amead@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Alan Mead) wrote:
> My inclination is to create a large index.php file that examines the
> user input and the current state and executes a subroutine that serves
> the appropriate next page [...]
This is exactly what my bt_ (bee-tee-undescore) framework does.
Each page can be generated by its own function or static method. To put an
anchor in the page, simply invoke the anchor() method:
UserSession::anchor("Do this"", "MyForm::doThisAnchor", a, b, c);
UserSession::anchor("Do that"", "MyForm::doThatAnchor", d, e);
This code generates two anchors to be sent back to the client:
<a href="index.php?i=1">Do this</a>
<a href="index.php?i=2">Do that</a>
Note the index "i=1": the actual function to invoke and its arguments
are saved in the session of the user, so if the user clicks on a link,
only a bare index "i=1" is sent back to the dispatcher page index.php;
the dispatcher page recovers the user's session data, then recovers the
index "i=1" from the request, and finally recovers the corresponding
entry with the function to invoke:
MyForm::doThisAnchor(a,b,c)
Note that the user has no way to invoke arbitrary URLs with arbitrary
parameters, because the only public URL of the whole web site is the
dispatcher page index.php; the only allowed parameter is the index i=1
which is easy to parse and validate. For buttons:
UserSession::button("Save", "MyForm::SaveButton", x, y, z);
which works in exactly the same way as the anchors above.
There are even more powerful concepts implemented:
- A call stack among pages (you may go back to the "previous page")
so that re-usable sub-pages can be created. From this feature originally came
the name of the tool (Back Tracking) and the name of its functions (bt_*).
- Multi-window sessions on a single browser.
- User's session data storage, user's window session data storage,
application data storage.
- Bt_ Forms class to manage complex forms through call-back methods and
a single renderer method.
- Usual HTML controls implemented as classes, performing data formatting, state
recovery from post-backs, parsing and validation. Plus, more advanced controls
for file upload/download, panels (control of controls), Turing test.
Tutorial:
http://www.icosaedro.it/phplint/web/index.html
Sample pages:
http://www.icosaedro.it/bt (demo web site using bt and bt forms)
https://www.icosaedro.it/iwa (an actual implementation serving my web site)
All the code is part of the PHPLint package and its "standard library":
http://www.icosaedro.it/phplint
In particular the files and directories of interest could be:
stdlib/it/icosaedro/web/Form.php (Sticky Form, a simple self contained form)
stdlib/it/icosaedro/web/bt_/UserSession.php (bt_ main class)
stdlib/it/icosaedro/web/bt_/Form.php (Bt_ Form)
stdlib/it/icosaedro/controls (HTML controls for both Sticky Forms and Bt_ Forms)
stdlib/com/acme/www (the sample web site above)
stdlib/it/icosaedro/www (the iwa web site above)
Hope this could be useful and give you some idea.
Regards,
___
/_|_\ Umberto Salsi
\/_\/ www.icosaedro.it
