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Zoop 1.5 Release Notes

We are extremely pleased to announce the release of the Zoop Framework 1.5. This is our first major release in over two years. Zoop 1.5 is the most significant update to the framework since its inception over six years ago. It comprises many months of work from many contributors. We are extremely please with the 1.5 released of the Zoop Framework, and consider it to be the framework best suited for modern web development.

Zoop Framework 1.5 fully supports PHP 4 and 5. It also includes support MemCached and most database systems.

Along with this release comes a new community-focused website, http://zoopframework.com, with vastly improved documentation and collaboration resources.

Zoop Framework 1.5 marks the last release in the 1.X cycle and will be succeeded by the 2.0 release which will drop PHP 4 support.

Zoop has always been a pioneer in the PHP world. It was the first Object-oriented PHP Framework and the first PHP framework with AJAX integration. The 2.0 release will continue this pioneering trend. The 2.0 release is currently under development and is slated for release later this year.

Zoop 2.0 is being (re)designed from the ground up for modern distributed web applications as well as full support for Web 3.0 and the semantic web. Work is currently happening on http://zoopframework.com, come join the revolution.

Zoop 2.0 will feature:

  • Full Doctrine integration.
  • Support for the semantic web.
  • A completely redesigned Controller (backwards compatible).
  • Easy API creation with full support REST, JSON, etc.
  • A new, more robust Formz implementation supporting Doctrine as a back end.


Zoop 1.5 Changelog

This version of The Zoop Framework brings a number of major enhancements, new components as well as the usual bug fixes and performance optimizations.

Improvements

  • Zcache now has modular back end, supporting file-based or MemCached caching.
  • View and Controller Zcache integration.
  • Improved user input filtering.
  • guiControl API redesigned and standardized.
  • JS Validation provided by Prototype, integrated with back end validation through guiControls.
  • FastCGI support.
  • PDO now default back end for Zoop DB.
  • Full configurable support for mod_rewrite.
  • Zoop Create script to generate projects, zones and config from the CLI.
  • Better error handling.
  • Better security.
  • Controller Zones further relationships supporting full ancestry.
  • Further integration of View and Controller with new $zone->guiDisplay.
  • Introduction of new canonicalizeTemplate function to standardize templating.
  • GUI now supports inline template caching.
  • Forms2 refined to automate CRUD operations.
  • Full soap support through integration of Nusoap component.
  • Rewrite of Mail component for better support including sending personalized emails to multiple recipients.
  • Application structure cleanup, controller zones can be placed in a zones/ subdirectory.
  • Example apps.
  • Updated and revised Skeleton app.

New Components

  • Auth. Providing Authentication and group, role and users based permissions. (beta).
  • Simpletest. Provides a standard unittesting framework for Zoop and Zoop based applications.
  • Nusoap. Provides full soap server and client.
  • Graphic. Outputs PDFs and images from Smarty templates.
  • Chart. Extends Graphic to support bar, line and pie charts.
  • guiWidgets. Introduced as a simplified version of a guiControl.
  • guiWidgets are not tied into a form, nor do they validate, they simply render data into html. An OO approach to designing HTML.
  • Full Zcache Rewrite
  • Full DB Rewrite


About Zoop

Zoop is a recursive acronym which stands for Zoop Object Oriented PHP Framework.

Far from being Yet Another PHP Framework or Rails clone, Zoop has been in development since 2001 and in use for the last 6 years in a number of different production environments. While it predates the recent proliferation of PHP frameworks, it's based on solid MVC principles, including separation of display, logic, and data layers. It's designed to be efficient, modular, and extensible, striking a balance between lightweight and fully-featured.

With Zoop an inexperienced coder can make secure web applications quickly. More experienced coders will appreciate the design and flexibility. Both will benefit from the shortcuts it provides to handle common and mundane tasks.

Zoop's integrated error handling can be configured to log errors for production environments, and is highly informative and readable which makes bugs easy to find and squash.

The Zoop Framework is inclusive, cooperating with and containing components integrated from some existing projects including Smarty, the Prototype JS Framework, and a number of Pear Modules. We're not content just to cobble pieces together, however—for example, we've combined the above into an implementation that brings GuiControls to PHP, providing developers with easy access to rich form widgets with client-side validation completely integrated. We're also working to include support for pieces from some of the latest and greatest PHP and Javascript projects, including the Zend Framework, PHP Doctrine, and jQuery, among others.