Rapid application development with FOF
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The document introduces the 'fof' framework for rapid application development within the Joomla! CMS, emphasizing its compatibility with Joomla! versions 2.5, 3.0, and 3.1. It discusses its design principles, including 'don't repeat yourself' and 'convention over configuration,' which facilitate efficient coding practices and flexibility. The framework features hierarchical MVC, integrated JSON support, and automatic XML views, allowing developers to create applications with minimal PHP code.
Rapid application development with FOF
- 1. Framework on Framework - FOF Rapid application development for the Joomla! CMS
- 2. So, what’s that “FOF” thing?
- 3. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking “Oh, dear Lord, not ANOTHER framework!”
- 4. FOF uses the Joomla! Platform It does not completely replace it
- 5. Plays along with the other boys Compatible with Joomla! 2.5, 3.0 and 3.1.
- 6. D.R.Y. - Don’t Repeat Yourself I hate copying/pasting the same code over and over and over and over and over and over and over...
- 7. Less is more Convention over configuration – less time, effort, code and bugs
- 8. Flexible, without imposing it’s way of thinking There are no black boxes. There are methods, plugin events...
- 9. Backwards compatibility There are no quantum, undocumented changes overnight
- 10. Some history How we got here
- 11. July 2009 – Base MVC classes My own classes, extending from JModel & co, minimising copied & pasted code
- 12. September 2011 – Turning into a proper framework Basically, I wanted a RAD framework which doesn’t change every day
- 13. October 2011 – Implemented HMVC while I was stuck on a plane, on the ground, for four hours
- 14. May 2012 – First public release during the J and Beyond 2012 conference
- 15. June 2012 – Bootstrap & jQuery In the optional Akeeba Strapper package
- 16. February 2013 – version 2.0 did NOT go into Joomla! 3.1 which is basically something good
- 17. March 2013 onwards – Taking off with XML view templates making it a really Rapid Application Development framework
- 18. FOF’s Anatomy
- 19. Some general thoughts Web services. Integrated JSON support and transparent authentication, opening the door for data provisioning to apps (web, desktop, mobile,...) Almost RESTful, not entirely HMVC components right here, right now, without having to relearn Joomla! component development, i.e. the exact opposite of the proposed Joomla! Framework, whenever that’s ready.
- 20. Structure Dispatcher Controller Model View ToolbarHelpers “triad” Table The Dispatcher is the entry point (a.k.a. “router”). It will setup, run and render the MVC triad. The Controller is a thin interface to push data to the model state and instantiate views The Model is the workhorse. Business logic goes here. The Table class is a hybrid data adapter, controller and model (following J!'s convention) The View fetches model state data and renders them in a meaningful way The Toolbar handles the rendering of titles, buttons and so onNon-OOP stuff. Basically, a nice way to say “cruft”
- 22. Convention over configuration in the Dispatcher The Dispatcher is your component’s router. It routes the request to the appropriate Controller based on conventions: A POST request gets routed to the save task A GET request to a plural view name gets routed to the browse task A front-end GET request with an ID gets routed to the read task A back-end GET request with an ID gets routed to the edit task
- 23. Convention over configuration in Models Tables are named as #__component_view, e.g. #__todo_items Auto increment field is named component_view_id, e.g. todo_item_id Magic fields: enabled, created_by, created_on, modified_by, modified_on, locked_by, locked_on, hits You can override defaults without copying & pasting code, ever. Copy & paste is the devil!
- 24. Convention over configuration in Controllers Default tasks (not RESTful!): browse, read, edit, add, delete, save, apply, ... Customize with onBeforeMethod and onAfterMethod methods, e.g. onBeforeSave. Don't copy & paste code. All MVC objects can be passed a $config array to customize them. It "flows" from dispatcher to component to model and view. FOF guesses the task if it's missing based on plural/singular view name and existence of ID in the query
- 25. Convention over configuration in Views Views inherit from FOFView and its specialized children, e.g. FOFViewHtml Customize using the onTask methods, e.g. onBrowse The toolbar is handled outside the view, in a FOFToolbar descendant class. Override it with a toolbar.php file in the component's root. Magic toolbar methods, e.g. onItemsBrowse allow you to customize the toolbar without copying & pasting code.
- 26. Epic features
- 27. HMVC – Hierarchical MVC Include the results of component views anywhere (other views, other component, modules, ...) FOFDispatcher::getTmpInstance(‘com_foobar’, ‘items’, array(‘layout’ => ‘fancy’))->dispatch();
- 28. Reuse view templates Load a view template from another view, component, ... echo $this->loadAnyTemplate('site:com_foobar/item/form');
- 29. Media files overrides Load media files like this: FOFTemplateUtils::addCSS('media://com_foobar/css/frontend.css'); Media overrides are inside the template folder, e.g. templates/tpl_example/media/com_foobar/css/frontend.css
- 30. Web services & automatic JSON and CSV views Just add format=json or format=csv JSON: You have an instant JSON-based remote API for your components CSV: You can quickly export whatever you see in the backend to Excel, Numbers, LibreOffice, Google Docs, etc. Transparent authentication support using URL parameters or HTTP Basic Authentication
- 31. XML-based views It’s JForm on double dose of steroids Browse, read and edit views from XML templates You don’t need to write any PHP or HTML, but you can mix traditional PHP-based and XML-based templates, even in the same view Overridable with Joomla! template overrides You can write components with virtually no PHP code at all