Working with Doctrine 2, Flex, Zend AMF, and Flash Builder

I finally got some time to play with Doctrine 2 and Flex. Back in May I wrote an article about working with Doctrine 1.x and Flex (you can read the article here) and my feelings were mixed. I chatted with Jonathan Wage of Doctrine about some of the shortcomings I found in Doctrine 1.x and his response was to check Doctrine 2 (still in development at the time of writing this article). Doctrine 2 is a big step forward.

In this article I describe how I rewrote the original application I created for my first article, this time using Doctrine 2, Flex 4, Zend Framework, and the Flash Builder data-centric development wizards. I’ll highlight the relevant differences between Doctrine 1 and Doctrine 2 along the way. Thus, you should find this article valuable in any one of these two cases:

You are already working with Doctrine 1 and you’ve wondered what it would take to move to version 2
You want to learn how to use Doctrine 2 with Flex; you know PHP and you know enough Flex not to be scared away if you see some snippets of code

Before going into the details let me say this: if you aren’t already using an ORM framework for PHP then you should. For most projects it can help you by freeing you of the tedious tasks of writing CRUD code and SQL queries. It allows you to focus on the business logic of your application. And all these advantages are multiplied when working on Rich Internet Applications because on this kind of project much of the work is done on the client and not on the server.

There are some aspects of using this ORM with RIA that could be better, but hey we don’t live in a perfect world. Most of these things, I think, are related to the fact that every time you use a server side ORM with a rich client, you leave behind the main story used for creating that framework – you use the ORM in order to feed a rich client with data and enable the client to persist the changes. Thus you need additional boiler plate code to make the whole thing work.

If you don’t know much about ORMs in general, you may want to read my first article first and before continuing.

August 5, 2010 | Filed Under Flash Builder, Flex, PHP, Tutorials | 9 Comments

Working with Doctrine 1.x, Zend Framework, and Flex

Later Update: If you are looking for an article rather on Doctrine 2 than Doctrine 1, then check this one.

This year I finally had the time to play with Doctrine (version 1.x) and Flex. Actually, it was more than playing; I’m using it for a real project that hopefully will enter production pretty soon. To summarize the experience in just a few words: it’s mind-blowing.

OK, I admit I may be exaggerating a little bit. Still, it is something that can change the way you build projects. Doctrine is an ORM (Object Relational Mapper) framework for PHP and it can really speed up the server side development when you have a lot of tables in your database.
In this article, I explore how to work with Doctrine on the server side, Flex on the client side, and remoting to communicate between Flex and PHP (using the Zend Framework for remoting on the PHP side). I also want to share with you some tools and workflows that can save you some time. While most things are fairly straightforward there are a number of tips and tricks that you may find useful if you decide to go down this road. (I will show you how to use plain vanilla value objects and how to handle dates just to give you two examples. Why reinvent the wheel?)

The application I’m going to build in this article is simple but the workflow is the same one I used with a much more complex application. Having said that let’s start by understanding the big picture.

May 5, 2010 | Filed Under Doctrine, Flex, PHP, Tutorials | 19 Comments

White Paper: debugging Flex and PHP projects

I’ve just published a white paper on debugging Flex and PHP projects using Flash Builder 4, Eclipse PDT, and XDebug. You can read the article here.

In case you want to watch the webinar I did on the same subject today, you can go here. Thank you to all the people who joined my webinar!

PS. It seems we’ve come a long way when it comes to writing Flex applications. Out of 250+ registered people, only 60 decided to drop by. This is really good news, soon there will be no more bugs in our software :D

March 24, 2010 | Filed Under Flash Builder, Flex, PHP | 6 Comments

Debugging Flex and PHP projects webinar

We’ve just launched Flash Builder 4, our latest IDE for building RIAs with Flex and ActionScript. If you use PHP on the server side, you may want to join my webinar on Debugging Flex and PHP projects.

