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Create the „rating.php“, and add the following lines:

<?php
require_once('bootstrap.php'); // Setup Zend Framework Environment
header("Cache-Control: no-cache");
$rating = new Mylib_Rating_Controller();
$score = $rating->setRatingById($_GET['id'], $_GET['val']); // rate object and get scores
echo Zend_Json::encode($score); // send response array in JSON format
?>

The setRatingById passes the values from your JavaScript to the (soon to be created) controller, and receives the updated values from your (soon to be created) database. When I started out using jQuery in combination with Ajax, I was kind of afraid to find it difficult… but it really is that easy 😉

Next up: The rating controller

The post No-MVC Zend Framework: jQuery Ajax receiver / Part V appeared first on Jörg Drzycimski.

The JavaScript

Before continuing (or if this doesn’t work for you), you might want to familiarize yourself with the Star Rating plugin at http://zensoftware.org/archives/483.

Add the following lines to the HEAD section of your „index.php“. This assumes that you already have one… if not, use you standard HTML template, and don’t forget to include your bootstrap 😉

<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery/js/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/rating/jquery.rating.js"></script>
<link type="text/css" href="/js/rating/jquery.rating.css" rel="stylesheet" media="screen" />

<script type="text/javascript">
$(function(){

 $(".rating")
 .rating({"showCancel": false})
 .bind("change", function(){
   var id = $(this).attr("id");
   var rate = "id=" + id + "&val=" + $(this).val();
   var loading = 'Loading';
   // Or use image instead, looks prettier ;-)
   // var loading = '<img src="/images/loading.gif" />';
   $.ajax({
     type: "GET",
     url: "/includes/rating.php",
     dataType: "json",
     data: rate,
     timeout: 10000,
     beforeSend: function(){
       $("#rating_value_" + id).html(loading);
     },
     success: function(response){
       $("#rating_value_" + id).html(response.average + " points");
     },
     error: function(){
       $("#rating_value").html("Error!");
     }
    }); // end ajax
  }); // end rating / bind

}); // end $()
</script>

I used „loading“ as a variable (as opposed to the direct output of „Error!“). You can Google the standard Ajax loading image, and put the HTML image tag in that variable to pretty things up, instead of that boring message.

BTW, I always use a leading slash and the complete path in relation to the root directory (e.g. „/images“) before each image, JS and CSS file. This way, I don’t have to worry about broken links when I split header and content sections into different files, and move them to different directories… which I favorize, because header sections are the same throughout the website, whereas content sections might use different templates.

The PHP / HTML code

You can put this code anywhere within your BODY section of your „index.php“, even in existing pages‘ DIVs:

<?php
$id = 1;
$rating = new Mylib_Rating_Controller();
echo $rating->getRatingView($id);
?>

Set the variable „$id“ to any unique id you want to rate. On my website surfspot.de, I use it to rate a page, so the id comes from my database, and represents the page id. If you have more than one rating on one page, say for a couple of images, instantiate the class once, and only use echo $rating->getRatingView($id) with a different id for each image.

Next up: The jQuery Ajax receiver

The post No-MVC Zend Framework: jQuery Star Rating code / Part IV appeared first on Jörg Drzycimski.

Installing Zend Framework

On your server, add some directories to accomodate ZF, jQuery, and your own PHP files. Assuming that you start from scratch, you need to point your webserver to the „public“ directory, instead of  „document root“. This way, one can’t access your lib files, e.g. configs, by URL.

> document root
  > library
    > Mylib
    > Zend
  > public
     > images
     > includes
     > js
       > jquery

Download the lastest ZF version at http://framework.zend.com/download/latest, and unpack the files. Get the content of the „library/Zend“ form your archive, and copy it into the „library/Zend“ folder on your server. Next, get the latest of jQueryUI at http://jqueryui.com/download, and put the content in the „jquery“ folder. jQueryUI is just a nice JavaScript framework (that word again…) with widgets and effects… you might need them later 😉

A short note: though ZF supports the Dojo JavaScript framework, I personally prefer jQuery. Dojo definetly has the cooler widgets, but the support sucks… no forum to speak of, and mailing list support slow if ever. If you run into problems with Dojo, you’re basically on your own… the exact opposite of jQuery, where you 1. get support within hours, and 2. rarely run into problems to begin with 😉 Just my 2 cents…

Anyway, the part missing for our little tutorial is the Star Rating plugin for jQuery. Get it at http://zensoftware.org/archives/483, and put it in your „js“ folder, into a „rating“ subdirectory.

Next up: Bootstrapping ZF

The post No-MVC Zend Framework: Installing ZF & jQuery / Part II appeared first on Jörg Drzycimski.

Now, a couple of months and some 100 liters of coffee later, some parts of the structure of ZF, or even the need for the structure itself, is still a mystery to me. The separation of Model, View and Controller, IMHO, is not too bad in itself, but separating all those components into different directories, as well, only adds to the confusion. In other words, my attention span is just not long enough to figure where to change action, view and so on when those are spread across my whole server 😉

Anyway, somewhere along the line ZF introduced “ ZF Applications“… including my worst enemy – CLIs 😉 That´s the point where I started to think that it should be possible to use ZF like a „normal“ PHP library – the old „include“ way – with only those components needed to perform the task. And that’s the beauty of ZF: it is possible. You don’t have to bother with the ZF way of doing things, you can just simply utilize all of their classes to suit your own purpose, in your own way.

In this little series, I will share my experience doing exactly that, hoping you’ll be able to skip some of the pitfalls I came across.

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