Using third party API in PHPRunner apps. Playing with Twitter.

PHP, PHP Code Generator, Tutorials

Most popular websites like Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, LinkedIn etc provide an API that allows to retrieve or post data programmatically. API examples come in many programming languages and PHP is usually one of them. In this article we’ll show how easy is to add API calls to your PHPRunner project.

Lets start by adding Twitter posting functionality. We’ll be using a lightweight twitter-php library for this purpose. Similar libraries exist for other languages as well.

1. Setup a developer account with Twitter.

A quote from twitter-php usage page:

Sign in to the http://twitter.com and register an application from the http://dev.twitter.com/apps page. Remember to never reveal your consumer secrets. Click on My Access Token link from the sidebar and retrieve your own access token. Now you have consumer key, consumer secret, access token and access token secret.

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Date/time handling in web applications

ASP.NET, PHP, Tutorials

Date/time calculations can be perform either on database side or in your server side language (PHP, ASP, C#) or even in Javascript. We’ll try to cover all those scenarios.

When copying and pasting code from this article to your application replace table name (mytable) and field names (posted, dob).

MySQL

Calculating age

SELECT DATE_FORMAT(NOW(), '%Y') - DATE_FORMAT(dob, '%Y') - 
(DATE_FORMAT(NOW(), '00-%m-%d') < DATE_FORMAT(dob, '00-%m-%d')) 
from mytable AS age

30 days before date

select posted, DATE_SUB(posted, INTERVAL 30 DAY) from mytable

Date plus 30 days

select posted, DATE_ADD(posted, INTERVAL 30 DAY) from mytable

Difference between two dates in days

select posted, DATEDIFF(now(), posted) from mytable
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Random page background: Halloween edition

ASP.NET, PHP, PHP Code Generator, PHP Form Generator, Tutorials

Happy Halloween everyone! Just a little Halloween fun project. To make your website more interesting you can choose to display a random background image for each visitor. Here is how it’s going to look: How to add this functionality to your project. 1. Download a set of sample images and unzip it to the output folder keeping directory structure. This should create a folder named backgrounds with a few images in there. You are free to add more images or to remove any you don’t…Continue Reading “Random page background: Halloween edition” →

Validation in PHPRunner and ASPRunnerPro applications

PHP, PHP Code Generator, PHP Form Generator, Tutorials

Data validation is very important in web applications. You do not want your users to enter incorrect data. Our web application builders can help you with this.

In this article we cover different validation type starting with built-in validation and making it all the way through to advanced AJAX-based validation.

Client-side validation

Client side validation (Javascript based) provides instant feedback to the user making it a good usability choice.

Built-in validation types

This validation will work if you need to make sure that all required fields are populated or validate a relatively simple data format like US Social Security Number.

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How to create your own Edit control plugin

News, PHP, PHP Code Generator, Tutorials

PHPRunner 6.2 and ASPRunnerPro 7.2 add an exciting new feature – custom edit controls. You are longer limited by stock Edit controls that come with the software. And the best of all, creating new Edit controls is not complicated and we’ll show how this can be done.

We will show you how to create ColorPicker and SignaturePad plugins. Before we proceed I recommend to check the following live demo that showcases both edit controls plugins. SignaturePad control works on mobile devices as well.


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How to troubleshoot Javascript errors

PHP, PHP Code Generator, PHP Form Generator, Tutorials

In this article we will be focusing on debugging and troubleshooting the JavaScript errors. We will look at few examples to illustrate the methods used. For this purpose we will be using developers tools that come with Chrome browser. If you use Firefox – download and install the Firebug. Firebug is an extension to Mozilla Firefox web browser which allows us to monitor and debug the JavaScript in any web page. var ctrlPrice = Runner.getControl(pageid, ‘Price’); var ctrlQuantity = Runner.getControl(pageid, ‘Quantity’); var ctrlTotals = Runner.getControl(pageid,…Continue Reading “How to troubleshoot Javascript errors” →

Survey template

PHP, Tutorials

This article explains the inner workings of Survey template.

Before we start I encourage you to check Survey template live demo. Register, then login and add a new Survey. Add questions, answers and answer options where necessary. Once done with setup activate the survey. Now you can take survey, view responses etc.

Purchase Survey template for $50

Application setup

Once you create a project using Survey template you can simply build your project and start using it. Security model is simple. There is one user by default (admin/admin) with full access to all data. There is also Guest account enabled with access to Response view Add page so guest users are able to take surveys without logging in.

There is also Registration page enabled. Users can register and create their own surveys. This option is mostly for demo purposes and you may want to turn it off.

Managing surveys

Once you are logged in create a new survey and add questions. Questions are grouped into groups. If you don’t need grouping simply add all question to default group (Group 1).

List of surveys is your start screen. You can add or delete surveys here, make them active or inactive, take surveys and view responses.

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