I will talk about the new features of Flash Builder 4 that can help you while debugging and I will show how you can use Flash Builder 4 with Eclipse PDT and XDebug. The webinar will be this Wednesday (March 24th), 11AM Central European Time. You can register here.

March 22, 2010 | Filed Under Flash Builder, Flex, PHP | 4 Comments

Quick poll on debugging and tooling for Flex and PHP projects

As you know, one of my focuses as a Platform evangelist is Flex and PHP integration. Thus you can imagine I spend quite a lot of time doing Flex and PHP projects or research around these technologies. Lately I’ve been working on workflows for PHP and Flex (tooling, debugging, libraries) in light of the new tools (or new versions) we have been developing at Adobe. While some of these findings will see the light as articles, others are more intended as suggestions or feature request for upcoming versions of Flash Builder.

I’m really curious to find out:

What tools are you using?
What do you use for debugging?
What frameworks (AMFPHP, Zend Framework, Doctrine etc) do you use when working on Flex and PHP projects?
And the most important question: What features do you think Flash Builder needs in order to make you a happier/richer developer?

Please take some time and drop a comment with your thoughts around these questions.

And because I understand it takes some time to answer these questions, I want to give away three Flash Builder 4 licenses. I will choose randomly three lucky people from those who take the survey. The winners will be announced at the end of March, however you’ll get the licenses once we release Flash Builder 4 (now it is in Beta 2). Make sure you fill in your real name and a valid email address.

LATER EDIT: The winners of this raffle are: Mario Kralj, chandra shekhar pant, and Ben Dalton! Congratulations and pretty soon you’ receive the license.

February 25, 2010 | Filed Under Flash Builder, Flex, PHP | 59 Comments

Webinar: using PHP and Flash for developing Rich Internet Applications

On December 2nd, together with Roy Ganor from Zend, I will host an e-seminar about PHP and the Flash Platform. We will show you how you can create a Rich Internet Application using the Flex framework, Illustrator, Flash Catalyst, and Flash Builder 4. Then we will show you how to connect the Flex application to a PHP backend and how easy is to debug the PHP and Flex code using Zend Studio 7.1 and Flash Builder 4.

You can register for free here. The webinar will start at 6:00 PM Central European Time (9:00AM Pacific Standard Time) on December 2nd.

LATER UPDATE:

You can download the slides from here, and next week the recording will be available you can watch the recording over here (you need to have a Zend account).

December 1, 2009 | Filed Under Conferences, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, Flex, PHP | 8 Comments

PHP and Flex Webinars

Last week I visited Zend headquarters, and I had an interesting talk over there. One effect of this meeting is this: we will start to do webinars together with Zend.

If you want to find more about Zend Studio and other products related to PHP from Zend, or learn more about the integration between the Flash Platform and PHP (Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, Flex framework) you shouldn’t miss this opportunity. I know that webinars don’t offer the same experience as in-person events. On the other hand, you can attend them from the comfort of your own home, there is no traveling involved and no need to convince your boss to let you attend the event.

We haven’t set the first event date yet, but it should be in the first week of December, and probably it will be in the evening (Central European Time).

Keep an eye on my blog for the exact date and time.

November 9, 2009 | Filed Under AIR, Conferences, Flash Builder, Flash Catalyst, Flex, PHP | 1 Comment

Flex for PHP developers article

Finally, I managed to finish an article that introduces Flex to PHP developers comparing features from both worlds (when it makes sense). I’ve been working on this subject from the beginning of this year. Thus I am so happy that I feel I should go out and smoke a fine Cuban cigar :)

While working on this article I realized two things:

Writing books it is not easy. My work doesn’t compare with a book at all, but still the amount of work was huge. Now, I have an idea about what it means to work on a book.
Learning a client-side technology coming from the server-side world will never be an easy and straightforward task. You have to adapt to a new world and adopt a different mindset. But then again, with big efforts usually come big rewards! And from my experience, when I learn something new I can always apply some of this knowledge to the concepts I’ve already known.

