Wigbi 1.2.0 is out

After some nightly hacking, the brand new Wigbi 1.2.0 is out. Check out the details at http://www.wigbi.com

I will try to write some short blog posts about the various improvements, as well as create updated video tutorials,but I believe that baby #2 (ETA today) will delay this a little. Time will tell.

Release notes

The Wigbi AJAX pipeline is really convenient, but could expose the system to bad stuff, since any class method can be executed. Therefore, this new version features improved AJAX security, which as a bonus also causes size reduction to the data that is passed between the client and the server. Safer and faster…well, a bit at least.

I have also fixed two invalid DOM selectors in the TinyMceExtender JavaScript code. The ones in the old version had an incorrect space in them, which caused textareas to not be converted into WYSIWYG editors. This is all taken care of now, so the extender should work even with the new version of Tiny MCE.

For more details, check the release notes in the download bundle.

Wigbi 1.1.3 is out

In Wigbi 1.1.2, I added a new .htaccess file that did not contain the magic quotes line, since that line made Wigbi crash if the PHP installation did not support magic quotes. However, I managed to remove the line in the incorrect file, which made all Wigbi AJAX pipeline operations fail. Great scott!

I have added a hotfix (love the name) which is available as Wigib 1.1.3 at github and wigbi.com – get it if you managed to download the crappy 1.1.2 version.

And while I am at it, I can as well talk a bit what will be included in the upcoming Wigbi 1.2. You see,  the Wigbi AJAX pipeline is really convenient, but can expose the system to bad stuff, since any class method can be executed as long as Wigbi is aware of the class. I will therefore add a new configuration file parameter In Wigbi 1.2.0. It is named ajaxClasses and is a comma-separated list with the names of all the classes that can be used with the Wigbi AJAX pipeline. Every data plugin can be used without adding its class name here, as well as Wigbi, but all other classes must be added here before you can go AJAX on them.

Finally, after today’s demo, I have decided to develop another start package called Wigbi CMS, which will feature a (basic) CMS framework. It will be released with Wigbi 1.3.0…which will be out…uhm, soon.

Wigbi 1.1.1 (.htaccess hotfix) is out

So, yesterday evening, I finished putting together Wigbi 1.1.0, which is a better wrap-up than the 1.0.3 release…and today, I decided to release a quick hotfix – Wigbi 1.1.1.

Wigbi 1.1.1 takes care of an .htaccess rewrite bug that caused the MVC engine to ignore any defined query strings. Two big thumbs up to Fredrik Bonander who helped me out with the regexp bug handling!

Wigbi 1.1.1 comes with an already configured MVC template set that features a basic, but fully functional MVC routing .htaccess file, a controller handler that receives all registered routes in the .htaccess file, as well as a default Home controller, a target Index view as well as a simple master page.

This setup will probably help you get started a lot quicker than if you were to start off from a clean slate. I also uploaded a new video tutorial that demonstrates how to download Wigbi and get it up and running. If you decide to give Wigbi a try, let me know what you think.

Download Wigbi and watch the video tutorial here.

 

Wigbi 1.1.0 is out!

1.1.0? Yes, I take a biig leap and upgrade the version to 1.1.0. In this release, I have added an MVC template that features a controller, one view and a master page. Hopefully, this setup will help you get started a bit quicker than the old index-wigbi.php page. You do not have to use the templates, but they are there if you want to.

So, instead of the index-wigbi.php page, Wigbi now comes with a brand new file called REMOVE_THE_FILENAME.htaccess. Just remove the file name (yes, just like the file name told you) to make it into an .htaccess file. This is the file that will be responsible for the MVC routing.

Also…the MasterPage class has changed quiite a bit compared to Wigbi 1.0.3. Since the View class can be used to push data to views, variable handling in the master page class is no more. Furthermore, the file path must now be set separately and not when calling build. Finally, all the content area related methods are now removed to openContentArea, closeContentArea and getContent.

So, now, it is a lot easier to start Wigbi in 1.1.0. No starting / stopping must be added to the master page, or any page at all. It is all happening in the controller start point. Good stuff!

I will update the start page video so that it shows the most current setup. Until then, you can download Wigbi 1.1.0 here.

Wigbi + WampServer problem

I downloaded Wigbi 1.0.3 tonight, to figure out why it does not run so good on WampServer. Turns out that the problem is not because of Wigbi, but rather that an Apache module needs to be enabled.

Wigbi uses URL rewriting, which by default is disabled in WampServer. To enable it, click on the WampServer icon in the system tray, navigate to Apache/Apache Modules and enable rewrite_module.

After this, Wigbi should work without any problems whatsoever

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entering Plupload (aka the death of FileUploadForm)

In Wigbi 0.99, I had a really handy UI plugin called FileUploadForm, which could upload any number of files with AJAX. All you needed to do was to add such a form to the page to have it handle the entire file upload process automatically.

However,as I yesterday sat down to migrate the old plugin so that it would work together with the new Wigbi version, I thought “hey, three years have passed – there MUST be an even easier way to upload files”.

Believe it or not…there was.

The people behind Tiny MCE have created a really nice file upload component called Plupload. It supports several ”runtimes” – from jQuery-based file upload in HTML4/5 to Flash, Silverlight, Gears etc. and is insanely easy to configure. You can tell Plupload which runtimes you’d prefer to use, which file types to support etc. The users can then upload files either with a regular “select file(s)” dialog or by dragging files from an Explorer/Finder window.

