Spice up PHP applications with OpenLaszlo, Part 1: Create interactive interfaces

Level: Intermediate

Nicholas Chase (ibmquestions@nicholaschase.com), Freelance writer
Don Hopkins (dhopkins@DonHopkins.com), Writer, Freelance

14 Mar 2006

	Register now or sign in using your IBM ID and password.

This "Spice up PHP applications with OpenLaszlo" tutorial series shows you how to use OpenLaszlo to create a more interactive interface for your PHP applications and how to use PHP to create more dynamic OpenLaszlo applications. It requires a basic understanding of -- or willingness to learn -- XML, JavaScript, and PHP. Each is well worth knowing for its own merits, plus they plug and play together nicely, since they're all based on synergistic open standards.

In this tutorial

This series chronicles the creation of a rating system for knock-knock jokes. Part 1 talks about the knock-knock protocol, and covers the creation of the basic PHP application and a simple OpenLaszlo interface, with graphics and sound, for that application. Part 2 will discuss deployment options, and show the creation of the OpenLaszlo application as a stand-alone piece that can be deployed on any Web server and communicate directly with a PHP application. Part 3 expands the application to create a system in which PHP creates the OpenLaszlo code dynamically.

You will learn about OpenLaszlo, set up the development environment, and create a basic OpenLaszlo application that will serve as an interface for a joke rating service. OpenLaszlo is a free XML/JavaScript-based Web application programming language that enables you to write interactive multimedia applications that can ultimately be deployed to the browser in many ways. Currently, the target environment is a Flash movie, playable on virtually any modern browser without user intervention.

Prerequisites

See System requirements below.

System requirements

You will need to install OpenLaszlo on your development machine (and optionally on your server), and PHP and Apache on your server (and optionally on your development machine). We will walk through installing OpenLaszlo, PHP, and Apache on your development machine:

• The Apache Web server is maintained and developed by the Apache Software Foundation.
• You can download PHP for free from PHP.net. Instructions here assume you are installing on Windows®, but the site has instructions for other platforms, as well.
• Download OpenLaszlo from Laszlo Systems.

Duration

Under two hours

Formats

Share this.... Digg this story del.icio.us Slashdot it!

Back to top