PHP for Web Designers

A gentle introduction to PHP, with simple exercises that help you develop dynamic web content, user input forms, and database-powered product pages.

Introduction

• Welcome
• What you should know before watching this course
• Using the exercise files
• Configuring MAMP to show errors (Mac)

1. Introduction to PHP

• How PHP makes web pages dynamic
• How to use PHP in a web page
• Using variables to store information
• Storing numbers and text in variables
• Displaying the values of number and text variables
• Using functions to manipulate values
• Adding comments to PHP scripts

2. Using Server-Side Includes for Common Page Elements

• What are server-side includes?
• Deciding which include command to use
• Challenge: Moving common elements to include files
• Solution: Moving common elements to include files
• Making sure internal links still work in an include file

3. Using Conditions to Change Page Output

• How PHP makes decisions
• Changing output depending on the current time
• Adjusting the server's time zone
• Displaying an up-to-date copyright notice
• Challenge: Displaying an image of the month
• Solution: Displaying an image of the month
• Understanding what PHP treats as true and false

4. Working with Multiple Values in Arrays and Loops

• Storing multiple values in a variable as an array
• Inspecting an array's elements
• Challenge: Inserting the appropriate alt text
• Solution: Inserting the appropriate alt text
• Displaying an array as a comma-separated list
• Looping through an array's values
• Labeling array elements
• Looping through an array's labels and values
• Finding if a value exists in an array
• Challenge: Displaying a seasonal feature
• Solution: Displaying a seasonal feature

5. Getting User Input from a Form

• Getting form input sent by the POST method
• Retrieving values from a URL's query string
• Challenge: Plan the order form
• Solution: Plan the order form
• Finding and extracting a substring
• Organizing the form data into arrays
• Using a loop to build a table for the data
• Controlling which rows are displayed
• Creating a custom function to extract part of a file name
• Calculating the order total
• Using PHP sessions to preserve data
• Storing data in session variables
• Ending the PHP session and deleting the data

6. Displaying Content from a Database

• Loading data into MySQL
• Connecting to the database
• Querying the database
• Displaying the results of the query
• Using modulo division to establish a repeating series
• Repeating output at specific intervals in a loop
• Linking to a details page
• Embedding a variable in a query securely
• Handling database errors gracefully--and securely

7. Handling Errors

• Dealing with PHP errors
• Why is my page blank or incomplete?
• Tracking down parse errors
• What to do with "failed to open stream"
• What does "headers already sent" mean?
• What does undefined index, variable, or constant mean?
• What on earth is T_ENCAPSED_AND_WHITESPACE?

Conclusion

• What's next?