Lookup foreign keys in Interbase/Firebird

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

The Paradox form system has an interesting peculiarity: any field which happens to be constrained by a foreign key within a native .DB Paradox data model automatically gets lookup values available for the user, but this is not available other database formats, whether they be natively supported within the BDE, or accessed using ODBC, so lookups have to be added in code.

Console encoding in PHP-GTK apps

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

The problem: while coding PHP-GTK apps, the most elementary debugging method is to use echo or print statements. These are fine and dandy for english or usonian coders, but may be a problem for coders elsewhere around the globe, since PHP scripts are typically stored under UTF-8 encoding to limit i18n headaches, while the console in which their output will be displayed is normally configured to some regional encoding, like IBM850 in Windows/XP French.

So we need a workaround...

Drupal-based community site for PHP-GTK

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

The new Drupal-based community site for PHP-GTK is up at http://www.php-gtk.eu.

Drupal features

Technically, this is pretty much a plain Drupal 5.0 Beta 1 Beta 2 RC1 RC2 site, using the new Garland theme without custom changes besides a much needed fix, and a site-specific module for things like useful referer counting and the PHP-GTK dev geolocation service.

Configuring the Zend Studio PHPDocumentor extension for PHP-GTK

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

Zend Studio is a convenient environment to code in PHP, even though it is not currently possible to use it for integrated debugging of PHP-GTK code: its php completion and file management, and phpdoc integration make it very useful for the PHP-GTK environment too. However some settings are necessary to ease its use, due to the specific extensions typically used by PHP-GTK programs: phpw files for applications, and glade / gladep for Glade files storing UIs.

Resources for PHP-GTK 2

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

The official site for PHP-GTK is obviously a natural must for anything related to PHP-GTK 2.

However, its resource pages links indiscriminately to fresh and useful material, and to obsolete intro-level information for the now-defunct PHP-GTK 1.

Here is my selection of current useful resources for PHP-GTK 2, for the developer who already read the advertorials, installed the environment and ran the intro tutorials, and now wants to actually create with the extension.