Federico Cargnelutti

TypeFriendly is a documentation generation script written in PHP5. It was designed to be easy in use and it allows to achieve the first results immediately, a couple of minutes after you start the work. The script contains everything you need to write clear, multilingual documentation for your project, so that you do not have to code everything on your own.

The most important features of TypeFriendly:

1. Modular documentation structure – it is generated from text files and the structure and navigation are generated from the file names.
2. Simple syntax – the text is written in intuitive and clean Markdown syntax.
3. Multilingual support and tools – TypeFriendly allows you to create your manuals in many language versions. It also contains a tool that shows whether the derived languages are up-to-date.
4. Configurable output formats – currently, TypeFriendly is able to generate the documentation in XHTML (many pages) and XHTML (single page). There is also a third format – metadata – still under development. It will allow to import the docs to a database in order to make an on-line version with, for example, user comments.
5. Various add-ons such as syntax highlighting, references, class description fields.
6. Navigation generators.
7. It is portable – works under Linux, FreeBSD and Windows. All you need is the PHP interpreter available.

TypeFriendly is distributed under the terms of GNU General Public License 3, which means that you can use, modify and share it for free.

Demo
http://static.invenzzia.org/docs/tf/0_1/book/en/index.html

Screenshots
http://www.invenzzia.org/en/projects/typefriendly/screenshots

Source Code
http://svn.invenzzia.org/browser/TypeFriendly/trunk/

Website
http://www.invenzzia.org/en/projects/typefriendly

Meet TYPOlight, a powerful Web content management system that specializes in accessibility (back end and front end) and uses XHTML and CSS to generate W3C/WAI compliant pages.

Accessibility

A growing number of countries around the world have introduced legislation which either directly addresses the need for websites to be accessible to people with disabilities, or which addresses the more general requirement for people with disabilities not to be discriminated against. TYPOlight does not treat accessibility as just an additional feature and is thoroughly accessible.

Web 2.0

PHP 5 and Ajax are modern “Web 2.0″ technologies that you can find in a lot of contemporary applications. TYPOlight has a solid codebase built on the new object-oriented programming features of PHP 5 and can therefore be considered a future-proof software. To ensure back end accessibility, every Ajax feature includes a graceful fallback in case JavaScript is disabled.

Page features

• Different page types
• Multiple websites in one tree
• Manual or timed publication
• Hidden pages
• Password protect pages

Editing features

• Clipboard feature
• Edit multiple records
• Built-in rich text editor (TinyMCE)
• Different content elements and modules
• Multilingual spellchecker
• Insert tags (similar to server side includes)
• Manual or timed publication

File manager

• Multiple file uploads
• Image thumbnails and file preview
• Edit uploaded files with the source editor
• File operation permissions
• Copy, move, rename files or folders
• Delete folders recursively

Form generator

• Automatic input validation
• Store uploaded files on the server
• Send form data via e-mail
• Send uploaded files as e-mail attachment

Search engine

• Automatic page indexing
• Search indexing on protected pages
• Phrase search, wildcard search, AND/OR search
• Search result caching and pagination

Full feature list

• Intuitive user interface
• Accessible XHTML strict output
• Meets W3C/WAI requirements
• Web 2.0 support (mootools-based)
• Live update service
• Accessible administration area
• Multiple back end languages and themes
• Generates search engine friendly URLs
• Multi-language support
• Powerful permission system
• Versioning and undo management
• Advanced search and sorting options
• Front end output 100% template based
• Automatic e-mail encryption (spam protection)
• Supports SMTP in addition to PHP’s mail function
• Supports multiple websites in one tree
• Supports GZip compression
• Print articles as PDF

System features

• Open Source (LGPL)
• Web-based administration
• Platform independent
• Over 150 third party extensions
• Multilingual documentation

Links

• Demo
• Screenshots
• Website
• Documentation

phpWatch is a general purpose service monitor that is able to send notifications of outages via e-mail or text-message (SMS). The purpose of this system is to allow administrators to easily check the status of many different services running on any number of servers and also allow developers to interface with the query and notification APIs.

Installation

The basic installation is very simple: chmod config.php to 777 and simply navigate to the install directory in your browser. Fill in the database information and the setup will create the required tables and setup the configuration file as needed. The only required task beyond the automated install is to add cron.php as a cron job (Unix/Linux) or scheduled task (Windows).

SMS Alerts

phpWatch uses pre-existing SMS gateways provided by the cell-carriers themselves. For example, to send a message to a Verizon subscriber with the phone number 123-456-7890, an e-mail can be sent to 1234567890@vtext.com and it will then be forwarded to the individual’s phone.

Links

• Demo
• Download phpWatch v1.0.8 Beta
• Documentation

As commercial book publishing crashes, personal book publishing is booming. Blurb is an online application which can be used to design and print your books in professional looking formats. Blurb makes it easier for you to write, share, promote and sell your own books.

Blurb BookSmart software is the most straightforward and easy to use software available. Multiple demos and tutorials are available, showcasing the potential that each Blurb book offers. Some of the books you buy on Amazon are manufactured with this same technology. You just can’t tell the difference!

