WinPHP
Articles and posts about the
WinPHP Challenge
Introduction The WinPHP challenge is running towards it’s closing time. Only a few days before entering I came with the idea to enter the contest. I had to put a lot of my spare time into it, but it was worth it. I learned a lot from exploring the realm of php. It’s fun to work in a language I normally do not work in. And to find ways to implement some thoughts that have been on my mind for a while. Here’s the story about the what, the where and the how of BlogSnor, my entry for the WinPHP challenge....
Introduction In an earlier article I explained how to use .NET assemblies in php. This concept is the basis of the image generation as used in my entry for the WinPHP challenge. Because the user is in control of selection colors, all images used throughout the weblog need to be generated. Php provides a number of graphical functions, but none is capable of creating rounded corners an gradients with ease. Everything has to be done by hand. WPF on the other hand uses xaml which supports everything...
The blog engine I’m writing for the WinPHP Challenge is really getting shape. At certain points in the application I would like to send an email. Luckily SMTP is supported by IIS. Here’s a small how-to to get it up and running and send an email from your php app using IIS. Setting Up and Configuring IIS Start by going to the ServerManager on you Server. Most often this is the server you’ll be running your php website on. Go to Add features in the Features summary section. Check SMTP Services in the...
Introduction For my entry for the WinPHP challenge, my personal Blog Engine “BlogSnor”, I wanted to make use of Ajax to retrieve posts, comments, color data and more from the server. I’ve used Microsoft Ajax in ASP.NET before, so why not try that in PHP too. Here’s how… Installing For the simplicity of this tutorial I make the assumption you have php 5.2 or higher running in iis7 and that your localhost points to c:/wwwroot/inetpub. (If you have not, and you have questions about this, just send me...
Intro For the blog engine I’m writing for the WinPHP contest I needed a place to store data. Because windows specific features need to be used, Microsoft SQL Server is the logic choice. Getting data from the database isn’t as easy as making that choice. The extension that comes with PHP worked well with SQL Server 2005, but failed when running on a Windows Server 2008 machine with SQL Server 2008. Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how to get it to work on SQL Server 2008. Installation First, download...
Introduction For my entry in the WinPHP Challenge I need to use some .Net assemblies I wrote a while ago. It wasn’t clear to me how this can be done. Here’s an example on how to do this. In short: First we create an assembly in visual studio, than we sign it, add it to the Global Assembly Cache or GAC and access it using PHP from there. Details Inside visual studio, create a new project. For the purpose of explanation I named the project DotNetTest. Add the following method to the newly created Class1...
Yesterday I got the email welcoming me to the First Annual WinPHP Challenge. Microsoft, ibuildings and Leaseweb are sponsoring this contest to show Windows is now a first class citizen for development and deployment of PHP projects. The idea of this contest is very simple, just build an application running on Windows and IIS7. But, do this with PHP. The contests ends June 1st. Until then all contestants have to blog about their progress. On June 13th the winner will be announced at the DPC closing...