Click here to view the demo application

Click here to view the demo source

The demo application starts out by displaying a form which has 2 input fields.  When submitted the value of the form is submitted to the PHP service which validates the submission and returns a response.  If there are no errors the results are displayed.

ClaireKerkness.mxml

The main application MXML file contains the ViewController and a ViewStack with both our FormView and ResultView as children. When the view controller dispatches the mainViewChange event a handler function changes the displayed view.

model/Views.as

This is a very simple Actionscript class which defines a couple of static constants to use as the names for our two views.

model/NameModel.as

A simple Actionscript class which we use as a data model.  When a response is returned we update this model.

NOTE: In this example our NameModel is a Singleton Class because we only want one instance.  This doesn’t have to be the case. You might want to create many instances of a data model if you expect many records of similar data.

views/FormView.mxml

FormView is an MXML component that contains a couple of form elements and a ClaireService component which is used to send a HTTPService request to the Kerkness backend. If an error is returned the error message is displayed.  If a response is returned we update the NameModel and change the currentView to our ResultView.

views/ResultView.mxml

ResultView is a simple MXML component which displays content from the NameModel.

kerk/module/demo/submitform.php

This is the PHP file which accepts our form submission. Check out the kerkness tutorials for details on how the kerkness framework handles requests.

PHP Source Code

if( ! $_POST['firstname'] || ! $_POST['lastname'] )
{
 	$kerk->throwError('Incomplete Submission...', true );
}

$fullName = $_POST['firstname']. ' ' .$_POST['lastname'];

$kerk->addContent('fullName', $fullName); 

In this example we are going to create a web service which returns a JSON formatted string. This request could be called from almost any type of AJAX or Javascrpt HTTP Request which expects a JSON formatted response.

Test the example: http://kerkness.ca/kerkdemo/hello.world

Example 1

Create the directory kerk/modules/hello/

Inside the ‘hello’ directory create the file ‘world.php’ and add the following to it.

<?php
    $kerk->addContent('myvar', 'Hello World');
?>

Now you can make a request for this service by calling http://kerkness.ca/kerkdemo/hello.world and see the following response

{"content":{"myvar":"Hello World"}}

Next

Creating your first HTML service request ]]> http://www.kerkness.ca/creating-your-first-json-service-request/feed/ 0 http://www.kerkness.ca/creating-a-web-page-from-multiple-requests-or-content-blocks/ http://www.kerkness.ca/creating-a-web-page-from-multiple-requests-or-content-blocks/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:18:45 +0000 Kerk http://www.kerkness.ca/?p=248 In this example we are going to create a web page that uses a theme as well as several dynamic content blocks. The page theme will include a dynamic navigation menu and the main body of the page will include a random quote content block.

Test this example: http://kerkness.ca/kerkdemo/example.home

Example 4

If you haven’t done so already check out Example 1, Example 2 and Example 3.

Create folders and files

Create the following folders. kerk/modules/example and kerk/templates/example

Inside the kerk/modules/example folder create the files ‘home.php‘, ‘quote.php‘, ‘nav.php‘ and ‘theme.php‘. These will be the scripts that are executed to create the content for our page.

Inside the kerk/templates/example folder create a similar set of files. ‘home.php‘, ‘quote.php‘, ‘nav.php‘ and ‘theme.php‘. These files will be the templates used to format the content from our scripts.

kerk/modules/example/home.php

<?php
  $kerk->setResponseFormat('HTML');
  $kerk->setTheme('example.theme');
  $kerk->addRequest('example.quote');
?>

kerk/modules/example/theme.php

<?php
   $kerk->addRequest('example.nav');
?>

kerk/modules/example/nav.php

<?php
    $links[] = array('url'=>'http://www.google.ca', 'name'=>'Google');
    $links[] = array('url'=>'http://kerkness.blogspot.com', 'name'=>'Blog');
    $links[] = array('url'=>'http://kerkness.wikidot.com', 'name'=>'Wiki');

