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The CodeIgniter framework is a secret weapon for many web developers as it allows you to quickly build complex web applications in a structured and organised way. I started using CodeIgniter over a year ago now so I've approached Packt's CodeIgniter 1.7 by Jose Argudo Blanco and David Upson as a way of expanding upon when I've already learnt from the user guide, forums and a book which I had previously read from Wrox called Professional CodeIgniter by Thomas Myer.

For some reason, even though I have the PHP Development Tools (PDT) installed in Aptana Studio (2.0), I'm not able to select 'PHP nature' in the 'Project natures' of an imported project. I can start a new PHP Project which will have the 'PHP nature' selected as primary nature, but this doesn't even appear as an option in imported projects. The only two natures that are available are 'Remote Nature' and 'Web Nature'. The 'PHP nature' adds some really useful functions, like grouping my @todos into Aptana's Tasks view and also other handy things like auto-completing PHP docblocks.

To get the 'PHP nature' associated with your imported project you can manually edit the .project file which Aptana creates in your imported project directory so that it contains the 'PHP nature'. To do this, add the following code between the <natures> tags in your .project file:

<natures>
   <nature>org.eclipse.php.core.PHPNature</nature>     
</natures>

You may need to re-load Aptana to refresh the project but you should now find that your imported project has a primary 'PHP nature' set.

Note: Please do this at your own risk; although it worked fine for me I don't know if it will cause any side effects to the project or Aptana.

I was recently sent a copy of a book from Packt Publishing to read and review called CodeIgniter 1.7 by Jose Argudo Blanco and David Upton. I'll be interested to see how the book compares to what I've learnt so far about CodeIgniter (>1 years experience CodeIgniter and >4 years php) and see what else it can offer, especially in terms of planning and managing application projects. The description on the Packt Publishing website says:

"This book explains how to work with CodeIgniter in a clear logical way. It is not a detailed guide to the syntax of CodeIgniter, but makes an ideal complement to the existing online CodeIgniter user guide, helping you grasp the bigger picture and bringing together many ideas to get your application development started as smoothly as possible.

This book will start you from the basics, installing CodeIgniter, understanding its structure and the MVC pattern. You will also learn how to use some of the most important CodeIgniter libraries and helpers, upload it to a shared server, and take care of the most common problems. If you are new to CodeIgniter, this book will guide you from bottom to top. If you are an experienced developer or already know about CodeIgniter, here you will find ideas and code examples to compare to your own."

I'll be posting a review of the book on my blog shortly. This review is now online.

Links

• Full table of contents
• Sample: Chapter 3 – "Navigating Your Site"
• CodeIgniter 1.7 on Packt Publishing website

It's that wonderful time again! CodeIgniter 1.7.0 has been released, so it's time to upgrade.

http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/installation/upg...

Upgrading looks fairly straight forward - here are some notable changes (http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/changelog.html):

As of Drupal 5.6 you will no longer be able to install the CMS onto a server with register_globals enabled. The notice on the Drupal website says:

"We no longer support servers with the PHP directive register_globals set to on. Attempts to install Drupal 5.6 when register_globals is enabled will fail. Current installations will continue to function, but will display an error on administration pages and the status report."

This check was introduced as a fix for the Cross site scripting vulnerability (DRUPAL-SA-2008-007) which occurs when register_globals is enabled. I was upgrading my Drupal installation from 5.5 when I found out so I only suffered the error on the status report, but people running a fresh install will find they can’t go any further until they disable register_globals.