Enjoy the article and let me know what do you think!

August 14, 2009 | Filed Under AIR, Flex, PHP, Tutorials | 1 Comment

Working in Flash Builder 4 with Flex and PHP

On June 1st we launched the public beta for Flash Builder 4, the newest iteration of our Eclipse-based IDE for RIAs, formerly known as Flex Builder 3. While you can find both evolutionary and revolutionary features in it, in this article I will touch on the data features and Flex – PHP integration features of Flash Builder 4.

In this article, I will show you how can you use a PHP class that manages a MySQL table (offering CRUD operations) in a Flex project. I will build the Flex project and I rely on Flash Builder 4 to set up the Zend Framework for me(because I want to use remoting as a way to talk with the PHP server). After this I will use the new wizard from Flash Builder 4 that introspects a PHP class and creates the ActionScript code to consume that PHP class.

In the end I should be able to have a simple Flex app that lets me see the data records, edit them, and add a new item. For some of the features I’ll have to write code, for others Flash Builder will generate the code. All in all, I think the application can be created in less than 30 minutes.

PHP code

I have two PHP classes that I want to reuse with my Flex application. One class is a data object that acts asa wrapper for one row from my database (MySQL). Here is the structure of the table:

authors
——————————
id_aut – primary key
fname_aut string
lname_aut string

The PHP data object, called VOAuthor, looks like this:

class VOAuthor {
      
   
      
    public $id_aut;
      
    public $fname_aut;
      
    public $lname_aut;
      
}

The second class, called Authors, is the class that manages the table, offering CRUD operations. The code is very straight forward, I don’t use any database abstraction layer. I have three methods one each for reading, deleting, and updating/inserting a record. I use the data object, VOAuthor, within these methods. This is the code:

require_once 'VOAuthor.php';
      
  
      
  
      
//connection info
      
define("DATABASE_SERVER", "localhost");
      
define("DATABASE_USERNAME", "mihai");
      
define("DATABASE_PASSWORD", "mihai");
      
define("DATABASE_NAME", "flex360");
      
  
      
//$o = new MyService();
      
//print_r($o->getData());
      
  
      
class Authors {
      
    
      
    /**
      
     * Retrieve all the records from the table
      
     * @return an array of VOAuthor
      
     */
      
    public function getData() {
      
        //connect to the database.
      
        //we could have used an abstracting layer for connecting to the database.
      
        //for the sake of simplicity, I choose not to.
      
        $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);
      
        mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);
      
        //retrieve all rows
      
        $query = "SELECT id_aut, fname_aut, lname_aut FROM authors_aut ORDER BY fname_aut";
      
        $result = mysql_query($query);
      
        //throw (new Zend_Amf_Exception('error', 11));
      
        $ret = array();
      
        while ($row = mysql_fetch_object($result, "VOAuthor")) {
      
            $ret[] = $row;
      
        }
      
        mysql_free_result($result); 
      
        return $ret;
      
    }
      
        /**
      
     * Update one item in the table
      
     * @param VOAuthor to be updated 
      
     * @return NULL
      
     */
      
    public function saveData($author) {
      
        if ($author == NULL)
      
            return NULL;
      
        //logMe($author);
      
        //connect to the database.
      
        $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);
      
        mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);
      
        if ($author->id_aut > 0) {
      
            //save changes
      
            $query = "UPDATE authors_aut SET fname_aut='".$author->fname_aut."', lname_aut='".$author->lname_aut."' WHERE id_aut=".  $author->id_aut;
      
        } else {
      
            //add new record
      
            $query = "INSERT INTO authors_aut (fname_aut, lname_aut) VALUES ('".$author->fname_aut."', '".$author->lname_aut."')";
      
        }
      
        $result = mysql_query($query);
      
        return NULL;
      
    }
      
    
      
    public function deleteData($author) {
      
        if ($author == NULL)
      
            return NULL;
      
        
      
        //connect to the database.
      
