistles, even with collaborative metadata.

Exporting to HTML, again with metadata. Completely user customizable syntax highlighting through styles. Support for editing files as administrator. Improved AppleScript support to allow control of sharing features.

17. CSSEdit (Mac OS X)

Design beautiful, innovative and fast-loading web sites… with a beautiful, innovative and fast app. CSSEdit’s intuitive approach to style sheets and powerful previewing features will make you deliver awesome standards-based sites in no time!

Features of CSSEdit:

With CSSEdit, you see changes to your style sheet applied in real-time. Without saving. Without uploading. Without hassle. For any Web App or HTML file. You can edit style sheets for absolutely any site, on- or offline.

Thanks to our innovative Override technology, you can even apply your open style sheets to any site and see it change instantly! Styling a Web App used to be a cycle of type — upload — refresh. CSSEdit destroys this waste of time. Making your Web 2.0 App beautiful is now easy and productive.

18. Taco HTML Edit (Mac OS X)

Taco HTML Edit is the premier HTML editor and PHP editor for the Mac. As an HTML editor, Taco HTML Edit empowers its users to rapidly create their own web sites. It is designed exclusively for Mac OS X and has many advanced features including spell checking, live browser previewing, PHP previewing, syntax checking, and much more.

Features of Taco HTML Edit:

Component Library
Code Coloring
Preview
Code Completion
Syntax Checking
Live Preview
Code Clips

19. skEdit (Mac OS X)

skEdit is a text editor for Mac OS X, aimed at web designers and programmers.

Features of skEdit:

Tabbed interface
Project based site management
Code hinting and completion
Code folding
Code snippets
Syntax highlighting
File uploading and remote editing (using FTP, SFTP or WebDAV)
HTML Tidy integration
Search and replace with support for regular expressions

Which software for coding is your favorite? Do you use any of these code editors? If you haven’t got one, now you certainly have some promising programs to choose from!

Create a Simple Twitter App with oAuth and PHP Library

Editorial Team — Sun, 12 Jul 2015 16:00:06 +0000

Everyone on the web is updating to the latest & the most secure technologies with Twitter being the most hyped one as it upgraded from basic Authentication to the more secure Twitter oAuth. Earlier people had to risk their Twitter login credentials if they wanted to use some external Apps that gave them more control over their Twitter profile. Twitter would now be removing the basic Auth to fully support oAuth. As Twitter describes oAuth is:

OAuth is an authentication protocol that allows users to approve application to act on their behalf without sharing their password. More information can be found at oauth.net or in the excellent Beginner’s Guide to OAuth from Hueniverse.

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

DOWNLOAD THE LIBRARY HERE!

NOTE: I strongly suggest that you should click on each of the screen-shots below, so that you can clearly understand what’s going on!

Before starting up, I also suggest you to read the other article on Updating Twitter using PHP as it has some background information about this article. Read it here!

Creating a Twitter oAuth And PHP Library Application

In the first section of this article you will be able to learn, how to create a great but simple app that can update your Twitter status. Ready? Let’s roll.

SETTING IT UP

To get started open up notepad or any other code editor and make three files “index.php, style.css & update.php“. Now download the “download this oAuth library” made by Jaisen Mathai “here“. It is a ready-made library “stamped” by Twitter’s API (itself) which helps you to connect to Twitter using oAuth. Now place all these files in a folder and they should look something like this:

REGISTERING YOUR APPLICATION ON TWITTER

First of all we’ll need to register an app for you on Twitter so that you get your API keys you’ll use.

After reading that previous statement a question might have taken birth in your mind, What’s the purpose of getting these API Keys from Twitter?

We need the API Keys for getting our Application (app) registered on Twitter so that Twitter gives us the right to get the users/visitors authenticated and get their credentials/profile info from Twitter. With the increasing number of Twitter account frauds these days, I think that oAuth is the best step taken by Twitter towards user security. Also, the API keys let Twitter know of the URL where the user will be redirected to after successful authentication/login.

So for that (getting our app registered on Twitter) click here or go to http://twitter.com/apps. Note that you’ll need to login with your Twitter account to register an APP. The registration page that twitter provides is like the one below. I’ll describe everything as we go on!

