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Download Pines from SourceForge

Requires LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). Requires at least PHP 5.2.10. Please note that Pines is in alpha stage development, which means that any releases during this stage are not suitable for production environments and should only be used for testing.

Pines is a PHP application framework, released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3. It is designed to be extended easily. Currently complete are a user component, a point of sale system, and mailing list component. The administrator drops in components to add the functionality he desires. For example, if he wants to have a user management system, he simply drops in com_user. When com_user takes over user management for the system, it will prompt users to log in and only give them permissions they have been allowed.

Pines is full of features to make programming PHP applications easier. For example, it has a database abstraction layer called an entity manager. The entity manager lets developers use objects to store data in a database rather than having to write SQL code to access it. The entity manager's interface is a much more natural way to manipulate and pull data than those of conventional relational databases, because it uses the native structures of the PHP language. Relational data is much easier to manage this way. This abstraction also lets a component that uses entities work with many different types of databases, even flat files. For the time being, however, there is only an entity manager written for MySQL.

Pines includes an object method hooking system, which allows a component to easily extend and modify an existing component's functionality without altering the source code. The hooking system allows a component to intercept the arguments passed in a function call and analyze/alter them. It can then cancel the call or pass the arguments along. Return values of function calls can also be intercepted and altered.

When Pines v1.0 is released, it will have a package manager which will let the administrator install components and automatically retrieve all their dependencies. It will also notify the administrator if there are updates available, and let him automatically install them.

Pines was designed to allow maximum flexibility for the developer, while still providing a large enough base product to make development easy. The developer can choose what database system he uses, if any. However, developers are encouraged to use the entity manager, so the administrator can choose which database he would like.

View the preliminary documentation for Pines. Visit the Pines project page.

I recently needed to sort div elements in the DOM by a timestamp in child divs. After searching for a while and finding no jQuery style solution, I figured out an easy way to do it, the jQuery way. Here is the code:

// Sort by timestamp.
$("#timeclock_edit").prepend($("#timeclock_edit div.element").get().sort(function(a, b){
    return $(a).find(".timestamp").text() - $(b).find(".timestamp").text();
}));

The code grabs an array of DOM elements, sorts it by comparing the text in the timestamp element, then prepends that to the parent div. The way this is coded is not very flexible, but it could be expanded easily.

CSS form design has been plaguing me for a while now in the Pines project. After searching the web for a couple days trying to find a good CSS design for HTML forms and finding only designs full of hacks/Javascript workarounds or designs too ugly and/or restrictive to be considered, I set out on my own to design a near flawless, flexible, featureful, standards compliant, and cross-compatible form design to suit the needs of the Pines project. I have accomplished my goal, and want to share my work with others so they can benefit from it. This design has been tested and works in the following browsers:

• Internet Explorer 5.01
• Internet Explorer 5.5
• Internet Explorer 6
• Internet Explorer 7
• Internet Explorer 8
  
• Firefox 1.0
• Firefox 1.5
• Firefox 2.0
• Firefox 3.0
• Firefox 3.5
• Safari 3
• Safari 4
  
• Opera 8
• Opera 9
• Opera 10
  
• Google Chrome 2
  

License: Open Source (GNU GPL)

Source Download Planned Features (Request a Feature Here) Known Issues Online Help Documentation

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Requires Windows® XP, or Vista

License: Open Source (GNU GPL)

Source Installer Zip Planned Features (Request a Feature Here) Known Issues Online Help Documentation

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Requires Windows® 2000, XP, or Vista