New Project

I'm working on a new project! Instant real-time photo sharing. Check it out at http://burstn.com.

Here is my burst timeline: http://burstn.com/joshdavey

Testing

This is testing Flock the browser.

Blogged with Flock

The 9 goals of tag-Engine

I thought listing the goals I wish to meet with tag-Engine will help put the "point" of tag-Engine into perspective. So here they are...

1. Create an easy to learn syntax.
2. Allow database abstraction on the fly in templates.
3. Simplify the way tags communicate with the iterator so they are easy to develop.
4. Make content from the database accessible from multi-layered templates.
5. Develop an intelligent page querying system.
6. Simplify the interaction between tags so that they can be used as functions OR modifers.
7. Smart cacheing of sub templates based on global variables.
8. A system that will on it's own work with any normalized database. (plug and play)
9. Create an open platform that supports a community where beginners and experts can contribute fixes and new features.

Technorati tags: tag-engine, template system, PHP

Clear some things up.

I've been reading some of the blog posts in response to the tag-Engine presentation last night and I just thought I'd clear some things up for those that are confused or don't understand how this differs from the smarty engine.

Let me paint a picture of how tag-Engine can be used to make life easier for someone who doesn't know how to program in PHP.

Imagine a form used for submitting articles and the writer wants to add an image to the article. Now imagine that next to that article form is a search form that lets you search through the images table by their tags. The writer finds an image and clicks on it. When they click on it it adds a tag to the article like {img[32]} where 32 is the ID of the image. Simple enough right?

Now let's imagine they want to add a poll to their article. They create the poll in a seperate form and to add it to their article they simply add the tag {poll[44]} where 44 is the ID of the poll. How is that for convenience, accessibility and flexibility for the writers?

Now let's look at a more common problem with template systems like modules/widgets. Think of a module on a traditional template sytem that calls a list of articles. Typically the module outputs to a template where the webmaster can move variables around to "customize" the appearance. However this is simply customizing the appearance of a template the programmer has already designed. What if the webmaster wants the top 3 stories to have images and special div boxes around them? Assuming they know PHP they would need to edit the module's code and it'll most likely be an ugly hack.

With tag-Engine the results are called in the template. So you can do the following...

{loop[1|3]:}
   <div id="special">
   {counter[$x]}
   {db.src[$articles|$x|article_title]}
   {db.src[$articles|$x|article_splash_id] set[$imgid]}
   {img[$imgid]}
   </div>
{:loop}

{loop[4|($num_results - 3)]:}
   <div id="normal">
   {counter[$x]}
   {db.src[$articles|$x|article_title]}
   </div>
{:loop}

As you can see there is no limit to the format in which data can be displayed in your templates.

I hope that clears things up a bit for everyone. If you have any questions please post them in the comments section or send me an email to joshdavey@gmail.com. Thanks!

Technorati tags: tag-engine, template system, democamp

Toronto Demo Camp Presentation

Today I gave the big premiere presentation on tag-Engine at the 4th Toronto Demo Camp in front of nearly 150 people and I got a lot of positive feedback. Many people were asking when they can get their hands on it but unfortunately I don't think it'll be until sometime this summer. Because A) I'm trying to get through finals and B) there are still a few more things I'd like to fit in before I let the world disassemble my baby.

If anyone does have more questions about it though they can always email me at joshdavey@gmail.com. I would be very happy to answer any questions you may have.

Also I'll have some pics of the event up shortly. I'm just waiting to get them off the photographers.


Technorati tags: tag-engine, democamp

First Entry: What is tag-Engine?

Welcome to the home blog of the PHP template system, tag-Engine. Tag-Engine is a new kind of template system that gives more power to the artists that use template systems to draw and derive content on the frontend of generic content management systems.

The objective of tag-Engine is to solve the problems of current template systems such as flexibility, power and speed. Anyone who has had to deal with a template system from any of the major forum scripts or open source CMSs such as Joomla and Drupal know that it can be a huge hassle to figure them out and access specific content on certain pages.

Many template systems are based on the idea of including modules that output content and then you can edit the template that the module prints to. The problem is that the modules don't always print them out in the format you want and sites often look the same because it's too difficult to edit the output.

What tag-Engine does is give you the funcionality for formatting content and brings simple yet powerful database abstraction tools to the presentation layer so that you can access content wherever you want and present it however you'd like.

The estimated time of arrival for tag-Engine is summer 2006. It will be open source and free for non-commercial use.


Technorati tags: tag-engine, template system, PHP