XSLT-Powered E-mail Templating

These days, it’s a rare website that doesn’t have to sende-mail. PHP’s simple mailing facilities simplify the task ofsending messages, but they do nothing to help the developer createwell-formatted and functional e-mails. In this article, MarcoTabini shows the way to a more beautiful world.—by Marco Tabini

Excel, OpenXML and PHP

A few months ago, Microsoft released Office 2007, a versionof their office suite that generates open source documents. Here,Maarten Balliauw gives an overview of the history and the politicssurrounding the release before moving on to introduce his PHPExcelproject, an early adoption of Microsoft’s OpenXML API that enablesExcel 2007 spreadsheets to be generated with PHP.—by Maarten Balliauw

Symfony

Symfony is much more than just another MVC framework. Ittakes the best of the current crop of PHP-based development tools,and brings them all together to form a cohesive approach to Webapplication development. In this, the first of a two-part series,Dustin Whittle gives an overview of the project’s capabilities anddemonstrates how to set up a basic symfony configuration.—by Dustin Whittle

RIA in the Enterprise

How would you cope if a Fortune 500 company approached yourWeb development team and asked you to deliver a custom-made RichInternet Application… in a matter of weeks? It really happened tothe team at Active Media Architects. Read their project diary tolearn about the blood, sweat and tears that went into the making ofMyKleenexTissue.com.—by Active Media Architects

Security Corner

There are several different approaches to input filtering inthe industry. In this month’s Security Corner, Chris Shiflett aimsto provide some clarity regarding those approaches, to clear upinconsistencies in the various terminologies that are doing therounds, and to offer a solid base for your own filteringapproach.—by Chris Shiflett

Test Pattern

Components are reusable packages of code with well-definedinterfaces and tool support. Test Pattern regular Jeff Moore looksinto the language requirements necessary for building components,and asks how PHP measures up to the challenge.—by Jeff Moore