Silverstreak

This is a small php framework... actually more like a collection of files if you will. This set of files that might be useful if you are under the following situations:

1. Designing a brochure (5-6 page) website and maybe it has a form
2. Don't need a database
3. Using a LAMP Stack
4. Want an easier way to work with the post/get requests and/or forms for that matter

Features

1. an .htaccess for nice SEO friendly urls, so you can call pages with 'index' instead of index.php, this only works on the the main root directory and not any subdirectories
2. stop writing echo all the time, certain methods such as link_to automatically echoes the output, so:

INSTEAD OF:

   echo link_to("Home Page");
 

YOU CAN WRITE:

   link_to("Home Page")
 

3. nice abstraction methods for checking on request methods and form submitting 4. some form helpers and text helpers... 5. dry layouts and views, in the railsy format 6. rake generators for generating layouts and view stubs

Requirements

• Rake (get it at : http://rake.rubyforge.org/)
• Apache (Litespeed works okay though, except .htaccess doesn't work)

Installation

Just put the silverstreak folder inside a php site like so:

- my_cool_website
  |- silverstreak

1. cd silverstreak

2. rake silverstreak:install

3. it should generate a public folder with all the files that you need in the root of your web/project folder, so make sure you point your vhost to my_cool_website/public

4. it will generate a default index.php file for you, on any pages that you setup, make sure that the following line is at the top of the page, so that you can use all the features for silverstreak, the index file is basically a stub for the index view
   (more information about layouts and views below):

How it Works

Think MVC without the Model or even the Controller, this is more like just the View and Layout, when you submit a request, this is what happens:

1. GET http://yoursite.com/
2. Attempts to find the default document (which might be 'index' in this case)
3. Renders index.php (which is just a stub)
4. Looks for any form helpers/helpers/layouts/views named 'index', it will render the application layout if the 'index' layout cannot be found

Generators

Silverstreak uses rake to generate stubs for helpers, views, form_helpers, and layouts. Simply call Rake generate:[command] to use. Here are the following generators:

1. generate:view FOR='name of view'
2. generate:layout FOR='name of layout'
3. generate:helper FOR='name of helper'
4. generate:form_helper FOR='name of form helper'

Helpers and methods

Silverstreak uses form helpers and standard page helpers, they are located in:

Location of page helper - public/helpers/[name of request]

Location of form helper - public/form_helpers/[name of request]

Page helpers are files that contain page specific methods that you can use for a specific page. Form helpers are somewhat like controllers, but their main purpose is to process forms. When you write form helpers, forget using the $_POST varables to access form values, simply call a form value by its name:

INSTEAD OF:

  $_POST['first_name']

DO:

  $first_name

An example of a form helper might look like this:

if (is_form_submitted()) {
  $subject = "Someone has just contact you!";

  $body = "The following person has signed up: \n";
  $body .= "--------\n\n";  
  $body .= "Here is the information that was submitted:\n\n";
  $body .= "Email : $email\n";

  mail($email_to, $subject, $body, 'From:you@yourwebsite.com');
}

Deployment

Using capistrano is overkill, it has been replaced with rsync, chmod 755 config/deploy.rb Open and configure the following variables:

• FROM : location/of/project
• SERVER : hostname or ip of server
• TO : destination/of/project/on/server

Then run ./config/deploy.rb to deploy site

Public Helper Methods

link_to

Somewhat similar to rails' link_to method, this will automatically generate an anchor with to the page you want it to link to.

link_to($content='',$href='',$title='');

USAGE

link_to("Home");
  #=> <a href='home' title='Home'>Home</a> # it works because of the .htaccess

link_to("Home", "index.php");
  #=> <a href='index.php' title='Home'>Home</a>

link_to("Home", "index.php", "Go to Home Page")
  #=> <a href='index.php' title='Go to Home Page'>Home</a>

partial

Includes a file, I know you can use include, but if you following the convention of naming your partials (pages) with a leading underscore (_) then it will automatically know that it is a partial.

partial($name);

USAGE

partial('nav') #=> include('_nav.php');

display_partial_if

Displays a partial if a given condition is true... can be useful if you are displaying user specific data.

display_partial_if($condition, $partial);

USAGE

display_partial_if(is_form_submitted(),'success');
# => will display the success partial after the form is submitted

dasherize

Replaces spaces in a string with dashes

dasherize($string);

USAGE

dasherize("Black magic woman");
# => "Black-magic-woman";

underscore

Replaces spaces in a string with underscores

underscore($string);

USAGE

underscore("Black magic woman");
# => "Black_magic_woman";

select_for_states

Generates a select form element that will have a list of all the states in the US.

select_for_states($name_of_select='state');

this_file

Returns the name of the current file in question

this_file();

this_page

Basically echoes this_file(), use this when you need to echo the page name

this_page();

request_method

Returns the request method, (GET or POST), basically an abstraction from $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'];

request_method();

is_form_submitted

Checks whether the form has been submitted or not.

is_form_submitted($submit_name="submit", $method="POST");

is_post_request

Returns true if the request method for the page is POST

is_post_request();

is_get_request

Returns true if the request method for the page is GET

is_get_request();

include_css

Includes css files from the css directory, you can pass an array to include multiple css files.

// single css file
include_css('default');

// multiple css files
include_css(array('default','app'))

include_js

Includes js files from the javascripts directory, you can pass an array to include multiple js files.

// single js file
include_js('app');

// multiple js files
include_js(array('jquery','app'))

yield

Yields the output for the view, mainly used in layouts to designate where the view file will output to:

// assuming this paragraph is in your layout file somewhere
<p><?php yield(); ?></p>

include_js_lib

Hooks into the google ajax libraries, so you can use any library you want! get more info at google

// include jquery 1.3.2
include_js_lib('jquery-1.3.2');

// include jquery 1.3.2 and jqueryui-1.7.2
include_js_lib('jquery-1.3.2','jqueryui-1.7.2');

tag($name,$content,$attrs)

Creates an (opening and closing) html tag.

// <h1 title="Sweet" class="heading">My Header</h1>
tag('h1','My Header','title="Sweet" class="heading");

single_tag($name,$attrs)

Creates a self closing tag.

// <img src="http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif" />
single_tag('img', 'src="http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif"');

output_tag($name,$content,$attrs)

Echos an (opening and closing) tag.

// <h1 title="Sweet" class="heading">My Header</h1>
output_tag('h1','My Header','title="Sweet" class="heading");

output_single_tag($name,$attrs)

Echos a self closing tag.

// <img src="http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif" />
output_single_tag('img', 'src="http://www.google.com/intl/en_ALL/images/logo.gif"');