I have explained the form on the screenshot above so I strongly advise you to have a close look to the form and see what to fill. Below, I have explained all the elements of the file;

Application Icon: If you want to give a pictorial representation to your app then this is the way!
Application Name: Your application’s name. Be ultra-sure to make it catchy!
Description: A small description for your application.
Application Website: A direct link to your application’s website. (For reference)
Organisation: Your organisation {Your may name your website here}, although not needed.
Website: Your Organisation’s website {Your main homepage}, not needed {just for reference}
Application Type: This will probably be Browser unless you use T oAuth in a software.
Callback URL: The URL where Twitter should redirect a user after successful authentication! {See the screenshot for more}
Default Access Type: It should be Read & Write unless you just need to use the profile information of a user.
Use Twitter for login: If you are using Twitter as a Login to your website/application then check this otherwise no need!
Captcha: That’s the most difficult part! ;) haha..Just a captcha and is required!

After that just click on Save and you’ll be redirected to a page where Twitter will give you your API info. in the form of a Consumer Key & the Consumer Secret Key. The page will look something like the one below:

PREPARING TO MAKE THE APPLICATION

To get started, we’ll first need to fill the API keys, we got from Twitter in our Application’s library so that we don’t get confused later on! To do so open the secret.php file in the lib folder and you’ll see something like below:

';
$consumer_secret = '';
?>

Now just add the Consumer Key & the Consumer Secret you got from Twitter in between the quotes. Below is the copy of the secret.php file that 1stwebdesigner’s Twitter application is using:

These API keys {consumer key, consumer secret} enable Twitter to redirect and process your oAuth request to Twitter for login.

OUR APPLICATION FILES

Index.php: Basically this file will do all our work as it shows the “Sign In Through Twitter” button and then processes all our oAuth request using the oAuth library we are using. Co-incidentally, Twitter also redirects the user to this file after successfull authentication {Remember the screenshot above ?}

Update.php: You’ll update your Twitter status using this file. Uses index.php file for form processing. (Explained below!)

Style.css: Contains all the styles that we’ll use for our application.

WRITING THE APPLICATION

Open the Index.php file you made and add the following code to it:

getAuthorizationUrl();
 echo "";
 echo "Sign In with Twitter";
 echo "";
 }
 else
 {
 $twitterObj->setToken($_GET['oauth_token']);
 $token = $twitterObj->getAccessToken();
 $twitterObj->setToken($token->oauth_token, $token->oauth_token_secret);
 $_SESSION['ot'] = $token->oauth_token;
 $_SESSION['ots'] = $token->oauth_token_secret;
 $twitterInfo= $twitterObj->get_accountVerify_credentials();
 $twitterInfo->response;

 $username = $twitterInfo->screen_name;
 $profilepic = $twitterInfo->profile_image_url;

 include 'update.php';

 }

if(isset($_POST['submit']))
 {
 $msg = $_REQUEST['tweet'];

 $twitterObj->setToken($_SESSION['ot'], $_SESSION['ots']);
 $update_status = $twitterObj->post_statusesUpdate(array('status' => $msg));
 $temp = $update_status->response;

 echo "Updated your Timeline Successfully .";

 }

?>

Now I’ll be explaining the whole code used above below (in point form):

We start off by firing our session using:


session_start();

The pre-built PHP function that we are usign above just creates a session or resumes the current one.

To keep the application as simple as we can we include all the files from the library including the secret.php file:


include 'lib/EpiCurl.php';
 include 'lib/EpiOAuth.php';
 include 'lib/EpiTwitter.php';
 include 'lib/secret.php';

We do so as we’ll be interpreting everything in our index.php file.

The rest of the code just helps in getting the user logged in to Twitter using the access tokens.


$twitterObj = new EpiTwitter($consumer_key, $consumer_secret);
 $oauth_token = $_GET['oauth_token'];
 if($oauth_token == '')
 {
 $url = $twitterObj->getAuthorizationUrl();
 echo "";
 echo "Sign In with Twitter";
 echo "";
 }
 else
 {
 $twitterObj->setToken($_GET['oauth_token']);
 $token = $twitterObj->getAccessToken();
 $twitterObj->setToken($token->oauth_token,  $token->oauth_token_secret);
 $_SESSION['ot'] = $token->oauth_token;
 $_SESSION['ots'] = $token->oauth_token_secret;
 $twitterInfo= $twitterObj->get_accountVerify_credentials();
 $twitterInfo->response;

