a useful php library

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s.dot
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a useful php library

Post by s.dot »

So as my boredom continues, I want to write a library (pure php coding...) to do something useful, that the PHP community at large could use.

Either something that hasn't been done before (ha!) or libraries that have currently weak implementations and could be improved upon.

I have all the time in the world to learn the intricate details of any area, so that wouldn't be a problem.

I thought about a php video watermarker.. which I think requires me to learn the structure of movie files. But eh, I'm not so hot on that one.

Any other ideas?
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Post by onion2k »

Well, the ones I use on a regular basis are ADODB Lite, SwiftMailer, SimpleTest and FPDF. Plus a few others on occasion like Templatelite and JPGraph. Most bases are covered.

The one thing that's missing from the puzzle is user management. A generic library that maintained all the basic elements of user data (username, password, name, address, telephone, email, website, etc), with a 'plugin' system for defining a user schema and hooking into a database would be grand. If it could do access control (privileges, user groups, etc) that'd be good too. Bonus points for things like OpenID and Windows Live (Passport) logins too.

The only problem with that is that it might be a little broad a scope for a library.
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s.dot
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Post by s.dot »

Yeah, that's a bit broad of a spectrum there.

Another idea would be a hashing algorhythm. Creating my own would be pretty sweet.
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

scottayy wrote:Yeah, that's a bit broad of a spectrum there.
You could start small in a sense that even newbies who were too lazy to write their own user system could use it and have it grow from there. I'd be willing to put in if you take this project up. I think too many programmers are too protective of their user systems, and to have one where just about anyone could use it and implement it would be nice. I've considered doing it myself, but until I'm done my current project, I feel I'd put too much time into it.
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Post by xpgeek »

Any e-commerce solutions which helps to build e-commerce websites would be great.
I want to grow own e-commerce library if you want we can start together.
My features list for library:
-- support basic shipping systems;
-- support basic payment systems;
-- support customers managment;
-- you can continue this list :wink:
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The Phoenix
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Post by The Phoenix »

onion2k wrote:Well, the ones I use on a regular basis are ADODB Lite, SwiftMailer, SimpleTest and FPDF. Plus a few others on occasion like Templatelite and JPGraph. Most bases are covered.
I could deeply enjoy a version of TemplateLite with the security functions from Smarty included.
onion2k wrote:The one thing that's missing from the puzzle is user management. A generic library that maintained all the basic elements of user data (username, password, name, address, telephone, email, website, etc), with a 'plugin' system for defining a user schema and hooking into a database would be grand. If it could do access control (privileges, user groups, etc) that'd be good too. Bonus points for things like OpenID and Windows Live (Passport) logins too.

The only problem with that is that it might be a little broad a scope for a library.
I think if you start with the absolute basics - a library that takes in user data, and responds with simple auth/no-auth or even ACL levels would be reasonable in scope. If you nailed that, and made it pluggable, extending either side (auth complexity, or user data complexity) could be accomplished by the community.

Considering the number of posts on these forums regarding secure authentication, I think you'd have a ton of people willing to help with it.

Myself included. :)
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

scottayy wrote:Another idea would be a hashing algorhythm. Creating my own would be pretty sweet.
PHP 5 has some pretty insane built in hash algorithms already.

Perhaps you could create a sessions management tool that does everything that PHP sessions do not.
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Post by The Phoenix »

Everah wrote:Perhaps you could create a sessions management tool that does everything that PHP sessions do not.
Interesting comment. Elaborate on some examples?
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

I think the biggest thing that irritates developers is the garbage collection timing being set to 24 minutes by default. Of course that can easily be changed to however long you want, but things get a little weird the longer GC time is extended. I know a lot of developers opt for databased session management (I am one of those) but if native PHP sessions were improved a bit I might consider using them more.
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Post by onion2k »

A good paging class would be useful.
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Post by superdezign »

onion2k wrote:A good paging class would be useful.
Though, the only thing that could really be done that hasn't already been done by a pagination class (to my knowledge) is to allow the queries to be handled within the class. Not exactly sure how that'd be accomplished, though.
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Maybe through abstraction within the class? Though that might not work very well, if at all.
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Post by Luke »

I was working on an ical/vcal library earlier this year. I haven't had much time to spend on it, and I doubt I'll finish it. A library that would read and write ical files would be very nice to have. I know there are some people working on a PHP ical/vcal library, but I couldn't find any that do exactly what I want and I don't think either were capable of writing them... only reading. I would be willing to help you if you chose this project. Otherwise, I'll continue working on mine once a year. LOL

Here's the RFC for icalendar: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt
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