From their site:

Holding a finished book with your name on the cover is a truly amazing feeling; it’s one of those experiences everyone should have. As software people, designers and publishing professionals at the top of our game, we realized something both incredible and obvious: there’s no good reason why it should take tons of time, technical skills, big bucks or friends in high places to publish a book. Or a zillion books, for that matter.

Blurb Features

• Design your book with free software
• Print your book by ordering online (as few as 1 book needs ordering)
• Books created are of bookstore quality
• Free to register and design books
• Use the site to promote your books
• Print your books with or without the Blurb Logo

Time to write some books :)

Links

• Website
• Screencast

According to a study made by the European Commission, the number of existing open source applications already available would have cost firms around £8 billion to produce. The PHP community believes strongly in openness as a key factor for success, and has been contributing to open source for more than a decade now. But, why?

“Ask not what open source software can do for you, but what you can do for open source software” – Anonymous

Open source developers don’t write FLOSS applications because they have to, they write them because they want to. Motivation is not always driven by money, most of the time PHP developers do it for the joy of it.

So, what’s the motivation behind developing open source Web applications?

• Fun
• Challenge
• Learning
• Community and social interaction
• Credibility and notoriety
• Diversity of project structures
• Co-existence of companies and communities
• Co-existence of creative and commercial elements
• Sense of purpose
• Personal needs
• Potential career advancement
• Financial reward

Open-source vs Close-source

A great deal of open source software has been produced and distributed for free in the last couple of years by volunteer PHP programmers, for example:

• Laconica (Twitter)
• Elgg (Facebook)
• WordPress (Blogger)
• Pligg (Digg)
• PHPmotion (Daily Motion)
• Piwik (Google Analytics)
• Tiny Tiny RSS (Google Reader)
• AfterLogic (Google Mail)
• GForge (Google Code)
• osTube (YouTube)
• MyOwnSpace (MySpace)
• Magento (Amazon)
• Gallery (Flickr)
• AtMail (Hotmail)
• eyeOS (Windows)

And thousands more. Well done PHP!

The Center for History and New Media has released an open source version of their Web-based publishing system built on top of the Zend Framework.

Omeka is a Web-based publishing platform for scholars, librarians, archivists, museum professionals, educators, and cultural enthusiasts. Its “five-minute setup” makes launching an online exhibition as easy as launching a blog. Omeka is designed with non-IT specialists in mind, allowing users to focus on content and interpretation rather than programming. It brings Web 2.0 technologies and approaches to academic and cultural websites to foster user interaction and participation. It makes top-shelf design easy with a simple and flexible templating system. Its robust open-source developer and user communities underwrite Omeka’s stability and sustainability.

Thank you guys for open sourcing this great application!

Links

• Website
• Documentation
• Demo (demo/sandbox)
• Source Code

There are just too many social sites out there for everyone to be able to keep up, and that’s where PHPLifestream steps in. PHPLifestream is an application that aggregates feeds from different sources and combines them into one. Developed by Johan Nilsson and built on top of the Zend Framework, PHPLifestream is a powerful Web 2.0 lifestreaming application that you’ll want to keep an eye on.

Great open source PHP application!

Demo
http://johannilsson.me/streams/list
http://johannilsson.me/graphs

Source Code
http://github.com/johannilsson/phplifestream/tree/master

First came TinyURL, now TinySong. Just as TinyURL allows you to shorten long URLs for sharing in Twitter and elsewhere, TinySong does the same for sharing songs for immediate streaming.

http://tinysong.com/

Other tiny sites:

TinyChat
TinyChat is a service for creating disposable chatrooms. Each chatroom gets a unique TinyURL for easy sharing, and nobody involved needs special software to join in.

TinyGeoCoder
Tiny Geo-coder is a basic online app for determining the latitude and longitude of a location, with a simple API and practical uses for web development.

TinyScrum
Scrumy is a simple web application for Scrum project management. Scrumy is, at the basic level, a virtual taskboard.

Matthew Helmke wrote:

I am the sole person responsible for seven websites that use MySQL databases, and have worked on the back end of several others. Over the years I have worked on these databases in many different ways. I’ve done it from the command line, via ssh. I’ve done it using PHP scripts within the software being run on a site. I have also used phpMyAdmin. Each method has applications and moments where I would prefer using it to the others at my disposal.

I have generally used phpMyAdmin only in those moments when I had something quick and simple to do, or when a hosting company did not provide ssh or command line access. This was mainly because I did not realize how powerful and flexible the software can be.

Mastering phpMyAdmin 2.11

Jani Hartikainen created one of the most innovative Zend Framework applications of 2008, the Packageizer. It allows you to choose a ZF component with all its dependencies and download it as a PHAR or ZIP file.

The Zend Framework community is getting bigger and more creative, and users are building more and better web applications. But, unfortunately, no one knows where these applications are or who developed them.

Community to Zend, community to Zend, do you copy? Over.