Does anyone know of any good PHP tutorial books out there? One were I can easily learn to add my own code to CMS like Drupal and forums like this one (phpbb)?

What's your background in software development?

There are a number of useful sites I can recommend, but I don't touch PHP often. The reason I ask though is that having knowledge of programming will help a lot. PHP is an almost fully featured programming language, so understanding standard programming concepts like basic design patterns and coding standards will be a big boon.

If you have no background in programming and want to dive in:
http://www.tizag.com/phpT/

If you have a basic understanding of programming and want a jump start for PHP:
http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/forum ... tutorials/

If you're a programmer - it reads and writes a lot like Java, just read over the API
http://php.net

DepricatedZero wrote:What's your background in software development?

I have a little knowledge of php. This site I'm trying to build has a little php code already in it. I have my html headers and footers separated from the body and use the include function to attach it to the body. Other than that I'm a complete n00b.

DepricatedZero wrote:There are a number of useful sites I can recommend, but I don't touch PHP often. The reason I ask though is that having knowledge of programming will help a lot. PHP is an almost fully featured programming language, so understanding standard programming concepts like basic design patterns and coding standards will be a big boon.

Thank you so much for the links. I will start with the basics and go from there.

DepricatedZero wrote:If you have no background in programming and want to dive in:
http://www.tizag.com/phpT/

If you have a basic understanding of programming and want a jump start for PHP:
http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/forum ... tutorials/

If you're a programmer - it reads and writes a lot like Java, just read over the API
http://php.net

Right on! Not judging, it's just important to know your audience. I don't want to talk over your head, you know? Or toss out suggestions for methods you might not be familiar with.

I don't know what you use to write in, but if you grab a copy of Notepad++ you can get a PHP addon that will add autocomplete features to it for PHP.

DepricatedZero wrote:Right on! Not judging, it's just important to know your audience. I don't want to talk over your head, you know? Or toss out suggestions for methods you might not be familiar with.

I don't know what you use to write in, but if you grab a copy of Notepad++ you can get a PHP addon that will add autocomplete features to it for PHP.

I use bluefish and thanks again.

http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/index.html

tuxbox wrote:
I have a little knowledge of php. This site I'm trying to build has a little php code already in it. I have my html headers and footers separated from the body and use the include function to attach it to the body. Other than that I'm a complete n00b.

This looks like the beginning of Spaghetti code. Maybe it'd be worth trying to learn an MVC framework or at least use a template engine like Twig

Some PHP frameworks:

• Laravel
• Yii
• CakePHP

Frameworks are nice, they provide you with loads of components but this results in a bigger overhead in learning. It'd definitely be a good idea to familiarise yourself with the MVC design pattern, which is implemented by most of the web frameworks.

On the other hand, if you want to write plugins for a CMS, like Joomla, you'll have to learn the specifics of that give CMS. How to access database or how to render content using components provided by the CMS. (a CMS will still follow MVC pattern)

WarK wrote:

tuxbox wrote:
I have a little knowledge of php. This site I'm trying to build has a little php code already in it. I have my html headers and footers separated from the body and use the include function to attach it to the body. Other than that I'm a complete n00b.

This looks like the beginning of Spaghetti code. Maybe it'd be worth trying to learn an MVC framework or at least use a template engine like Twig

Some PHP frameworks:

• Laravel
• Yii
• CakePHP

Frameworks are nice, they provide you with loads of components but this results in a bigger overhead in learning. It'd definitely be a good idea to familiarise yourself with the MVC design pattern, which is implemented by most of the web frameworks.

On the other hand, if you want to write plugins for a CMS, like Joomla, you'll have to learn the specifics of that give CMS. How to access database or how to render content using components provided by the CMS. (a CMS will still follow MVC pattern)

Thanks WarK, I will check these links out. I really appeciate the help.

This has nothing to do with this thread, but could someone tell me the IRC channel LoR is on?

tuxbox wrote:This has nothing to do with this thread, but could someone tell me the IRC channel LoR is on?

Network: irc.oftc.net
Channel: #lor

You can click "Chat" tab at the top of this page which should open the OFTC webchat.

WarK wrote:

tuxbox wrote:This has nothing to do with this thread, but could someone tell me the IRC channel LoR is on?

Network: irc.oftc.net
Channel: #lor

You can click "Chat" tab at the top of this page which should open the OFTC webchat.

It does, but I prefer to use irc software to connect, but mine doesn't have that channel, so I guess I wil have to use the chat tab. Thanks WarK.

I change my chat client and found it.

What DZ said.

You're a GNU/Linux guy, right Tuxbox? Which client were you using that couldn't attach to OFTC?

Yep, I run Debian. The client was xchat-gnome, but I just over looked OFTC. It was there all along. I'm using the non-gnome version of xchat now.

Ah, right, thought so. I installed that once. I remember finding the lack of comprehensive settings annoying.