Zend Framework 1.6 Released

Zend Framework 1.6 was just released and we already have it on all our servers.  I can honestly say I did not have time to play around with the release candidate versions so my knowledge of it is not great.  I am however as I write this working on porting our website to use Zend Framework 1.6.  This basically means I need to drop in the new folder and confirm the smarty view system works fine which it does!  I’ve actually already found one use for it which is the Zend_Service_ReCaptcha functionality as it is the quickest solution.  Our site currently makes use of it using an outside library I’m assuming (Cody setup the captcha).  Here’s a quick run down of how easy this is to implement:

[sourcecode language=‘php’]

$recaptcha = new Zend_Service_ReCaptcha($pubKey, $privKey); [/sourcecode]

Putting in our pubKey and privKey obviously.  Then from there to display it all I need to do is:

[sourcecode language=‘php’] $this->view->captcha = $recaptcha->getHTML(); [/sourcecode]

Obviously I assigned it to my view but you could just print it if you wanted to.

[sourcecode language=‘php’] $result = $recaptcha->verify( $_POST[‘recaptcha_challenge_field’], $_POST[‘recaptcha_response_field’] ); if (!$result->isValid()) { // Failed validation } [/sourcecode]

It’s just that easy :)

Here’s a quick run down of some of the other features:

• Zend_Tool
• Lucene 2.3 Index File Format Support
• Zend_Session save handler for Database Tables
• Paginator Component
• Figlet Support
• ReCaptcha Service
• Captcha Form Element
• Zend_Config_Xml Attribute Support
• Zend_File_Transfer Component
• File Upload Form Element
• Zend_Wildfire Component with FireBug Log Writer

There are some useful features there like the Captcha one I mentioned.  The other big one I’ll probably make use of in the near future is the paginator.  I have my own one I created, but I figure no point reinventing the wheel so switching to use the Zend one makes sense.