Tag Archives: EasyPHP

Language Word Association Game Tutorial

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Yesterday we created English Word Association Game Primer Tutorial as shown below, to show a draft English only version of a Word Association game good for ESL purposes. Today we build on that functionality by allowing Word Associations in French or German or Spanish or Italian (the other languages offered with altervista thesaurus web service database with Yahoo YQL), in addition, as long as the user supplies the first “seed” word for these languages. Everything about the English functionality stays as is … keeping backward compatibility, as you’d see by clicking the picture of the tutorial below, where you play the English (only) Word Association Game, as we had it yesterday. With yesterday’s yesterday’s Yahoo YQL Web Service JSON Thesaurus Tutorial, using Yahoo Web Services called YQL, as shown below, building on previous ones here at this blog, we effectively signed off on the final (supplementing recent PHP/CSS Sentence Auxiliary Verb Game Tutorial showing CSS #[elementID]:before { content: [prefixContent]; } and #[elementID]:after { content: [suffixContent]; } functionality presented on the day before yesterday) impediment to writing an English Word Association game a teacher of ESL could use for the teaching of vocabulary for an advanced student learning English as their second language (or maybe their first?!). The YQL name is the way it is because it simplified the API aspects of its functionality for the developer to concentrate on SQL, and I’m really supportive of this concept. You don’t have to output in JSON, as other data forms like XML are acceptable. Let’s see what Wikipedia says about YQL below. Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) is an SQL-like query language created by Yahoo! as part of their Developer Network. YQL is designed to retrieve and manipulate data from APIs through a single Web interface, thus allowing mashups that enable developers to create their own applications.[1] Initially launched in October 2008 with access to Yahoo APIs,[2] February 2009 saw the addition of open data tables from third parties such as Google Reader, the Guardian, and The New York Times.[3] Some of these APIs still require an API key to access them. On April 29th of 2009, Yahoo introduced the capability to execute the tables of data built through YQL using JavaScript run on the company’s servers for free.[3] So this tutorial builds on the logic of the thesaurus tutorial of yesterday to use a YQL web service into data emanating from its links to the altervista thesaurus web service database with Yahoo YQL website … thanks. For the altervista thesaurus database usage it is best to request a key for your web service queries. You fill in a word (or two, or three) of interest to search for like-minded words. And what is a thesaurus? Recap on yesterday, perhaps, by reading what Wikipedia says here but, basically, it can be thought of as a repository of a language’s list of words of … Continue reading →

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English Word Association Game Primer Tutorial

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With yesterday’s Yahoo YQL Web Service JSON Thesaurus Tutorial, using Yahoo Web Services called YQL, as shown below, building on previous ones here at this blog, we effectively signed off on the final (supplementing recent PHP/CSS Sentence Auxiliary Verb Game Tutorial showing CSS #[elementID]:before { content: [prefixContent]; } and #[elementID]:after { content: [suffixContent]; } functionality presented on the day before yesterday) impediment to writing an English Word Association game a teacher of ESL could use for the teaching of vocabulary for an advanced student learning English as their second language (or maybe their first?!). The YQL name is the way it is because it simplified the API aspects of its functionality for the developer to concentrate on SQL, and I’m really supportive of this concept. You don’t have to output in JSON, as other data forms like XML are acceptable. Let’s see what Wikipedia says about YQL below. Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) is an SQL-like query language created by Yahoo! as part of their Developer Network. YQL is designed to retrieve and manipulate data from APIs through a single Web interface, thus allowing mashups that enable developers to create their own applications.[1] Initially launched in October 2008 with access to Yahoo APIs,[2] February 2009 saw the addition of open data tables from third parties such as Google Reader, the Guardian, and The New York Times.[3] Some of these APIs still require an API key to access them. On April 29th of 2009, Yahoo introduced the capability to execute the tables of data built through YQL using JavaScript run on the company’s servers for free.[3] So this tutorial builds on the logic of the thesaurus tutorial of yesterday to use a YQL web service into data emanating from its links to the altervista thesaurus web service database with Yahoo YQL website … thanks. For the altervista thesaurus database usage it is best to request a key for your web service queries. You fill in a word (or two, or three) of interest to search for like-minded words. And what is a thesaurus? Recap on yesterday, perhaps, by reading what Wikipedia says here but, basically, it can be thought of as a repository of a language’s list of words of a similar meaning to the word of your interest. It is a great tool for people learning a language foreign to them, especially regarding their vocabulary. With word association, as you might imagine, a thesaurus comes in handy for the words associated with the original word and its chosen followers, but we need functionality like for PHP/Javascript Words Within Words Game Tutorial to get that initial “seed” word chosen from a dictionary. Here is a link to some downloadable PHP programming source code which you may want to rename to word_association.php (and then there is a PHP live run). Did you know? Again we use PHP and we hope this is not … Continue reading →

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PHP/CSS Sentence Auxiliary Verb Game Tutorial