 $username = $twitterInfo->screen_name;
 $profilepic = $twitterInfo->profile_image_url;

 include 'update.php';

 }

After that we define the variables twitterObj & oauth_token to make it easier for us to connect and authenticate with Twitter. Then we open our if statement and check the oauth_token which is our access tokes for the account that will be authenticated with Twitter. We then redirect the user to Twitter’s authentication page using the $url which is defined in one the library files. The $url is made using the access token and the oAuth login link. One of the sample $url is:

http://twitter.com/oauth/authorize?oauth_token=c1iKl42xnvOA76jIqzV4zXRVqFZcYJlYBQsXJC4Hbhw

You can clearly see how Twitter well Twitter uses the oauth_tokens. After that we just open our session with Twitter and then get the profile information of the user from Twitter:


$twitterInfo= $twitterObj->get_accountVerify_credentials();
 $twitterInfo->response;

 $username = $twitterInfo->screen_name;
 $profilepic = $twitterInfo->profile_image_url;

Here we defined the twitterInfo variable which is in short getting a user’s profile credentials from the $twitterObj data and then we use the screen_name & profile_image_url functions to get the profile name and profile image of the logged in user. At the same time we are assigning variables to the profile name and profile and profile image which we will use in the update.php file.

After that we are also including the update.php file using the snippet below:

 include 'update.php';

Now copy the code below to your update.php file:




Twitter oAuth Application by 1stwebdesigner | Update your status




Hello and Welcome to the oAuth Tutorial


Twitter Handle: 
Profile Picture: 


Update Twitter Timeline

This is just a simple HTML page consisting of small chunks of PHP code for showing the user’s username, profile picture of the user as uploaded on Twitter. The page also consists of a text box which the user can use to update his/her status timeline on Twitter. You might have noticed by now that I am using the index.php file for form processing. The code that processes this form and posts to twitter is the one below (already in our index.php file):


if(isset($_POST['submit']))
 {
 $msg = $_REQUEST['tweet'];

 $twitterObj->setToken($_SESSION['ot'], $_SESSION['ots']);
 $update_status = $twitterObj->post_statusesUpdate(array('status'  => $msg));
 $temp = $update_status->response;

 echo "Updated your Timeline Successfully  .";

 }

Here we are taking the data from the textbox named tweet and then posting it to twitter and then notifying the user that his/her message was successfully and his/her timeline was updated.

Our style.css file doesn’t have any special styles that we need to discuss here. They were just used to style the update form.

NOTE: You may want to add the character count and limit as Twitter doesn’t accept any Tweets which consists of more than 140 characters {Even from the API}.

You may now download the completed application files here but don’t forget to edit the secret.php file with your API keys as it won’t work without it. Feel free to build on the application we made today!

TWITTER APPLICATIONS YOU USE USING oAUTH

We all know that Twitter provides an easy-to-use interface for its users. The main advantage of using oAuth is that users can see what applications have access to their profiles. If you want to check that then you can do so by:

Login through Twitter (web-service).
Go to Settings after successful login.
Then click on the Connections tab.
On that page, Twitter gives a list of all the apps that have access to your profile.

You can check that easily by following the screenshot below:

This is a screen-shot of my Connections page which is showing me all the Twitter websites/applications I have given access to!

How to Create a Web Spy with a PHP Web Crawler

Editorial Team — Mon, 26 May 2014 16:00:08 +0000

PHP Web Crawler, spider, bot, or whatever you want to call it, is a program that automatically gets and processes data from sites, for many uses.

Google, for example, indexes and ranks pages automatically via powerful spiders, crawlers and bots. We have also link checkers, HTML validators, automated optimizations, and web spies. Yeah, web spies. This is what we will be doing now.

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Actually I don’t know if this is a common term, or if its ever been used before, but I think it perfectly describes this kind of application. The main goal here is to create a software that monitors the prices of your competitors so you can always be up to date with market changes.

You might think “Well, it is useless to me. You know, I’m a freelancer, I don’t have to deal with this ‘price comparison’ thing.” Don’t worry, you are right. But you may have customers that have a lot of competitors they want to watch closely. So you can always offer this as a “plus” service (feel free to charge for it, I’ll be glad to know that), and learn a little about this process.

So, let’s rock!

