icons-1.0.1.tar.bz2 dbfw-1.1.2.tar.bz2 simple_demo-20060322.tar.gz
DBFW (PHP DataBase FrameWork)
autodetection of the entire DB schema: The framework engine will retrieve all required informations from the DB itself (like all user visible tables, foreign keys, column types, and so on). It will cache the discovered infos in a file under the directory cache/ of the application. If you change the schema, the tables, add/remove columns and so on, you will just need to remove the cache file and the framework will redo the discovery process.
XML-based User Interface specification: The user interface of the application is specified through a set of XML files, which will contain the templates for the application forms and browsers as well as the application menus, the reports and so on….
automatic handling of CRUD functionality: By default, it is able to provide support for creation, read, update and delete of records from all your tables.
automatic handling of Foreign Keys: The framework knows all foreign keys defined among tables, and it will allow its automatic handling whenever you will say so. The automatic handling means navigable html links during the browsing of records from a given table as well as search or select widgets in the editing forms.
multi database support: The framework uses a driver based interface for DB access, which means that new databases backend may be added later, by simply creating the related driver. The framework currently supports the following DB:
PostgreSQL 7.3.X and later
MySQL 4.1.X and later (Check the driver specifications for known limitations)
Oracle 9i and later (it should work, even if it hasn't been used by few years) The framework uses the PEAR library for DB access, so the its internal driver will add only the functionality required by the discovery process and few others not directly provided by the PEAR driver.
simple creation of Reports: You can create a Report (or a group of Reports) simply by specifying the SQL query which generate the data and by choose the output, be it a textual one using a template, or a graphical one, using the GD library or a SVG generator. It supports the following output formats:
HTML
PDF (through the library html2ps, more on this later…)
TSV (tab Separated Values)
XLS (Excel Spreadsheets)
DHTML forms: hierarchical forms are implemented using DHTML so they are handled by the web client for the most part, avoiding unnecessary round-trips. (It should work with almost all recently web browsers).
form nesting: This allows you to create nested forms for editing of related sets of records. All modifications to the set will be committed as a unique transaction, so they will fail or success as a whole.
form validation and error handling: all forms will be validated before their use, and all errors will be notified to the user. The framework uses the exernal JavaScript library overlib to handle tooltips as well as error notifications ( you may find more info at overlib's home page )
support for record history: You may create two additional columns in your tables (a start-of-validity one and a end-of-validity one), tell the framework of them and then it will handle all modifications as storicized modifications (i.e. the records will not be really deleted, just marked as expired).
integrated support for PDF generation, through the external library html2ps based on FPDF. You can find it at html2ps's home page.
javascript calendar for web client date handling: (a really wonderful JavaScript library. Check it out at calendar's home page )
dynamically generated menus: you can generate menus dinamically using SQL queries.
internationalization: it supports full internationalization for both framework and applications using Gettext. They may be handled separately, so you can maintain your application messages indipendently from those of the framework.
privileges: the framework will respect all privileges defined on the DB tables, as well as it will enforce additional privileges, like record based ones (yes, really record based… :) I need to document how they work, though… :)
automatic generation of user documentation: (Work In Progress) Since the application behaviour is specified for the most part in the XML configuration files, it's possible to process those files to generate automatically the core of the User Documentation. Of course, it still need to be completed and edited by hand, but this time you may concentrate on its content. BTW, the generated document will be in DocBook XML format.
pop-up based details views.
many more features, like the handlers (PHP code which can be hooked to specific engine events like the decode event or the post_retrieve and so on), triggers (to allow the use of special triggers on DB that doesn't support triggers that access the tables under modifications, like Oracle and MySQL), foreign key and browser filtering, order-by handling, externally linked pages, and so on…
Last, from the presentation point of view, the HTML pages dinamically generated are all XHTML Transitional 1.0 compliant, and they contain all CSS classes descriptors required to change the look&feel to your heart content.
latest stable release is 1.1.2, released on 2006-03-21
icons-1.0.1.tar.bz2 dbfw-1.1.2.tar.bz2 simple_demo-20060322.tar.gz
latest user manual available online is v. 0.4, released on 2006-04-22 http://dbfw.berlios.de/docs.php
documented on: 2007.01.26
FiForms is a collection of PHP classes that lets you build a Web-database front end in minutes. FiReports uses XML and XSLT to generate high-quality on-screen and printable reports, as well spreadsheets from an SQL query stored in a PHP or XML definition.
FiForms 0.9.3 - A framework for rapid Web application development.
by Daniel (http://freshmeat.net/~databases/) Wed, Dec 21st 2005 22:46
FiForms is a framework of PHP classes that lets you rapidly prototype and develop a Web/database front end using the latest PHP and XML technologies. It currently includes data-entry classes and XML report generation scripts. These libraries utilize the new XML capabilities of PHP 5 to create a framework for developing Web applications completely in XML languages. The FiForms framework also includes a collection of XML Schemas for building these forms, reports, and scripts in XML. FiReports uses XML and XSLT to generate high-quality on-screen and printable reports, as well spreadsheets from an SQL query stored in a PHP or XML definition.
Changes: This release added a FiForms XML Applications framework. Several improvements were made to the classes, including server-side XSLT transformation and added customizability in FiForms_global.inc.php. The authentication system was updated to make the interface more modular. This release also included a mechanism to add concurrency control to alert users if multiple users change the same data. This is implemented through a unique change detection and synchronization system to allow critical OLTP database applications to be implemented in a Web browser.
Release focus: Major feature enhancements License: GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) Project URL: http://freshmeat.net/projects/fiforms/
documented on: 2007.01.26
phpDatabase.net 0.1 - A pure PHP database engine for PHP applications.
by Patrik Jakab (http://freshmeat.net/~ptx73/) Fri, Feb 10th 2006 00:46
about : phpDatabase.net is a pure PHP database script which can be used for an application as a light-weight database. It implements basic database functions like creating and dropping database; creating, changing, and dropping tables and sequences; selecting, inserting, updating, and deleting data from tables; automatic locking of files, so simultanous changing the data is possible; transaction processing, commiting, or rolling back of changes; and a default auto-commiting mode. It is packaged as a single PHP script.
Changes: This is an inital public release.
Release focus: Initial freshmeat announcement License: GNU General Public License (GPL) Project URL: http://freshmeat.net/projects/phpdatabase/
documented on: 2007.01.26