2. PHPRunner General questions
  3. is phpr lacking?
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is phpr lacking?

 		4/25/2008 11:28:39 AM
PHPRunner General questions
E
 echo author

hello. i downloaded phprunner 4.2 and must say what a very confusing piece of software. reason i wanted to look at this product, was that i have a project coming up where in thought this type of software may be useful in finishing the project quickly. i normally use dw + interakt (Adobe), but when they became adobe, developers toolkit, in i decided to look for an alternative. do not like cs3. hence the download. i have some questions that i would like to raise.

  1. Is the Visual Editor for real?
    I spent most of the day getting to grips with phpr and seemed to be doing ok. however, when i decided to add a report and then delete it, i was left with no alternative but to reset the whole page which meant that any formatting i had done became useless. what;s the deal here with the VE?
    2)
    Why is there so many tables and &nbsp? even when i delete &nbsp they come back?
    3)
    Where can i find a more detailed tut or guide on using the events features of phpr?
    4)
    last but for me, the most important. as an excercise i tried to dabble with the db side of phpr. could some kind soul tell me how they would accomplish this. i have a database with a table (boxes) clients need to update or retrieve or add. when one of these actions are performed on th table 3 other tables need to be updated with it. i would normally use many-to-many in dw and i could accomplish this fairly quickly. i cannot see how to do that in phpr? i think you may refer to it as pairs? any info would be invaluable to me.
    i need to evaluate this product properly before making a decision because i believe in being fair when it may be my fault why these things aren't happening. many thanks.
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 		genegerwin 4/25/2008

I too, am experiencing the same problem with page re-setting in the visual designer. It started with just one page constantly needing to be re-set. But as I continue to work on my project, new pages are joining the fray.
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 		echo author 4/25/2008

hi gene. not just me then :-) would it not be better to have either some kind of button if people have there own editor, like dw which then when saved updates the page with new settings. For people that do not have editor, the VE is a better option than no option at all. personally, i think it causes more production time and worry, wondering if you delete or change something, you lose all formatting and have to start again. perhaps the designers logic, was do all the db work first, then work on design? who knows :-) will keep going for now learning the other basics. cheers
Sergey Kornilov admin 4/26/2008

There problem is not that Visual Editor sucks. The reason is a bit deeper and external editor won't solve it. Let me explain how it works.
The conflict happens when you make changes in both Visual Editor and project settings. PHPRunner is trying to merge changes behind the scene however it's not always possible. In this case it throws famous "reset" warning which means you just lost some work. Not a good thing.
Each templates consists of blocks like search form, data table, pagination control etc. and a "glue" (html code that defines blocks layout and formatting). PHPRunner is trying to merge the whole while it's only required to merge blocks. Here is what we doing right now in order to resolve this.
Step 1. Switch to DIV-based layout. Avoid HTML tables whenever is possible

Step 2. Define sections in template file and merge each section separately. Even if one of sections cannot be merged we can localize the conflict and the rest of formatting won't be lost.
Next week we'll post an announcement in forums with more info and some examples. I hope this makes sense.
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 		genegerwin 4/26/2008

There problem is not that Visual Editor sucks. The reason is a bit deeper and eternal editor won't solve it. Let me explain how it works.


I think we already have an "eternal" editor... hehe...
<img src='https://asprunner.com/forums/file.php?topicimage=1&fieldname=reply&id=28582&image=1&table=forumreplies' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' />
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 		echo author 4/26/2008

Admin. DIV based templates would certainly be a welcome addition. i think the majority of your users are more comfortable with css type styling than conventional html. you have actually pre-empted my next suggestion. and that is working in modules, or sections. easier to replace 10% than 100%. After all, you build your development in stages. Also, still feel that more could be done with practical examples as to the behind the scenes workings. i refer to modules like events etc. you could be the best mysql guru in existnce. but if you don't know the logic or order of things. you tend to sit there scratching your head and that means lost production time. all in all though, with the limited knowledge i have of your product (24hrs) :-) it seems that once you master the logic, the rest is easy. look forward to the announcement next week. good luck with a very valuable addition in the market place.
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 		dakk 4/26/2008

I too had a few reworks when I had to reset the page in visual editor. My solution was I copied a phprunner layout, renamed it, and used the new template. I modified the new template html files and css class till I got the structure and colors the way I like. Now when I have to reset I don't loose anything and my html structure is allot better. Do very little and preferably nothing in visual editor is my experience. My only concern with this will my templates still work when upgrades are installed. Over all I like the product and it is a big time saver in developing a php web app.