jQuery 1.3 with PHP is a book for experienced PHP programmers want to beef up the user experience of their web applications by adding behaviors that help organize content, optimize the app and streamline the user’s workflow.

I’d recommend that any PHP developer using this have a basic understanding of Javascript and take a few very basic jQuery tutorials before beginning.

Book Format

The book functions as more of functional, real-world examples of building pieces of a content management system than a step-by-step tutorial. For better than novice PHP programmers, this is perfect, as you’ve probably already built similar features using HTML, CSS and PHP alone.

Example code is well organized and is clean, but it’s assumed that you’ve got a solid background in PHP programming and web application security. The book stays focused on it’s topic: jQuery and PHP.

Book Content

As described, the book focuses on real-world examples of features that you may include in a CMS or custom web application for a business:

• Intro/Basics
• jQuery UI Tabs/Accordions
• Forms/Form Validation
• File Management & Uploads
• Calendar
• Images
• Drag/Drop/Sortable
• Data Tables
• Optimization

Content is well organized and all examples use very current code and jQuery plugins. Although jQuery 1.4 was recently released, this book and it’s examples still serve as solid learning tools.

Intro/Basics

The book begins by explaining the assumptions about the audience (developers expected experience) and giving some introductions to jQuery as well as some quick tips to get novice jQueriers started.

jQuery UI Tabs/Accordions

Tabs and accordions are discussed as a means of organizing content. In terms of a CMS, the book describes methods of using PHP to parse output dynamically into tab/accordion behaviors.

Forms/Form Validation

Form data and user-experience, including dynamic loading select elements (drop-down lists) and auto-complete are touched in on in the examples from this chapter. Client-side form validation is also shown, in coordination with server-side validation, incorporating the use of the validation jQuery plugin.

I do appreciate that the book touches on the importance and necessity of server-side validation. Form validation with Javascript, in my opinion, should always be a form of progressive enhancement. Forms should always be validated at the server-level for accuracy and security purposes.

File Management & Uploads

Some examples of creating basic file management features as well as handling file uploads are included in this chapter’s examples. A nice piece included here is the use of the Uploadify jQuery plugin, which uses a flash document to allow users to upload multiple files at once, which is slowly becoming a standard for web apps that allow users to upload files.

Calendar

A nice chapter of this books deals with using a jQuery calendar plugin, which is a very impressive and dynamic feature. Although it’s not for beginners, the examples get the reader to a fairly strong amount of functionality with a clean and very dynamic calendar interface. With a solid understanding of PHP/MySQL programming, one could easily create a fully-functional calendar for their web application/CMS.

Images

The chapter on images uses both server side programming with Image Magick, jQuery code and the jCrop image cropping plugin to create a image management features including resizing, scaling, rotation and cropping. The chapter also touches on outputting images to the buffer, file storage and caching.

This chapter is probably well suited for developers who have played with image manipulation before, and as with the calendar chapter, may require some extra time to follow and completely understand.

Drag/Drop/Sortable

Sortable lists are discussed in the chapter, with examples including setting the sort order of elements such as website navigation/pages. The chapter also gets into connecting lists so that elements can be dragged between. A very valuable user experience behavior to incorporate into a number of features of your custom web application/CMS.

Data Tables

The data table jQuery plugin is used as well to illustrate how to easily create sortable and searchable tables of data within your web application as well as create AJAX-powered pagination.

Optimization

Aspects of optimizing your jQuery and PHP rich web applications is touched on in the final chapter and some great points are made with regards to:

• page load times
• caching and compression
• code organization and re-use
• jQuery and Javasript code/memory optimization
• Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Google and Yahoo!

Summary

All in all I feel that jQuery 1.3 with PHP would be a great resource for an experienced PHP programmer that wants to spice up the user experience of their new or existing web applications.

The examples are real-world scenarios that can be extrapolated on to create truly impressive web applications, especially if you’re building a customized content management system.

Want to give it a read? You can purchase jQuery 1.3 with PHP on the Packt Publishing website.