To make Plupload work flawlessly with Wigbi, I moved the upload.php file to the ~/wigbi/pages/ folder and added some extra functionality, like starting/stopping Wigbi and being able to adjust the target folder with a query string variable. All in all, adding Plupload to my Wigbi-based site took 10 minutes and worked perfect.

Due to this, I will not create a new version of the old FileUploadForm plugin. I will rather add an upload.php dummy page to the ~/wigbi/pages/ folder, that describes how to adjust the upload file that is included with Plupload.

Wigbi 1.0.2 release notes

Wigbi 1.0.2 was released yesterday. The new release features some handy additions and some important changes.

A change that is important to note is that the View class has been stripped. All View::add methods (except View::addView) have been removed, since they made the View class really messy and I regret adding them there in the first place. Due to this, all UI plugins have been changed to not use these methods. When upgrading to Wigbi 1.0.2, old UI plugins must be modified not to use the removed methods.

Another big change is that all of the view/edit UI plugins (e.g. NewsControl and NewsForm) have been merged into one single control. Furthermore, they do not add a serialized version of the object to a hidden textarea, but add the ID of the managed object into a hidden field instead. This makes them more secure and easier to manage.

The WigbiDataUiPlugin class has a really handy addition. The getSet() method will make he property section of all data plugins a lot smaller. Also, it is verified that the constructor can use parameters. See the MenuItem class for examples of these two changes.

Wigbi now embeds the startup JavaScript code in a CDATA comment, which means that the code no longer affects HTML validation.

Finally, the RuntimeBuild.obfuscate parameter can be removed from the config file. It is no longer used.

In all, the new release makes Wigbi even more light-weight. Let me know if you decide to try it out. I would love to hear what you think of it.

Wigbi 1.0.0 release notes

Wigbi 1.0.0 is a complete rewrite of previous Wigbi versions. New developers are adviced to check out the documentation, demos and tutorials on wigbi.com. The release feature major changes, of which only some are listed down below.

The Wigbi configuration file has been completely rewritten and uses real ini sections. Older configuration files will not work with Wigbi 1.0.

Wigbi no longer features bundled classes. All the source code is provided as is, which simplifies modifications and bug fixes in an already running Wigbi instance. The two wigbi/php/wigbi and wigbi/js/wigbi folders are now removed as well. The Wigbi classes are added directly in wigbi/php and wigbi/js.

Wigbi no longer creates bundled JavaScript files for the data and UI plugins. UI plugins already have a JavaScript file, so generating file for them is no longer necessary. For data plugins, Wigbi now generates one file per plugin. The obfuscate option has been removed from the configuration file since it’s no longer used by Wigbi. For now, the JavaScriptPacker tool is still bundled with Wigbi, though. It may be removed in future versions.

It is now possible to change the value of the Wigbi::configFile(..) property to make Wigbi use another configuration file when starting up. However, note that the property is currently not set for the JS Wigbi class, since the PHP property is relative and the JavaScript property must be app relative. It is important that you change the Wigbi._ajaxConfigFile variable as well for now.

Some Wigbi classes that were previously static have now been made non-static to make it possible to create custom instances. However, the Wigbi class has default instances of these classes that are setup with the Wigbi config file.

All property methods have been modified. Instead of x()/setX(..), properties now take an optional set parameter if they are settabl…just like jQuery

Wigbi now features a quite basic MVC engine which is inspired by ASP.NET MVC. This makes it even easier to separate functionality from content.

The WigbiUIPlugin base class has been simplified compared to the old one. It contains a few help methods and must still be inherited.

A brief over the dead blog period

So, without any beels and whistles, I have released two new versions of Wigbi. I have, though, been a really bad blogger when it comes to this blog. With a new job, christmas holidays and a lot in the pipeline, I have been focusing more on getting things done than to write here.

However, here is what’s happened most recently…

In the beginning of January, I released Wigbi 1.0.0 after a lot of development. The 1.0.0 release was a biiiig step forward compared to 0.99. It is a complete rewrite of the source code and features a lot of new goodies. It also comes with non-bundled source code, which makes makes modifications and additions a lot easier. I will post the release notes for each version after finishing this post.

Two weeks after the 1.0.0 release, I released Wigbi 1.0.1, which focused mainly on major plugin updates. Together with a lot of tweaks, which made the version a lot more stable compared to the 1.0.0 release. It also featured several new plugins.

Soon, I will release Wigbi 1.0.2, which is more or less another major plugin update version. After cleaning up the MVC View class dramatically, I also took the UI plugin rendering back to basics. Data plugins have more effective property handling, which will minimize the amount of code that has to be written for each plugin.

The Wigbi web site has undergone major changes, and is now really only a start page…but a damn nice one This blog has a new theme as well, which makes it remind of the main web site a lot more.

I also moved the Wigbi source code to GitHub, which was a major step that has allowed me to work a lot faster.

All in all, a lot have happened, but nothing has been flagged on this blog. Keep checking in, and I promise that this blog will once again come alive with a lot of exciting stuff.

Disabled magic quotes

I have disabled magic quotes for Wigbi.

If the feature was disabled, Wigbi would handle AJAX posted data incorrectly.

Read more here: http://danielsaidi.wordpress.com/2010/11/24/php-the-horrible-magic-quotes/

The fix has been checked in on GitHub.