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The easiest English games to design are those that involve discrete words, because then dictionaries and thesauruses can be used. Learning English (for students whose first language is not English (ESL)) is obviously more useful when the student can piece together sentences, so, here, with today’s tutorial, we piece together sentences where auxiliary verbs come into play in the makeup of the complete English sentence. Today’s game asks you to fill in the game’s missing start, middle word, or end to your sentences, in order to complete those sentences (correctly, hopefully?!), and we’ll call the game “The Auxiliary Verb Game” (too snappy for you?!) … and you score points for each correct sentence you form (we may not have thought of all sentences you may construct, and if this happens avail yourself of the Complaints Department). It uses English sentences. Today’s data source inspiration is from A Shorter Guide to English Usage by M.A. Ramsay (p.34) and from Søren Kierkegaard Quotes … thanks a lot. This game mainly utilizes PHP and CSS to create the functionality in a similar way to HTML/Javascript Sentence Auxiliary Verb Game Tutorial as shown below, which primarily used HTML and Javascript functionality. And which is better? Got to say the PHP and CSS make for simpler code and today we use the CSS syntax … #[elementID]:before { content: [prefixContent]; } and #[elementID]:after { content: [suffixContent]; } to insert the equivalent of Javascript DOM document.getElementById([elementID]).innerHTML into these elements, consequently making the HTML a lot simpler … so that the select element can be slotted into the HTML without worrying about whether it sits to the left, center, or right … the CSS “intelligence” takes care of that Generally speaking, with some CSS3 animation and transformation and rotation exceptions, tend to think that “intelligence” belongs more in your Javascript, as far as client functionality goes, but the two usages above, also used during our WordPress Bullet Point CSS Styling Primer Tutorial blog posting, does feel like added “intelligence” to your HTML webpages, which are written out by PHP in our case, because you need the server-side PHP to decide what that :before and :after [prefixContent] and [suffixContent] respectively, should be. Hopefully you can figure the rules when you click the picture above for a live run. Anyway, see how you go with this ESL sentence game that makes use of a (HTML canvas element) chalkboard! Here is a link to some downloadable PHP (mainly with CSS) programming code you could rename to auxiliary_verb_again.php (please note that View->Page Source will show you how simple the HTML becomes compared to the code of tutorial below). There are bits of similarity and perhaps it would be instructive for you to see the similarities and differences between the PHP and the HTML (of the tutorial below) here with auxiliary_verb_again.php Some utf-8 coding considerations came into play with the code above, and … Continue reading →

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PHP Screen Capture and Page Speed Primer Tutorial

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Sounds crazy doesn’t it? What do PHP Screen Capture and Page Speed have in common? Well, nothing really, but these worlds met, because the original premise to do a tutorial about “screen capture in a web way” panned out to be only straightforward for Windows web server scenarios (ie. WAMP (for example EasyPHP … as per image today)), using PHP’s imagegrabscreen function. Am guessing, but suppose the history behind Windows having easier Screen Capture functionality is the Prnt-Scrn keyboard key that has been there since “the year dot” on Windows keyboards. So, not resorting to third-party install solutions, on this occasion, what else is available out there, and the research led to this useful webpage (thanks) where one of the pieces of advice was to make use of Google’s (Web) Page Speed tester here where you get a “mock-up” of what the look of the www.rjmprogramming.com.au (ie. CentOS Linux, not Windows) webpage you are on would be on the Desktop, or as on a Mobile device. If disappointed (that you really wanted more), try some of those other third-party solutions mentioned at that link mentioned earlier. It is all very interesting though. Back to the original premise, hope you know why PHP (or you could have picked other server-side languages, especially ASP.NET (Windows and server-side … perfect!)) was brought into the picture … there is an image that will, probably, need to end up being saved to a web server somewhere, so the server-side should be used … though, do you remember that Javascript method exception with the HTML canvas element mentioned in HTML/Javascript Canvas Image Copy Tutorial … curious, huh? Here is some rudimentary PHP programming source code you could call MyScreenCapture.php (where you might notice the use of $_SERVER[‘SERVER_SOFTWARE’] to test whether you have a Windows Apache web server (ie. WAMP), as distinct from LAMP (you guessed it, Linux) or MAMP (right again, Mac)). And here is a link to this blog posting tested for speed using Google’s (Web) Page Speed testing functionality. If you have a serious need for this screen capture work, hope to get you thinking, at least, today. Or perhaps it got you thinking about some web page optimization you want help with (where the Google Page Speed tester may come into its own)? If this was interesting you may be interested in this too.

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Virtual Hosts with EasyPHP Primer Tutorial

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Just supposing you run one web server, and want to handle more than one domain name, with control over the handling of each name (today we end up with a url of “quiz” which means something!). This is the concept of Virtual Hosting. As you can imagine the price of such shared web hosting might be lower, and so it normally pans out. A case in point, for this blog, is its web hosting at Crazy Domains where rjmprogramming.com.au hosting started with such a Virtual Hosting arrangement, grew, and now is hosted on a Dedicated Virtual Hosting Web Server with Crazy Domains. The EasyPHP web server product for Windows installs a WAMP framework environment for an Apache/PHP/MySql web server arrangement. EasyPHP’s DevServer product also allows for the download and install of a Virtual Hosting module, which we install and play with today, though in real practice you’d want it to do more dazzling things than we ask it to do … today we are just giving you food for thought and you may see great uses for this functionality if you are hosting webpages and applications now, or into the future. Web hosting is a big topic, Virtual Hosting being one of the many maintenance tasks involved. Think also A records and MX records as two more examples of maintenance issues that in large hosting organizations can employ the services of one or more staff permanently, or as part of a dedicated help desk team. If this was interesting you may be interested in this too.

