• Better handling of checkbox results in the emailResults method.
• A custom form submit URL can be passed to the FormBuilder constructor. Useful when using FormBuilder in an environment that is performing URL rewriting.
• Replaced deprecated ergei functions with preg_match.
• Checkbox field types are correctly processed when field is not mandatory, and the user didn’t check any of the available options.
• Added new field type: file (for file uploads). Note that files are currently not emailed when using the emailResults method. Any handling of the uploaded files should be accomplished manually by accessing PHP’s $_Files array.
• The textbox and textarea field types now accept an optional defaultvalue parameter.
• Fixed a bug that meant checkboxes had a CSS class of ‘fbheckbox’ instead of ‘fbcheckbox’.

If you encounter any problems with the new version please let me know.

PHP example:

HTML example:

CSS example:

JavaScript example:

I’m not sure who designed the Monokai theme originally, but it has cropped up in Textmate, Notepad++, Sublime – where it is the default colour scheme – and no doubt a bunch of other editors as well.

My version of Monokai is based on a Notepad++ theme, but I have standardised the color of variables (green) and symbols (white) across all the languages.

I don’t actually use phpDesigner much these days – I’ve jumped ship for Aptana Studio 3 – but I still think it is a great code editor, and hopefully someone out there will get some use from my theme.

Download

Download Monokai theme for phpDesigner

Installation and uninstallation instructions are included with the theme. The theme has syntax highlighting colors for the four languages I work with: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP.

Important

There is currently a bug in phpDesigner that sometimes causes the ‘separator’ colors to revert to their defaults (e.g. the color of tags reverts to black). The only sure-fire way to get things back to normal is to open the phpDesigner preferences dialog, and click ‘OK’.

Apparently this bug will be fixed in the next release of phpDesigner (yay!).

When I switched back to phpDesigner, the default blue-on-white color scheme seemed a tad boring, so I decided it was time to pimp my IDE! Unfortunately user created themes for phpDesigner are thin on the ground, which left me no option but to make my own.

PHP example:

HTML example:

CSS example:

JavaScript example:

I’ve named my theme Sunset, and it is inspired by the Midnight theme for SyntaxHighlighter. If any phpDesigner fans are looking for a light-on-dark color scheme to spruce up their code editor, perhaps Sunset will fit the bill.

Download

Download Sunset theme for phpDesigner

Installation and uninstallation instructions are included with the theme. Currently the theme has syntax highlighting colors for the four languages I work with: HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP.

Important

There is currently a bug in phpDesigner that sometimes causes the ‘separator’ colors to revert to their defaults (e.g. the color of <?php ?> tags reverts to black). The only sure-fire way to get things back to normal is to open the phpDesigner preferences dialog, and click ‘OK’. You might also try closing all your open documents and restarting the application. Hopefully this bug will be fixed in a future version of phpDesigner.

If you work with Flash at all, by now you will have heard of Papervision 3D, the open source project that has turned the Flash world on its head by introducing a 3rd dimension. I had a quick play with Papervision 3D a few months ago and found it surprising easy to pick up. It is now in public beta so I decided to dust off my old project and rewrite it in Actionscript 3.

3D image gallery demo

Inspired by Antti Kupila’s stunning 3D interface for last.fm, I created a simple gallery of album covers using Papervision 3D. For the reflections of the album covers I have used Pixelfumes’ Reflection class.

View demo

View my 3D image gallery

Download source

If you’re curious to see how I put this demo together, take a look at my Flash source files.

Using Papervision 3D

The biggest challenge for me was porting my code to Actionscript 3, as it was the first time I had written AS3 code. But as far as Papervision 3D itself, it really is a piece of cake to get your head around. The documentation that comes with Papervision 3D is a bit hard to follow, but if you download the zipped version of Papervision 3D from Google Code it contains a bunch of great examples which help to introduce the basic concepts.

The cool thing about Papervision is how it can be adapted to all kinds of 3D applications. My main interest is in the possibilities for creating 3D application interfaces, but people have also created 3D games, models and animations. Expect to see a lot more 3D Flash in the next couple of years!

Download

Download Photoshop CS2 file

How to use it

Here is some simple CSS styling you can use to turn an ordinary link into a spiffy looking file download button.

The HTML:

<p class="fileDownload">
    <a href="myfile.pdf">Download Annual Report (PDF 120Kb)</a>
</p>

The CSS:

.fileDownload {
    background: transparent url(file_icon.gif) no-repeat left top;
    display: block;
    height: 35px;
    padding-left: 36px;
}

The final result:

Download Annual Report (PDF 120Kb)

Next up I will be adding functionality so that the submitted form variables can be emailed to any address. Stay tuned…

FormBuilder features

FormBuilder is designed to do make building forms simple. It can do pretty much everything you might want to achieve with a typical HTML form:

• Create HTML forms by entering a few PHP values
• Generates XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant markup
• Fully skinnable via CSS
• Rigorous and flexible form validation on a per-field basis
• Displays easy to understand error messages to the user
• Highlights required fields and fields that are in error
• Automatically send form results to any email address
• Displays a ‘thanks’ message once form is successfully processed
• Hide or show HTML content based on whether the form was successfully submitted
• Ability to add your own custom form validation after FormBuilder has completed its own validation pass
• Protect against PHP header injection

Demo and download

I put together a demo page that shows FormBuilder in action. Try filling out the form incorrectly to see examples of FormBuilder’s error messaging.

