PHP for Web Designers

Course details

There are many great reasons to learn PHP. You can reduce manual updates to webpages, get user input, and connect to a database of products or other information. But some web designers are intimidated by the theory and jargon. PHP for Web Designers is different. Author David Powers provides a gentle introduction to PHP, through a series of simple exercises that help you develop fully functional dynamic webpages—all powered by PHP. Learn how to reduce website maintenance by moving common page elements to external server-side include files, change content automatically depending on the date or time, display alternate text, gather user input from a form, and link to a database to display product information. The final chapter is dedicated to understanding error messages and fixing their root causes.

Note: This course was recorded with Adobe Dreamweaver, but you can use the code editor of your choice to follow along.

Learning objectives
How to use PHP in a webpage
Storing and displaying text and numbers in variables
Using functions
Adding comments to your PHP scripts
Moving common page elements to include files
Displaying different content on a page
Working with multiple values in arrays and loops
Getting form input sent by the POST method
Using PHP sessions to preserve data
Storing data in session variables
Connecting to and querying a database
Handling errors

Concepts

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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