A good tutorial for PHP Frameworks?

[vitinho444]

Hey guys, so in the making of my newest 3d game, i want to expand my knowledge a little bit on php frameworks to build a very professional looking website for the game.

So the thing is.. I checked some frameworks and.. sorry if i sound dumb but i didn't understand a bit about it..
I learned to make websites from scratch (Thanks to halls and his tuts mostly) using html, php and css only.. so i'm a little lost..

I would like to know if there are good tutorials that cover from the very first setup and moving to the dev of a website.

[srachit]

I havent been through these tutorials personally, but I know for a fact that phpacademy usually has good quality tutorials. Alex has amde one for codeigniter aswell: http://youtu.be/9hRNFgSLLAQ

Other than that just one question, if this site is for your 3D game, then why not make work easier and use a CMS like wordpress or joomla so that you can concentrate on the 3D games programming. Just a suggestion

[vitinho444]

well, i want to make a good website, but i want to code a little
I dont like much joomla, and wordpress i use to my devblog, nothing to fancy, but a website needs to be something good..

[Elvar]

I would encourage you to take a look at either Symfony 2, Zend, CakePHP, these are the real deals, but can be a rather big challenge to learn, also Ruby on Rails could be a solution (Not being php tho, but it's kind of similar to the suggested).

[vitinho444]

Well, i had a close look on the most famous frameworks.. i must say.. what kind of sorcery is that? I can't find anything i can relate what i want to do..

Can somebody tell me if thats for website design or what? I just want to make a website, better looking that the scratch ones i do.. Why so hard

[Jackolantern]

Do yourself a favor and check out CodeIgniter If you have looked at other frameworks' code and can't tell if you are looking at it right side up or upside down, it is time to check out CI lol. It is the easiest of all frameworks to pick up and learn. It is also quite a bit lighter than other frameworks, which has pros and cons. As for pros, it is extremely easy to use and understand. If you were so inclined, you could just start tracing through the framework files and see exactly how things work (try that with the 25mb+ of scripts in Zend!). On the con side, it doesn't have some things other frameworks have, like a templating system, for example. Of course, some people consider that a plus, such as the anti-command-line framework users who don't like having to go through the command line to do everything. CI has no command line tool, and command line tools can be a tough aspect of other frameworks for new users to configure and use. Even if you don't end up sticking with CI, it is a great "intro framework" that will catapult you on to other frameworks (like the excellent, but more complex, YII), if you so desire. Or settle in, because CI is a great place to stay, too.

As for tutorials, take your pick. CI is the most popular framework in the world right now and the Internet is oozing good tutorials for it. There are plenty of books out there as well, but look into each one you consider and make sure it is updated enough to work for the version of CI you are using (at least the major version must be the same, so a 1.7 book won't work with 2.1)

If you are still finding that CI is over your head, it is likely because your OOP needs some work. In that case, start reading PHP OOP tutorials for an introduction, and then experiment with vanilla PHP OOP, such as making classes, instantiating objects, making the objects communicate, passing objects back and forth between objects, make and understand a linked list, etc. All PHP frameworks require a good foundation of OOP.

[vitinho444]

Well, yes, maybe my OOP needs some work, but for what i've seen is just the same as i used in C++. But yes i need very patience
But in the end, i can make a website with CI ?

[Jackolantern]

Most definitely you can. That is what it is made for

[vitinho444]

I just dont understand why they call it "web applications"

[Jackolantern]

A "web application" is a website that has a server-side or a scripted client-side aspect. Pretty much the whole point of PHP is to make web applications. Websites that are not web applications are websites which mostly just serve static content, such as text, images, or files. Examples of static websites would be most websites pre-1997, and, today, some company sites that only exist to give their address, contact info, etc. (see "brochureware"). PBBGs, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, this forum, Amazon, Runescape, any HTML5 game, and others are examples of web applications.