        $mysql = mysql_connect(DATABASE_SERVER, DATABASE_USERNAME, DATABASE_PASSWORD);
      
        mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);
      
        //add new record
      
        $query = "DELETE FROM authors_aut WHERE id_aut = ".$author->id_aut;
      
        $result = mysql_query($query);
      
        return NULL;
      
    }
      
    
      
}

These two scripts sit inside of a folder called “remoting” in the root of the Apache web server document root folder.

Creating the Flex project and the UI of the app

I have the PHP files in place; now it’s time to create the Flex application. First, I need to create a new Flex project. Having opened the Flash Builder 4, I use the “New Flex Project” wizard to create a new Flex project called FlexPHPAMF. Make sure that in the wizard you choose PHP as the server technology, and you give the correct information for the document root of the web server (absolute path and URL).

Now let’s create the UI of the application. To do this, I chose to go in design mode where I added two buttons and a data grid to the stage. One button is labeled “Get Data” and the other one “Save Data”.

Using the data service panel

Finally, I am ready to use the new data wizards.At the bottom of Flash Builder, there is a view called “Data/Services”. Click on “Connect to Data/Service” link. A wizard starts, and you can select the type of the data service.

Because I want to use the PHP classes I have, I choose PHP and I click “Next”.

On this page, you can select to either reuse an existing service from the server, or to let the wizard create a stub for you. Because I have the service, I want to use the Import PHP class option. Flash Builder introspects the service in order to detect the supported operations (in this case, because I am using remoting, it detects the public methods and the return type). But to do so, it needs to install the Zend Framework to your web server.

What is very cool is that you don’t have to worry about the steps needed to install Zend Framework. Flash Builder will do it for you automatically.

After the Zend Framework is installed, on the last page of the wizard you’ll see the available methods. Click Finish.

Now, in the Data/Services view you should have a tree, with the root node named Authors. This is the name of the PHP class that you want to use in Flex. Under this node you have Data Types, and the three methods: deleteData(), getData(), saveData().

At the same time if you take a look at the project structure in the Package explorer, you’ll notice that new packages and files were created.

There is a new package called services.authors, and here you’ll find the service class that you’ll use to connect to the PHP class (Authors.as). This class actually extends a base class that implements all the logic using RemoteObject. The reason for this approach is that when you need to do your customization, you’ll do it in the Authors class. If you decide to use Flash Builder to regenerate the code for the same service (maybe as a result of a change on the server side), this operation will not over write your custom code.

The same goes for the data object (or value object). Flash Builder generated the ActionScript value object to match the PHP class VOAuthor. But again, you might want to do some customizations, and you can do it by touching VOAuthor that extends _Super_VOAuthor. All the generated code stays in the _Super_VOAuthor.

And finally, you’ll find a folder called services that gives you quick access to the Authors.php class.

It is time to fill the data grid with the data from the server. To do so, first you need to make sure that the return type for the getData() operation is an array of VOAuthor objects. If you right click on the name of the operation in the Data/Services view and choose Configure Return Type, you have a way to specify the array of VOAuthor:

To bind the data grid to the result of the getData() operation you have to go into design mode, and then drag and drop the getData() (from the Data/Services view) to the data grid.

If you switch to code view, you’ll see that some ActionScript code was added to the flexPHPAMF.mxml. What you want to do is to grab the line from the function and create a new function that will be called when you click the “Get Data” button and paste the code inside of it. My code looks like this:

protected function getData():void
      
{
      
   getDataResult.token = authors.getData();
      
}
      
[...]
      
  
      
<s:Button x="43" y="220" label="Get Data" click="getData()"/>

The wizard altered the data grid itself, you have the name of the table fields as labels, and the data provider of the data grid is set to the lastResult of the getDataResult object (this object was added to your code by the wizard, in order to help you manage the results of the authors service).

