Tag Archives: html

Automatically Upload Images with PHP Directly from the URI

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It is a simple task to upload images on the server with PHP using a simple web form. Than everything’s in the $_FILES array and after submitting the form the file’s on the server. By simply move_uploaded_file you can change its location on the server to the desired folder.

However is there a way to “upload” files without using a web form, but only by telling the PHP script where to find the image. First and most important the image should be web visible and accessible by HTTP.

The solution is quite easy – you can grab the file using file_get_contents, and than put it on the desired server folder with file_put_contents. Here’s some source:

$image = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/image.jpg');
file_put_contents('/var/www/my.jpg', $image);

Extending the Case

You can go even further by downloading any kind of files with the same approach. What will be the case for an mp4 video is shown in the next example:

$video = file_get_contents('http://www.example.com/video.mp4');
file_put_contents('/var/www/my.mp4', $video);

Usage

This can be quite useful when trying to automate an remote upload process. In this case when somebody uploads an image on his site, you can duplicate this file on your server! However don’t forget the copyrights!

Setting Up Zend Framework with Modules

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Typical Zend App

Typically you’ve one module in your Zend App – the default one. In the basic installation of the framework, you put all the controllers, models and views directly in the application folder, as described below.

/application
	- /controllers
		- /IndexController.php
	- /models
		- /MyModel.php
	- /views
		- /scripts
			- /index/index.phtml
/library
	- /Zend
/public_html
	- /images
	- /scripts

Bigger Apps – More Code

When the application becomes bigger and bigger the controller, models and views/scripts directories contain more and more files. That’s a bit odd, because it becomes difficult to maintain, and than the modules come in hand.

Modules in a Zend App

When it comes to setting up modular Zend App there are tons of articles in the web, but let me show you a simple directory layout and … sample code that sets up the framework.

/application
	- /modules
		+ /admin
			- /controllers
				- /IndexController.php
			- /views
				- /scripts
					- /index/index.phtml
		+ /default
			- /controllers
				- /IndexController.php
			- /views
				- /scripts
					- /index/index.phtml
	- /models
/library
	- /Zend
/public_html
	- /images
	- /scripts

Source

Simply add this into the bootstrap:

$frontController->addModuleDirectory(APPLICATION_PATH . '/modules');

HTML Tags: <base>

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Overview

base

Somehow the <base> tag remains unknown to most of the web developers, but that’s quite normal. However let see what it can do. By adding the <base> tag in the head of the page you tell every link into that page how to open and a default href value. Thus if you have:

<base href="http://www.stoimen.com/blog/">

every link without a href attribute will open this link. That’s really useful in some cases. However the most interesting part of the base tag is the target attribute.

target=”_blank”

Everybody knows what will result from this attribute attached to a anchor tag.

<a href="http://www.stoimen.com" target="_blank">Click Here</a>

But with only adding this base tag:

<base target="_blank">

into the head … all the links will open in a new tab/window, depending on the browser preferences.

Watch out!

If you add the line above somewhere into the <body> tag the browser, will put it into the <head> which will make it difficult to track. A good practice is to place it directly into the <head>!

Send Html Mails with Zend_Mail

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Zend_Mail
Typically you’d never like to send a non-html formatted mail from your web system. It’s ugly and it’s difficult to read. Instead of sending pure text, you’d like to add some images and styles. The way you can do it with Zend_Mail is simple enough. Replace the setBody method with setBodyHtml. Isn’t that natural?

// before
$mail = new Zend_Mail('utf-8');
$mail->setFrom('sender@example.com', 'Sender Name');
$mail->setBody('message in Html');
$mail->addTo('recipient@example.com', 'Recepient Name');
$mail->setSubject('Subject');
$mail->send();
// after
$mail = new Zend_Mail('utf-8');
$mail->setFrom('sender@example.com', 'Sender Name');
$mail->setBodyHtml('message in Html');
$mail->addTo('recipient@example.com', 'Recepient Name');
$mail->setSubject('Subject');
$mail->send();

document.forms[‘myform’].submit() is not a function?

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.submit()

You want to submit the form by clicking on a link or some other element on the page and this is a simple task. You know that by simply adding something like document.forms[‘the-form-name’].submit() this will work.

<form method="post" name="myform">
    <input type="text" name="user" />
    <a href="#" onclick="document.forms['myform'].submit();return false">Submit</a>
</form>

However you’d like to submit the form not only by clicking on that particular element, but also by clicking on the Enter while the focus is on a input field, and this wont work! That’s because you don’t have a input type=”submit”.

OK, first thing is to add a hidden input type=”submit” – than by clicking both on the Enter keyboard button and on the link with the onclick=”document.blah.blah.blah” will submit the form.

<form method="post" name="myform">
    <input type="text" name="user" />
    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="submit" style="display:hidden" />
    <a href="#" onclick="document.forms['myform'].submit();return false">Submit</a>
</form>

But this is not true!

Than you’ll receive the following message:

document.forms['myform'].submit() is not a function

Why? This isn’t working, but ever line seems to be OK. The answer is – don’t name the input type=”submit” with the trivial – “submit”. Just give it another name:

<form method="post" name="myform">
    <input type="text" name="user" />
    <input type="submit" name="something" value="something" style="display:hidden" />
    <a href="#" onclick="document.forms['myform'].submit();return false">Submit</a>
</form>