Revolves

I recently received a comment on one of my posts about Zend Framework, which requested more concise resources on using this powerful framework. I have to accept, learning Zend Framework is very hard at first. One can write a functional code in Zend Framework easily, but could be clueless as to where it actually goes! This is the same thing that happened to me.

I don’t use Zend Framework now, but have played with it, and I’m listing the tutorials I found useful. Hope that helps you!

Getting Started With Zend Framework: A good tutorial in PDF format, which covers everything about setting up the framework, the necessary directory structure, and designing controllers, views etc. If you’re just beginning, this would be the first document you should go through.

Getting Started With Zend Auth: Even though this tutorial covers Zend Auth, I’d recommend reading it anyways. First of all, most of your applications would need Administrative Access anyways, so Auth is a must component. But that’s not the only thing you learn. This tutorial gives you a good idea of where to put your code, since you’d be dealing with a more or less miniature functional application, even if it simply does the job of logging in and out.

Zend Framework ACL With Example: When talking about Auth, how can one ignore the need for ACL? Today’s web application demand a fully functional and feature rich ACL library, and Zend comes with one. But once again, Zend’s manual is just too technical. This beautiful blog post explains how to use the Zend ACL, along with a much needed example. Again, a useful read if you want to learn the coding structure of Zend Framework.

Official Zend Framework Screencasts: Again, a useful resource. Screencasts are good because you can follow the code being construcuted in real time. But one problem with screencasts is that sometimes, important parts of the code differ from whats given in the manual or in other web tutorials. Though they’re workable, it can get you confused. Do watch the screencasts if you get time, but the first tutorial I mentioned in this post is a must to read.

Official Zend Framework Webinars: This is a collection of webinars. Not arranged in any specific order, they’re like posts of a video blog, covering specific topics at time. Go there and scroll down first. You’ll find many basic tutorials in the very bottom, which you should watch. There are webinars for ACL and Auth too. Check out anything that interests you.

Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP: A good book on developing modern Web 2.0 applications. The book extensively uses Zend Framework and it’s useful components, rather than writing everything from scratch.

That’s all I have now. I’ll see if I can find more tutorials on the web. The above sources are the ones I referred to while learning the framework.

And By The Way! If you know of any good tutorial, or have written one on the Zend Framework, please leave a comment about it. I’ll surely add the ones that are helpful!