The Daily Llama

It’s now simple to add users, an installer, and meta to your FrontPress-powered application. Plus, FrontPress won’t query as aggressively, so you’ll save on database queries per page.

As an added bonus, FrontPress takes care of all of your database upgrades. Simply change the database version number whenever you change the schema, and FrontPress will automatically do upgrades for you.

Meta can be enabled with one line of code in any FP_Thing subclass:

static $__has_meta = true;

FP_User combines the simplicity of FP_Thing and the extensibility of BP_User. Want to know if the current user is logged in or if they have a certain capability or if they like bananas?

FP_User::logged_in();
FP_User::can( 'do-whatever' );
FP_User::get_meta( 'likes_bananas' );

What are you waiting for? Get developing!

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I’ve been asked whether FrontPress was being designed for frontends, for example, if it was a template system. The answer is a definite yes: Your template code creates a frontend, but FrontPress turns your code itself into a frontend as well. The code I showed in my last post could be fully understood at a glance. My_Fruit::by_color retrieves fruit based on its color. $apple->save(); stores data about an apple in the database.

Yellow

My incredible amount of appreciation for my own system aside, it is possible to make an entire website from FrontPress. The site is pointless, but it shows the power of FrontPress and a few lines of code. The site is live on my home website, and you can download the source code if you want to see how exactly it works.

Yellow Apples

Breadcrumbs are my favorite part of this demo. The breadcrumb for the yellow apple page is generated completely by FrontPress. The only code inside the route – routes are how FrontPress’s template system chooses which page to display – related to the breadcrumb is frontpress_breadcrumb( $fruit );. My_Fruit implements two interfaces by way of three one line functions. My_Color implements a single interface by way of two one line functions.

FrontPress is still far from its first official release. I plan to add an easy way to build an installer, some example templates, and maybe more before then.

<?php

require_once dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/load.php';

// Non-programmers start reading here
$green_apple = My::$fruit->one_by_color_and_type( 'green', 'apple' );

echo '<h1>', $green_apple->color->name, ' apples are called "',
     $green_apple->name, '".</h1>';

If you don’t know how to program, try reading this code. You can read it, right? That’s because the code is written using my newest project, FrontPress. Now, if you do know how to program, you may be wondering how My::$fruit is defined. Here’s the entire definition of My::$fruit:

<?php

class My_Fruit extends FP_Thing {
    var $__table = 'fruit';

    var $id;
    var $name;
    var $color;
    var $type;
}
My::$fruit = new My_Fruit;

Now, you’re probably interested. The class has no functions and only one variable with a value. This is why FrontPress is so awesome. If you want to delete all the yellow fruit from your database, that’s one line of code:

My::$fruit->by_color( 'yellow' )->delete();

Or, maybe you just want to reclassify all yellow fruit as lemons:

My::$fruit->by_color( 'yellow' )->set( 'type', 'lemon' )->save();

You can also do so in three commands:

$yellow_fruit = My::$fruit->by_color( 'yellow' );
$yellow_fruit->type = 'lemon';
$yellow_fruit->save();

What if there’s some new color of apple you’ve never heard of?

$c0ffee = new My_Color( array( 'name' => 'C0FFEE', 'slug' => 'c0ffee',
                               'hex' => 'c0ffee' ) );
$c0ffee_apple = new My_Fruit( array( 'name' => 'C0FFEE Apple',
                                     'color' => $c0ffee,
                                     'type' => 'apple' ) );
$c0ffee_apple->save();

And it’s smart, too:

$lemon = My::$fruit->by_type( 'lemon' );
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();
$lemon->save();

This code won’t even attempt to save it once because no changes are made to the object.

Want to try it? Break it? Change it? Go right ahead. This is GPL software, after all!