Since starting a new job in December, I’ve returned to Coldfusion for web development and have adopted the CFWheels framework. Having found a PHP framework that I really liked in Codeigniter, I wanted to find something similar for CF. Fusebox just didn’t cut it. CFWheels was the closest thing I could find to Codeigniter:

• It utilizes CFCs for Controllers and Models in the way that Codeigniter uses classes.
• It comes with some very helpful “helpers” for all kinds of things including redirects, “flash” (no, not that kind) messages, and HTML display code.
• The online documentation is thorough and easy to navigate.

It’s missing a few things that I liked in Codeigniter, like being able create a query object once that’s available throughout a controller, but it’s only up to version 1.0.5 as of this writing, so I expect great things in the future.

I’ve always had trouble wrapping my head around PHP frameworks like Zend and CakePHP. Let’s be clear though – I’m a PHP hack, always doing enough to get the job done without thinking about standards, scalability, or handing off code to another developer. However, I recently discovered the CodeIgniter framework. It’s still MVC, but what sets it apart is it’s flexibility and ease of setup.

I’m not going to go into any detail because I’m still a noob, but if you are looking to move from “anything goes” PHP to a framework that’s easy wrap your head around and provides a gateway to the MVC way of thinking, give CodeIgniter a try.

On a side note, one of the things that drew me to CodeIgniter was it’s relationship to Expression Engine (EE), and in particular, the upcoming 2.0 version that is being built with CodeIgniter. I thought this combination could be very powerful – having a CMS available for which you already could know the guts of it for extensibility, etc. However, after playing with the current version of EE, seeing the learning curve required, and thinking about the cost of each installation for commercial use (EE is not free), I’m not sure sure I’ll use it. That hasn’t dampened my enthusiasm for Codeigniter though. It can stand on it’s own for projects requiring custom development.

I’ve not developed any web apps for the iPhone (beyond installing the very cool wptouch iphone-friendly WordPress theme for this blog). However, I do appreciate the continuing value of web apps for the iPhone. I just came across a very cool OS X app that acts as an iPhone simulator for web apps called iPhoney.

iPhoney simply runs Safari in the form of an iPhone, and allows you to choose between Webkit, iPhone, and custom user agents.

Here are the full “iPhacts” from the iPhoney home page:

• Test your iPhone-enabled Web 2.0 applications and compatible web sites.
• Open any website that works with Safari (use Safari 3 beta for the most accurate experience).
• Rotate to see websites in either portrait or landscape orientation.
• Show or hide the location bar for a full-screen iPhone experience.
• Simulate the iPhone user agent, to test browser redirection scripts.
• Zoom out to see how your current pages might look while zoomed out on iPhone.
• Turn off plug-ins (including Flash, but note that they all turn off (including QuickTime).
• Automatic updates with Sparkle, so you’ll always know if there’s a new version.
• And of course, open source code so you can contribute to iPhoney’s rapid development.