Table of Contents:

PHP Web Crawler Tutorial
Getting Smarter Code with PHP Variable Variables and Variable Functions

PHP Web Crawler Tutorial

In this tutorial you will learn how to create a great app for gathering data from other sites, that can be used for your advantage over competitors.

1 – Requirements

PHP Server with linux – We need to use crontab here, so it is better to get a good online server
MYSQL – We will store data with it, so you will need a database

2 – Basic crawling

We will start by trying a basic crawling function: get some data. Let’s say that I sell shoes, and Zappos is my competitor (just dreaming about it). The first product I want to monitor is a beautiful pair of Nike Free Run+. We will use now fopen to open the page, fgets to read each line of the page and feof to check when we need to finish the reading. At this time, you need to have fopen enabled in your server (you can check it via phpinfo ). Our first piece of code will be:

At this point, if you echo the $content you will notice that it has all page contents without any CSS or JS, because on zappos site they are all with relative paths.

Now we have the content, we need to process the product price.

How do you know the difference between price and other ordinary data in our page? Well, it is easy to notice that all prices must have a “$” before them, so what we will do is get all data and run a Regular Expression to see which prices where we have a dollar sign, we have on that page.

But our regular expression will match every price on the page. Since Zappos is a good friend of spies, it has made the “official” price as the first, always. The others are just used in JavaScript, so we can ignore them.

Our REGEX and price output will be something like this:

Wow, we now have the price. Don’t forget the other prices, we will need them if Zappos changes something in their site.

3 – Save data in MYSQL

Let’s prepare our DB to receive this data. Let’s create a table called zappos. Inside of it we will have four columns:

ID – Primary key on this table
Date – When data was stored. It’s good to store this so you can do some reports.
Value – Value that you’ve found
Other_Values – Values that aren’t what you want, but it’s important to store them so if the site owner changes the code you have a “backup” of the possible values

In my phpmyadmin I’ve created a database called spy, and inside it my table zappos, this way:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `zappos` (
  `ID` int(5) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `Date` date NOT NULL,
  `Value` float NOT NULL,
  `Other_Values` char(100) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`ID`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=3 ;

Once you’ve created your table, we will start adding some data. So we will need to do a mysql connect in our PHP and prepare our prices to be saved.

Since all our data is not perfect floats, we need to prepare it so we will have just numbers and a dot.
To connect in our db we will use mysql_connect, and after we will use mysql_select_db to select “spy” and then we can do our mysql_query to save or get our data.

4 – Smarter spy with Crontab

Well, with crontab we can schedule some tasks in our (linux) system so it runs automatically. It is useful for backup routines, site optimizing routines and many more things that you just don’t want to do manually.

Since our crawler needs some fresh data, we will create a cron job that runs every day at 1am. On net.tuts+ we have a really good tutorial on how to schedule tasks with cron, so if you aren’t too familiar with it, feel free to check it out.

In short, we have command lines that we could use for it, (second is my favorite):

#here we load php and get the physical address of the file
#0 2 * * * says that it should run in minute zero, hour two, any day of month, any month and any day of week
0 2 * * * /usr/bin/php /www/virtual/username/cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

#my favorite, with wget the page is processed as it were loaded in a common browser
0 2 * * * wget http://whereismycronjob/cron.php

5 – Let’s do some pretty charts

If you are planning to use this data, just a db record won’t be too useful. So after all this work we need to present it in a sexier way.

Almost all our jobs here will be done by the gvChart jQuery plugin. It gets all our data from tables and make some cool charts out of it. What we have to do actually is print our results as a table, so it can be used by gvChart. Our code this time will be (download our demo for more info!):

";
				echo "
Real Prices on Zappos.com

";
				echo "
";
					echo "
";
						echo "


";
						foreach($dates as $date) {
							$date = explode('-', $date);
							echo "
" . $date[2] . "

";
						}
					echo "

";
				echo "

";
				echo "
";
					echo "
";
						echo "
" . $date[0] . "-" . $date[1] . "

";
						foreach($values as $value) {
							echo "
" . $value . "

";
						}
					echo "

";
				echo "

";
?>

Are you hungry yet?

I think there’s a lot to improve on yet. You could, for example, do a “waiting list” of urls so you could crawl a lot of URL’s with a single call (of course each URL could have his own REGEX and “official price”, if they are from different sites).

And what do you think we could improve?