If you run the application and press the “Get Data” button, you should see the data.

Adding editing capabilities

The final part of this tutorial is adding the editing capabilities. I want to be able to edit an existing record using the data grid itself, and I want to have a form and a new button. First go back into design mode, drag and drop an new button on the stage, and change the label to “New”. Then, you’ll use another wizard to generate the form for editing. To do so, you select from the Data/Services view the Data Types node, expand it, and select the VOAuthor node. Right click it and select Generate Form. In the wizard choose “Make form editable” and click Next.

In the second page of the wizard deselect the “id_aut” property. This value will be auto-inserted by the database itself. Click Finish.

After the form is generated, you want to grab the form and position it maybe below the buttons. Also, you may want to change the labels. Finally add a new button in the form and label it “Add”.

Switch back to code view. Now, you need to make some changes. First of all (I think it is a bug), the text fields are not editable (they are Text instead of TextInput). So change the type to TextInput to make them editable. Next, give an ID to the Form itself. I want to have the form invisible when the application is loaded, and only make it visible when the users clicks “New”. For that you set the visible property on the form to false, and you add some code to the New button. Here is my code:

<s:Button x="224" y="220" label="New" click="myForm.visible = true"/>
      
<mx:Form x="46" y="277" id="myForm" visible="false">
      
        <mx:FormItem label="First Name:">
      
            <mx:TextInput id="fname" text=""/>
      
        </mx:FormItem>
      
        <mx:FormItem label="Last Name:">
      
            <mx:TextInput id="lname" text=""/>
      
        </mx:FormItem>
      
        <mx:FormItem>
      
            <s:Button label="Add"/>
      
        </mx:FormItem>
      
</mx:Form>

And if you look in the code, you’ll notice a new object was created:

   1: <authors:VOAuthor id="vOAuthor"/>

You’ll use this instance of the value object VOAuthor to send the new item to the server (remember, the PHP saveData() method expects a single argument of type VOAuthor).

To do so, you need to create a binding between the two text fields from the form and the properties fname_aut and lname_aut of the VOAuthor.

<fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.fname_aut" source="fname.text"/>
      
<fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.lname_aut" source="lname.text"/>

The last missing piece is the actual call to the saveData() method. This is very simple;on the click event of the “Save” button you add the call to the authors object getData() method, passing the local instance of VOAuthor (vOAuthor) as the argument:

   1: <s:Button label="Add" click="authors.saveData(vOAuthor)"/>

You can add a new record now. What about editing an existing one? For this we will need a little bit more code. First, you want to register a listener on the data grid in order to know when something was edited (if you set the property editable to true on the data grid, then you can edit information inline). The event you are looking for is itemEditEnd:

<mx:DataGrid x="44" y="37" id="dataGrid" dataProvider="{getDataResult.lastResult}" 
      
        itemEditEnd="dataEdited(event)" editable="true">

Now,let’s define the listener, dataEdited(). Add the following code in the script section of the page:

private function dataEdited(event: DataGridEvent):void 
      
{
      
     vOAuthor = event.itemRenderer.data as VOAuthor;
      
}

This code uses the instance of the value object VOAuthor to store the data used by the edited row.

The last two things you have to do is to create a function called saveData() that is called when the user clicks the “Save Data” button, and to add initialization code for the vOAuthor object when the users clicks the “New” button (this way you avoid updating an item instead of adding a new one if you first edit a row and then add one):

private function saveData():void {
      
   if (vOAuthor != null)
      
      authors.saveData(vOAuthor);
      
}

<s:Button x="224" y="220" label="New" 
      
    click="myForm.visible = true; vOAuthor = new VOAuthor()"/>

The final code of the MXML file should look like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
      
<s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo" minWidth="1024" minHeight="768" xmlns:authors="services.authors.*">
      