View FormBuilder demo
Demonstrates default FormBuilder setup.

View FormBuilder ‘pretty’ demo
Demonstrates the showDividers and usePseudoLegends options. These make your forms easier to style but less semantic.

Download FormBuilder (current version is v1.5)

Important: FormBuilder is a work in progress, so I can’t promise it’s completely bug free. Feedback, suggestions and bug reports are welcomed: leave a comment below.

How the heck do I use this thing?

You should be able to get a pretty good idea how FormBuilder works just by looking at the source code of index.php in the download package. If you want to dig a little deeper I included a text file with the package that documents all aspects of the class and how to use it. And if you’re still scratching your head feel free to post a comment below.

Requirements

FormBuilder must be run on a web server with PHP 4+ running (I’ve tested under both PHP4 and PHP5). A basic understanding of PHP is helpful, but if you follow the examples provided in the documentation you might be able to make do without. CSS knowledge is required if you want to change the appearance of the form.

AJAX validation

Over at roScripts there is a nice tutorial explaining how to modify FormBuilder so that validation is performed unobtrusively using AJAX.

Changelog

Version 1.5

• Better handling of checkbox results in the emailResults method.
• A custom form submit URL can be passed to the FormBuilder constructor. Useful when using FormBuilder in an environment that is performing URL rewriting.
• Replaced deprecated ergei functions with preg_match.
• Checkbox field types are correctly processed when field is not mandatory, and the user didn’t check any of the available options.
• Added new field type: file (for file uploads). Note that files are currently not emailed when using the emailResults method. Any handling of the uploaded files should be accomplished manually by accessing PHP’s $_Files array.
• The textbox and textarea field types now accept an optional defaultvalue parameter.
• Fixed a bug that meant checkboxes had a CSS class of ‘fbheckbox’ instead of ‘fbcheckbox’.

Version 1.4

• Added emailResults function, which automatically emails the form variables to any email address

Version 1.3

• Added new field type: password
• Added new field type: hidden

Version 1.2

• By default there is no longer an empty dd after each form field, which makes FormBuilder’s markup more semantic. The empty dd's provide a handy element for styling visual dividers between fields, so you can still reveal them using the new showDividers parameter in the FormBuilder constructor.
• Introduced usePseudoLegends parameter. If set to true, legend will be replaced with h3. The HTML legend element is notoriously difficult to style consistently, and this parameter provides a workable alternative.
• Cleaned up the demo CSS styles, including getting dividers displaying properly in Safari.

Version 1.1

• Checkboxes and radio buttons are now correctly marked up inside label tags
• Labels are now associated with the relevant form field via the for attribute

Credit where credit is due

FormBuilder uses validaForms by Erick Vavretchek for form validation. Please see the validaForms PHP Classes package if you wish to learn more about this excellent from validator.

By writing a small JavaScript function that is triggered when the window is resized, we can overcome this restriction. When the window size is detected to be smaller than a minimum width/height specified by the designer, the Flash movie will stop scaling, and scrollbars will be forced to appear.

FlashScaler class

I have written a JavaScript class that takes care of resizing the Flash movie. FlashScaler is designed to integrate nicely with the SWFObject method of Flash embedding, though it will work fine without SWFObject too. With a sprinkling of CSS applied to your HTML document it will work just dandy in any modern browser.

Demo

See FlashScaler in action (SWFObject static publishing example)
See FlashScaler in action (SWFObject dynamic publishing example)

Download

Download FlashScaler

The download pack contains all of the files used in the FlashScaler demo. If you take a look at the HTML, Flash and CSS files included in the pack it shouldn’t be hard to figure out how it all fits together. Feel free to use my FlashScaler class in any of your personal or commercial projects.

Browser compatibility

The current version has been tested in the following browsers but probably works in older browsers too:

• Firefox 3+
• Internet Explorer 6+
• Safari 3 (Mac), Safari 4 (PC)
• Chrome 4
• Opera 9

Previous versions of FlashScaler have been confirmed to work in Firefox 1, Safari 1.3, and IE5, and Netscape 8, so it is safe to say that FlashScaler works in any modern browser.

Changelog

v1.1, 04 March 2010:

I have updated FlashScaler to take advantage of the callback feature introduced in SWFObject 2.2. Now, when Flash detection fails, FlashScaler is disabled.