Now that we are already in PHP let’s take a look at PHP more in depth.

Getting Smarter Code with PHP Variable Variables and Variable Functions

Oh, variables. Who doesn’t love them? They are such nice guys, you know. When you need something, just call $something and your value is there. But something really cool is that you actually don’t need the name of the variable. You can use other variables to access a value of one variable.

For example, let’s say you have two variables $jude = "hey" and $hey = "jude". If you echo $$jude $$hey(yeah, double “$”) your output will be “hey jude”.

But, as you might be thinking it is not just about variables. You can name dynamic functions, methods, arrays, and almost anything you want to.

This time we will see some uses for it, with arrays, functions, classes and how this technique can help you write better code.

So, let’s rock!

Why You Should Use It

Sometimes we need software that is extremely flexible and that we can parametrize. You have to prepare the whole thing, of course, but part of it just comes from user input, and we have no time to change the software just because the user needs a new input.

With variable variables and variable functions you can solve problems that would be much harder to solve without them. We will see some examples below, so I won’t spend long on this, I just want you to keep in mind that you have an option, dear padawan. You can do what your customer wants in a simple way.

Why You Shouldn’t Use It

As anything in our lives this too has a downside.

Truth be told, I don’t use variable variables all the time, and this is because they can make your code a mess. Believe me, for real, a mess.

Instead of reading $imTheProductID you have to read $$product and remember that it refers to product ID. Thus, use it with caution, and when you use it comment the code. I don’t want anybody saying “Oh, man, I’ll kill that Rochester. This guy made my code impossible to read!”

Let’s see what you can do with it.

Variable Ordinary Variables

This is the basic of the basic usage. As I said in my introduction, you can write:

<?php
	$she = "loves";
	$loves = "you";
	$you = "she";

	echo $$loves." ".$$you." ".$$she; // ♫♫ yeah, yeah, yeah ♫♫
	// same that:
	// echo $you.$she.$loves;
?>

If you try this, you will see the output “She loves you”. As you may notice, this is quite confusing, so when you use it be careful.

But you can do much more than echo a song in unreadable variables. Let’s say you want to generate some dummy vars, for testing purposes, as Andre exemplified in php.net documentation, you can do this (modified a little bit):

<?
$a = "a";
for ($i = 1; $i <= 5; $i++) {
  ${$a.$i} = "value";
}

echo "$a1, $a2, $a3, $a4, $a5";
//Output is value, value, value, value, value
?>

The important thing to note here is the curly brackets. They are, in this context, similar to parenthesis in math operations, they say to the PHP processor “Hey, you should first join $a to $i and then you create the variable”. With it you can create variables joining other values, and mixing with strings, with you want (if you do that, I would recommend you use single quotes to prevent PHP warnings).

Variable Arrays

Let’s say you have two groups of data, stored in arrays. If you want to switch between them, the usual way is create an if / else statement, right?

Well, you could do it via variable arrays. Lets see how it could be:

<?php
	$i = 3; //we want the 4th item in the array

	$product = array ( 'TLP2844', 'OSX214Plus', 'E-4205', 'TTP244Plus' );
	$manufacturer = array ( 'Zebra', 'Argox', 'Datamax', 'TSC' );

	$select = $_GET['filter'];
        //hard way
        if ( $select == "product") {
        echo $product[$i];
         } else {
        echo $manufacturer[$i];
        }

        //easy way
        echo ${$select}[$i];
?>

Again, look at the curly brackets. If you don’t use them you will get an ugly error.

This is a very simple example, but you could apply this to many other things, and the main advantage is that if you add, let’s say, another 100 arrays, you don’t have to create 99 “if / elseif / else” statements (or switch, for the smarter programmers :D).

Variable Functions and get_class_methods

As the code above, variable functions is a good alternative to endless if / else or switches.

But another really good use of variable functions is dynamically define which method should be called, based on a variable. Well, examples are always better for this.

Let’s say you sell gadgets online. As a good seller, you have a lot of transport companies that you use, but which one you will use depends on the product bought. When one of your 1,000 employees registers a new product it is saved which company it can use.

Again, if you use common logic you would use a switch, and when you add a new method, it would be a nightmare.

Here, what we could do is use our variable functions and when you save the product data, you also save its shipping method. The magic here is to use the get_class_methods to save the name of the method so we can save it and set it as our method name when we calculate the shipment price.

