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Zend Framework: Zend_Controller_Scaffolding Component Proposal

Table of Contents

1. Overview

Zend_Controller_Scaffolding will provide quick scaffolding features (that every mature framework has) by extending Zend_Controller_Action class. The component has a real code base (http://code.google.com/p/zendscaffolding/) and is used in several projects.

2. References

Google Code Project: http://code.google.com/p/zendscaffolding/

3. Component Requirements, Constraints, and Acceptance Criteria

• This component provides typical scaffolding actions like CReate, Update and Delete, as well as data lists.
• This component allows to easily mix scaffolding and custom actions.
• This component allows to use custom views for scaffolding actions by setting a view path.
• This component supports sorting of data lists.
• This component supports partially (and will provide a larger support) data list filtering by one or more data fields.
• This component supports pagination of data lists.
• This component supports custom select statements (Zend_Db_Select or Zend_Db_Table_Select) for specific data lists.
• This component supports pagination of data lists.
• This component provides several callbacks (through overriding of protected methods) to customize edit and search forms and enhance user experience.
• This component supports data relationships (and will provide a larger support) when editing related entities (like one-to-many and many-to-many).
• This component allows to restrict certain scaffolding actions and/or provide data listing only.
• This component will support scaffolding configuration through Zend_Config.

4. Dependencies on Other Framework Components

• Zend_Controller
• Zend_Db
• Zend_View
• Zend_Form
• Zend_Pagination
• Zend_Validate
• Zend_Filter

5. Theory of Operation

There are several steps:

• Decide on data fields available for edition/listing/sorting/search and prepare two configuration structures: list of data (or synthetic) fields and general scaffolding options (like custom view folder, pagination etc.)
• Initialize scaffolding by passing 3 parameters: data providing class instance and the two configuration structures.

6. Milestones / Tasks

• Milestone 1: Discussions on design and functionalities.
• Milestone 2: Working prototype checked into the incubator supporting all use cases.
• Milestone 3: Unit tests exist, work, and are checked into SVN.
• Milestone 4: Initial documentation exists.

7. Class Index

• Zend_Controller_Scaffolding

8. Use Cases

Using scaffolding in a typical situation - back-end user management interface.
Suppose we have a (MySQL) table users with the following structure:

Also we created a model class Application_Model_Users that extends Zend_Db_Table. So, very basic scaffolding initialization will look like this:

Advanced usage with sorting, search, presentation tweaks, pagination.

List filtering (using Zend_Db_Table_Select). Useful for simple reporting.

9. Class Skeletons

View scripts View scripts for corresponding actions will be available. User will have to place them under /views/scripts/scaffolding.