    $kerk->addContent('links', $links);
?>

kerk/modules/example/quote.php

<?php
  $quotes = array(
        'You are your shadow and your shadow is you.',
        'I am a banana!',
        'I would love a banana!',
        'How much is that banana!',
        'My banana is yellow!',
        'habba banana!',
        'Looks like a banana!',
        'Smells like a banana!',
        'Tastes like a banana!',
        'I am not a banana');
  $quote = $quotes[array_rand($quotes)];
  $kerk->addContent( 'quote', $quote );
?>

kerk/templates/example/home.php

<div align="left">
   This is my home page and here is some non-dynamic content.
</div>
<div style="background-color:#CCCCCC">
   [include:public.example.quote]
</div>

kerk/templates/example/theme.php

<html>
  <body>
     <h1>This is my web page</h1>
     [include:public.example.nav]
     <div bgcolor="blue">
    [include:main_request]
     </div>
     <h5>This is my page footer</h5>
  </body>
</html>

kerk/templates/example/nav.php

<div style="width: 530px; background-color:#EEEEEE;">
 Navigation
<?php foreach( $links as $i=>$link ) { ?>
    <a href="<?php print $link['url'] ?>"><?php print $link['name'] ?></a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<?php } // end foreach $links ?>
</div>

kerk/templates/example/quote.php

<b>Random Quote</b><br/>
<i><?php print $quote ?></i>

In this example we set an additional request to act as a theme. Using themes are useful when you want several web pages or requests to be displayed in a consistent look. A theme is only relevant when sending an HTML formatted response.

Test the example: http://kerkness.ca/kerkdemo/hello.galaxy

Example 3

Inside the folder kerk/modules/hello create a file called galaxy.php and add the following to it. This file is exactly the same as the universe.php file created in the first HTML example except we have added a line which sets the theme for our request. (note: We can still use the tempalte hello.universe even tho our request is hello.galaxy)

<?php

  // Tell kerkness that this request should return an HTML response
  $kerk->setResponseFormat('HTML');

  // Set the template for this request
  $kerk->setTemplate( 'hello.universe' );

  // Set the theme for this request
  $kerk->setTheme( 'hello.theme' );

  // Add some content to the request object
  $kerk->addContent('myVar', 'Hello Galaxy');

?>

Inside the directory kerk/modules/hello create the file ‘theme.php’ and add the following

<?php

 $kerk->setTemplate('hello.theme');
 $kerk->addContent('page_title', "This is my theme title");

?>

Inside the directory kerk/templates/hello create the file ‘theme.php’ and add the following

<html>
 <body>
    <h1><?php print $page_title ?></h1>
    <!-- Place include tag where results from our main request will be placed -->
    [include:main_request]
    <h2>This is a footer</h2>
 </body>
</html>

Now when you call http://kerkness.ca/kerkdemo/hello.galaxy the request hello.galaxy will now be displayed inside the hello.theme.

Next

Creating a full dynamic web page with several content blocks ]]> http://www.kerkness.ca/creating-an-html-request-with-a-theme/feed/ 0 http://www.kerkness.ca/creating-your-first-html-service-request/ http://www.kerkness.ca/creating-your-first-html-service-request/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:14:19 +0000 Kerk http://www.kerkness.ca/?p=243

This example shows a request which returns a HTML formatted response using an HTML/PHP template. This request could be called by when a partial or full web page is expected in response. It could be used to load an entire web page or be used as a content block in another web page.

Test the example: http://kerkness.ca/kerkdemo/hello.universe

Example 2

If you haven’t already create the directory kerk/modules/hello

Inside the ‘hello’ directory create the file ‘universe.php’ and add the following to it.

<?php

 // Tell kerkness that this request should return an HTML response
  $kerk->setResponseFormat('HTML');

  // Set the template for this request
  $kerk->setTemplate( 'hello.universe' );

  // Add some content to the request object
  $kerk->addContent('myVar', 'Hello Universe');

?>

Create the director kerk/templates/hello

Inside the ‘kerk/templates/hello’ directory create the file ‘universe.php’ and add the following to it

<b>This is the template for hello.universe</b><br/>
<?php print $myVar ?>

Now you can make a request for this service by calling http://kerkness.ca/kerkdemo/hello.universe and see the following response:

Next

Your first HTML request with Theme ]]> http://www.kerkness.ca/creating-your-first-html-service-request/feed/ 0 http://www.kerkness.ca/installing-kerkness/ http://www.kerkness.ca/installing-kerkness/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:10:59 +0000 Kerk http://www.kerkness.ca/?p=238 Installing Kerkness ( overview )

Kerkness requires a web server running php5 with php-json enabled. It has been primarily test on Ubuntu servers running Apache2 but should be suitable for any server environment running php5.

If you plan on using clean request URLs you will need to have the Apache ReWrite module enabled for your apache server and requires the use of a .htaccess file.

Basic install steps:

1. Download current version of kerkness
2. Copy the contents of the folders ‘kerk’ and ‘www’ to your web server where ‘www’ is the root directory for your website or domain.
3. Modify the values in the config file ‘www/kc.php’;