So it would be something like this:

<?php
/*******************
OUR CLASS
********************/
	class Shipping {
		function free( $data ) {
			return 0;
		}

		function smallProduct( $data ) {
			$price = 100;
			return $price;
		}

		function mediumProduct( $data ) {
			$price = 300;
			return $price;
		}

		function fragileProduct( $data ) {
			$price = 1000;
			return $price;
		}
	}

/****************
WHEN SAVE OUR PRODUCT
*****************/
	include ('pathToOurClassFile.php');
	$class_methods = get_class_methods('Shipping'); // Shipping is our class name!
	//$class_methods output Array ( [0] => free [1] => smallProduct [2] => mediumProduct [3] => fragileProduct )

/***************
WHEN SET OUR SHIPMENT PRICE
****************/
	$myMethod = "mediumProduct"; //it should come from our BD, stored in product data

	$shipment = new Shipping();
	$price = $shipment-> $myMethod ( $data );
	echo $price;

?>

Are you hungry yet?

I think it is a really interesting topic. Why not read a little bit more about it? My main source was php.net manuals, about variable variables, variable functions, and the magic get_class_methods php function.

Tutorials and Resources for Learning PHP

What Is the JavaScript Equivalent To The PHP sleep() Function?

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: Email, admin, landing page & website templates

Using setTimeout()

Using async/await

How To Get a User’s IP Address With PHP

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: 500,000+ WordPress & Design Assets

PHP Contact Form: Create Forms Using HTML & PHP

Your Designer Toolbox Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Contact Form HTML and CSS Tutorial For Dummies

Challenge: Making Contact Form Responsive and Validation

How to Make the Contact Form HTML Work

How To Create a Simple PHP Contact Form

Action and Method of mail.php

Taking a Look at Contact Form

HTML Form Code

Contact Form PHP: How To Actually Create It?

mail.php

Add More Customization To Contact Form

Adding Dropdown Option Boxes

HTML Contact Form with Dropdown Box

Adding Radio Buttons and Checkboxes To a Contact Form

Full Example Using All Elements In Contact Form

Our HTML Contact Form Code

Our completed PHP Contact Form Code

Customizing the Thank you Message on Contact Form Success

Download The Contact Form Files

Contact Form PHP Tutorial: How to Create a Multi-Step Form Using RhinoSlider

Your Designer Toolbox Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Why Use RhinoSlider For Contact Forms?

Introduction to Rhinoslider

Creating the Multi-Step Contact Form

Creating Form Elements for Steps

Account Registration

Converting Rhinoslider Icons to Buttons

Converting Numbered Menu Into Step Menu In Our Contact Form

Adding Step Descriptions

Adjusting Control Buttons In The Contact Form

Validating Contact Form Steps

Customizing the Rhinoslider Plugin

Disable Click Event for Steps

Customizing the Previous Button Functionality

Customizing Next Button Functionality

Customizing Multi-Step Contact Form

Contact Form Tutorial Conclusion

PHP vs Ruby vs Python: The Three Programming Languages in a Nutshell

Your Designer Toolbox Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

PHP: Most Popular Scripting Language for the Web

Advantages of PHP

Disadvantages of PHP

Who Uses PHP?

Popularity

Syntax

Python: General Purpose Programming Language

Advantages of Python

Disadvantages of Python

Who uses Python?

Popularity

Syntax

Job Demand

Ruby: Interpreted, Pure Object-Oriented Programming Language

Advantages of Ruby

Disadvantages of Ruby

Who uses Ruby?

Popularity

Syntax

What is Ruby?

What is Rails?

A Basic Ruby Program

Advantages of Sticking with Ruby (and Rails)

Conclusion

So Which Is the Best Programming Language to Use and Learn?

20 of the Best Free Coding Editors

UNLIMITED DOWNLOADS: Email, admin, landing page & website templates

Editors Choice: Atom.io

1. Aptana Studio (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE)

2. SlickEdit (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X)

3. jEdit (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X) (FREE)

4. IntelliJ IDEA (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X)

5. Notepad++ (Windows) (FREE)

Using `setTimeout()`

Using `async/await`

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets

Your Designer Toolbox
Unlimited Downloads: 500,000+ Web Templates, Icon Sets, Themes & Design Assets