This is a demonstration of the formVista™ Business Component Framework for PHP.

formVista™ is an open-source dual-licensed PHP component framework for the rapid creation of advanced business web applications that run in commodity hosting environments. It's purpose is to help web development companies do more, faster, with less staff.

The framework implements the formVista Markup Language (a.k.a. FVML), an XML dialect that brings reusability and role separation to web development projects by combining HTML, SQL, client side Javascript (including AJAX), validation rules, authentication and business logic into completely self-contained components. Components may be as simple as a columnar report or as complex as a multi-user discussion forum. Once built in FVML, components can be placed by relatively junior web designers onto any properly configured PHP web page as if it were any other kind of content.

For more information please refer to the formVista™ web site at formvista.com.

This demonstration is broken down into sections that cover various aspects of the framework:

This is an extremely simple example. It implements a simple columnar report. It consists of a single PHP page with the minimum set of calls, a configuration file and a single fvml file containing a columnlist component with two columns.

formVista Component Gallery

This section contains a number of simple examples demonstrating some key features of the formVista framework.

A Calendar

This example uses the calendarlist component type to implement a simple month-view readonly calendar that supports one time and recurring events. Items can be added, removed or modified using the backend.

A Categorized Blog

This section contains a complete multi-component formVista application that implements a multi-user article posting system not unlike those seen on Slashdot.org and other sites. It supports:

a paginated view of articles using the list component type.
searching articles by date, keyword and category using a form component tied to the article list component.
searching by calendar using a calendar component tied to the article list component.
search by a category tree using a treelist component tied to the article list component.
grant based password protection using the auth component class.
posting of new articles using a form component protected by an auth component.
an example of the AreaEdit WYSIWYG editor brought in using the <htmleditor> FVML tag.
editing of articles if one is logged in using the auth component loaded "in the background" on the main page.

When compared to other blogging solutions, this one is very basic. However, it demonstrates what a multi-component formVista application might look like. If you need simple blogging facilities on your site, because these components are built using formVista they can be dropped into your own pages and skinned to match just like any other formVista component.

The Backend

This section contains the administrative backend for the calendar, the clog and user login management. It is also a complete formVista application consisting of many components. It allows you to:

add, edit and delete items from the calendar
add, edit, move and delete categories for the clog.
add, edit, delete users, groups and grants.

The demos/admin/admin subdirectory implements the user, groups and grants management system and is designed to be 100% re-useable for your own applications. Indeed, any applications which uses the auth component will want to include the login management components in a related backend.

Documentation

A incomplete draft of the formVista Guide and Reference Manual is included in the distribution.

The formVista component framework API documentation is also included.

There is also some formVista demoshell source code documentation.

Please refer to the formVista Framework README.txt and RELEASE_NOTES.txt files for more technical information about the framework internals. As has been mentioned elsewhere, all the source code files in both the demoshell and the framework itself are extensively commented which will hopefully make it easier for new developers to come up to speed. When in doubt "use the source, Luke".

Current versions of all of this documentation is always available on the formVista website.

Join us in the formVista forum if you have any questions or feedback.

License

formVista and this demo are licensed under the Reciprocal Public License

Licenses for commercial use are available.

More information is available at:

http://www.formvista.com