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Apache/PHP/MySql phpBB Forum Primer Tutorial

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Here is a tutorial that introduces you to an “out of the box” forum and message box solution (or bulletin board), should you, as a business, be heading that way. Let’s see our tutorial stream of consciousness view of the Downloading, Install and overview of Administration of the Forum product called phpBB (via Apache webserver (“out of the box” install via EasyPHP on Windows) using PHP and MySql). The tutorial shows the Administration area of the phpBB website. Often the term “backend” is applied to websites and this can variously be thought of as, in its narrow view, the database and its structure and design and maintenance, and in the wider view, this Administration section of an phpBB website, where it is maintained, and has that interface to the database and the “frontend” (the forum itself) presented to the web user. This Administration “backend” is never designed to be accessible by unregistered users nor your normal shopping user, and is maintained, normally, by users with administrative priviledges. Link to Forum information via Wikipedia. The phpBB product is a PHP/MySql product and you can compare and contrast it with other Forum products here at this domain. With the emphasis on PHP Forum above it does not mean that there are not excellent ASP.NET Forum in the marketplace. If this was interesting you may be interested in this too.

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Apache/PHP/MySql Prestashop eCommerce Primer Tutorial

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Here is a tutorial that introduces you to eCommerce as an “out of the box” solution, should you, as a business, be heading that way. Earlier we talked a bit about CMS in the same way with Content Management System Primer Tutorial as shown below. Let’s, today, show you one of EasyPHP’s “out of the box” install eCommerce offerings called Prestashop. It has a good look and feel, and will give you a flavour of what goes into making a useful, productive and manageable eCommerce website using Apache/PHP/MySql in Windows. Electronic commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of business transactions. This is an effective and efficient way of communicating within an organization and one of the most effective and useful ways of conducting business. By the way, should you need a window cleaner, try this … chortle, chortle. The way you might differentiate the quality of eCommerce platforms is via: Does the eCommerce programming language and database agree with the hosting requirements? Given databases of the same size which eCommerce website runs faster (the world gets more impatient, but the data keeps accumulating)? How good is its content editing? How easy is it to tailor to your own requirements? How good is its third-party add-ons and plugins support? How good is its product support? What content form is allowed (eg. blogs, forums, pages)? What content type is allowed (eg. images, videos, audios)? How friendly are its SEO principles? How good are the controls for user functionality and restrictions? How good are its payment gateway arrangements? How good is its account reporting functionality? How good are its subsidiary marketing tools (eg. social media, subscriptions, feeds)? How mobile-ready are the websites/mobile apps it produces? How efficient is its Administration backend maintenance functionality? If website involves monetary transactions, is SSL supported? Is there good support for website security related plugins and/or addons or other software maintainance? Let’s see our tutorial stream of consciousness view of the Downloading, Install and overview of Administration of the eCommerce product called Prestashop (via Apache webserver (“out of the box” install via EasyPHP on Windows) using PHP and MySql). Please note the product has come on, in versions, from the one presented here, and so, with this in mind, we won’t dwell on payment gateway functionality during the tutorial (though you should find out a lot about the eCommerce website product’s facilities, here, when choosing a product … PayPal is a big player here), but instead, think of it as a stream of consciousness, test drive, and what to expect type of tutorial. The tutorial shows the Administration area of the Prestashop website. Often the term “backend” is applied to websites and this can variously be thought of as, in its narrow view, the database and its structure … Continue reading →

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EasyPHP Windows Framework for PHP/MySql Tutorial

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Are you writing PHP with MySql bits, as well, maybe? Wonderful! Do you have a testing environment, or do you load everything live straight away? For simple things, the latter is tempting, but it is not great, and for complex things it is definitely not a good idea. It is amazing what you forget to take into account that can be sorted out using a local webserver to test your code. For Mac, MAMP is great. For PC as far as local webservers go you have EasyPHP (which is great and subject of our tutorial here), Cassini or WAMP (EasyPHP gives you a WAMP framework). Here we are going to show you bits of EasyPHP framework below. These types of products are sometimes known as PHP Frameworks. Having once pieced together individual installs of Apache, PHP and MySql I can tell you it is brilliant the way EasyPHP installs all of these three framework components within the one install. You are using it within five minutes of install, which is such an improvement on the old days of individual installs. EasyPHP also has phpMyAdmin … need I advertise more?! Let’s go … we’ll start by looking for a place to download EasyPHP … and then skip to screens showing its features after you have installed it … the place where you should store your PHP (for EasyPHP version 12.1) is off the directory C:Program FilesEasyPHP-12.1www ( which equates to http://127.0.0.1/ ). Link to EasyPHP … here. If this was interesting you may be interested in this too.

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