    <fx:Script>
      
        <![CDATA[
      
            import mx.events.DataGridEvent;
      
            import services.authors.VOAuthor;
      
            import mx.events.FlexEvent;
      
            import mx.controls.Alert;
      
            
      
            protected function getData():void
      
            {
      
                getDataResult.token = authors.getData();
      
            }
      
            
      
            private function dataEdited(event: DataGridEvent):void 
      
            {
      
                vOAuthor = event.itemRenderer.data as VOAuthor;
      
            }
      
            
      
            private function saveData():void {
      
                if (vOAuthor != null)
      
                    authors.saveData(vOAuthor);
      
            }
      
  
      
        ]]>
      
    </fx:Script>
      
    <fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.fname_aut" source="fname.text"/>
      
    <fx:Binding destination="vOAuthor.lname_aut" source="lname.text"/>
      
    <fx:Declarations>
      
        <s:CallResponder id="getDataResult"/>
      
        <authors:Authors id="authors" destination="Authors" endpoint="http://localhost/flexPHPAMF-debug/gateway.php" 
      
            fault="Alert.show(event.fault.faultString)" 
      
            showBusyCursor="true" source="Authors"/>
      
        <authors:VOAuthor id="vOAuthor"/>
      
    </fx:Declarations>
      
    <mx:DataGrid x="44" y="37" id="dataGrid" dataProvider="{getDataResult.lastResult}" 
      
        itemEditEnd="dataEdited(event)" editable="true">
      
        <mx:columns>
      
            <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="id_aut" dataField="id_aut"/>
      
            <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="fname_aut" dataField="fname_aut"/>
      
            <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="lname_aut" dataField="lname_aut"/>
      
        </mx:columns>
      
    </mx:DataGrid>
      
    <s:Button x="43" y="220" label="Get Data" click="getData()"/>
      
    <s:Button x="129" y="220" label="Save Data" click="saveData()"/>
      
    <s:Button x="224" y="220" label="New" click="myForm.visible = true; vOAuthor = new VOAuthor()"/>
      
    
      
    <mx:Form x="46" y="277" id="myForm" visible="false">
      
        <mx:FormItem label="First Name:">
      
            <mx:TextInput id="fname" text=""/>
      
        </mx:FormItem>
      
        <mx:FormItem label="Last Name:">
      
            <mx:TextInput id="lname" text=""/>
      
        </mx:FormItem>
      
        <mx:FormItem>
      
            <s:Button label="Add" click="authors.saveData(vOAuthor)"/>
      
        </mx:FormItem>
      
    </mx:Form>
      
    
      
</s:Application>

The delete operation is left as homework for you! Basically you want to get the selected row, grab the object data used by that row and save it into vOAuthor, and then call the authors.deleteData(vOAuthor).

Conclusions

If you are not sure what remoting and the Zend Framework are, you can read my post that explains these matters: Flex and PHP: remoting with Zend AMF. This article uses Flex Builder 3 (the previous version of Flash Builder 4).

You might be wondering about many-to-many or one-to-many associations. Well, at least for now there is no support for PHP (at least there is no wizard that handles any association and generates all the code). Still, I think I could do it much easier using these wizards than without them. Having the glue code generated for me and the Value Object created automatically, being able to have a form generated for a particular data model are all great help. You save time, you save money. Remember with any line of code you write, you might introduce a bug or more. Having more lines generated for you means less bugs :).

If you want to take a look at my project, you can download it from here (you’ll find the PHP files and the dump of the database in the service folder from this archive). If you want to install Flash Builder 4, you can grab the beta version from here and use it.

Finally I encourage you to try this for yourself, and let me know what you think. If you find bugs or you want more features in Flash Builder 4, be sure you go to http://bugs.adobe.com and ask your friends to vote for the bug. In the end, this is a beta product. If we can improve it, why not?

June 12, 2009 | Filed Under Flash Builder, Flex, PHP, Tutorials | 29 Comments