One of the features I stressed in PHP Solutions was the need to write secure code. On page 378, I said it was essential to display error messages in a development environment so that you can debug your code. However, raw error messages look unprofessional in a live website. Well, guess who forgot to take his own advice? Yes, it was me—guilty as charged. Do as I say, not do as I do. (more…)
9 comments January 22nd, 2008
A question in the friends of ED forum from a reader of The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3 with CSS, Ajax, and PHP has alerted me to a change in the way Spry 1.6 handles HTML tags in CDATA sections of an XML file. This results in most of the examples in Chapters 19 & 20 breaking after you upgrade to Spry 1.6. Fortunately, the remedy is simple. You can find the details on the book’s updates page.
Add comment January 6th, 2008
PHP 4.4.8 was released today (3 January 2008)—three days after PHP 4 officially reached the end of its support life. For some strange reason, PHP releases are always made on a Thursday, so the release was delayed until today to avoid slipping it out on 27 December while everyone was still comatose during the Christmas and New Year holiday season. This version incorporates a handful of fixes for security issues and bugs, but adds no new features. Unless a major security issue emerges between now and the Beijing Olympics (8 August 2008), this will be the last ever version of PHP 4.
My reaction? About time, too. PHP 4 should have been abandoned a long time ago. (more…)
3 comments January 3rd, 2008
Several readers of my books have reported being unable to find the Windows installer for Apache on the Apache download page. Apache is available in many different versions, so the direct links don’t always list the MSI installer package for Windows. If the Windows installer isn’t listed, click the link for Other files, followed by the links for binaries and win32. On the final page, scroll down until you find apache_2.2.x-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi (where
x represents the number of the most recent version).
I can’t give a direct link to the file because Apache requests that you always use a mirror site close to you. Following the links as described here automatically takes you to a mirror site.
9 comments December 14th, 2007
It seems as though the cause of the European clock change crashes on Dreamweaver CS3 is a corrupted file called WinFileCache-[random_numbers].dat. On Windows XP, it’s located at C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\Dreamweaver 9\Configuration. On Vista, it’s at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Dreamweaver 9\Configuration. Simply delete the file and restart Dreamweaver. This still hasn’t been confirmed as the definitive solution, but it seems to work on most systems. It certainly fixed the problem for me.
[Update]: This has now been confirmed as the solution. Dreamweaver creates a new version of the file as soon as you relaunch the program.
21 comments October 29th, 2007
The Dreamweaver forums have been ablaze with reports of simple PHP and ASP code causing Dreamweaver CS3 to crash. I have tested many of the sample code snippets, and can confirm that CS3 is crashing on Windows XP and Vista, but not on Mac OS X. It also affects the PHP code in my books.
The cause of the crashes appears to be the clock change following the end of summer time in Europe. Since the United States is still on daylight saving time until 4 November, American users have reported that they are crash-free—for the time being, at least. It’s not clear whether it’s an Adobe bug or one caused by the Windows operating system, but there’s little point getting into the blame game. What’s needed is a fix—and quickly.
The temporary solution appears to be to change your system clock back to any time before 2 am on 28 October. Alternatively, use Dreamweaver 8.0.2, which isn’t affected. Neither solution is ideal, but Adobe has been alerted to the problem, and hopefully a permanent solution can be found soon.
[Update]: The solution is to delete WinFileCache-********.dat, which was apparently corrupted by the clock change.
5 comments October 29th, 2007
I have just upgraded my Mac PowerBook G4 laptop to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). The installation went fine, but there are a couple of issues you need to be aware of if you use your Mac to develop PHP, as they could affect your decision to upgrade—at least for the time being.
Leopard installs Apache 2.2.6 instead of the Apache 1.3 series that was used in all previous versions of Mac OS X. As a result, when you restart your computer for the first time, web sharing will be disabled. Turning it on is exactly the same as described in all my books. However, if you use the Mac OS X PHP package from Marc Liyanage, it won’t work. (more…)
31 comments October 27th, 2007
One of the nice things about being an author of books about PHP and Dreamweaver is that I get an opportunity to talk directly to the software development team. Devin Fernandez, one of the Dreamweaver product managers, dropped into London today on his way from Adobe MAX to a meeting with the former InterAKT Team (now Adobe Systems Romania) in Bucharest. We met for lunch, and for several hours he gave me an exclusive insight into how he and Adobe see the future of the Web and Dreamweaver in particular. That’s the nice part… However, it goes without saying that he wouldn’t have told me anything if he knew I’d spill the beans in my blog. Still, there are things that I can say without breaking the confidential nature of our discussions. (more…)
2 comments October 5th, 2007
At long last, Adobe has created an extension to update the version of Spry in Dreamweaver CS3. You can download the extension by going to the Spry section of Adobe Labs. The extension is free, but to obtain it, you need to log into Labs using your Adobe ID. If you don’t already have an Adobe ID, it’s easy to create an account (also free).
Use the Extension Manager to install the Spry Updater for Dreamweaver CS3. When you first launch Dreamweaver after installation, you’ll be presented with a dialog box explaining how the updater works. It lets you update the Spry library files on existing sites, and gives you the option to replace all files or just those that you want to change. And if anything goes wrong, you can retrieve the old files from a backup folder.
The extension updates the Spry files to version 1.6 (the version that shipped with CS3 was 1.4), and adds code hints for the new features. However it does not add any new features to the Dreamweaver interface. To use the new features in Spry 1.6, you need to hand-code them yourself.
10 comments October 2nd, 2007
Adobe has taken the unusual step of revealing the first details of the next version of Dreamweaver less than six months after the release of current version (Dreamweaver CS3). Now, before you get too excited, the Adobe announcement says nothing about new features. Instead, it tells you what’s being taken out.
Among items destined for the chop are the much-maligned Layout Mode and Timelines. These are both sensible decisions. Layout Mode was a well intentioned attempt to make it easy for graphic designers to lay out web pages in the same way as desktop publishing. The problem is that it creates horrendous spaghetti code behind the scenes, and frequently results in cries for help in online forums. If you get your design right the first time, the code is normally stable; but as soon as you start to change things round—and who’s ever come across a graphic designer satisfied with a first attempt at layout?—the page often falls apart like a house of cards. Timelines equally rely on outdated code, and animations are much better left to Flash, so it’s good to see them finally on the way out.
More controversially, support for ASP.NET is being dropped. (more…)
20 comments September 7th, 2007