What is Condor?

Condor is a real simple PHP framework. It is designed using MVC - Condor brings the VC, you bring the M. It's mostly targeted towards developers who don't want all the overhead of a more elaborate framework but get sick of doing the same thing over and over to bootstrap the development process. In some ways, Condor's simplicity becomes a burden - it means that you still have to handle a lot of the typical application development cycle yourself. That said, it should make development easier for most people in most situations - provided you have a good grasp of PHP and are not afraid to get your hands dirty.

Configuration

To get it working you gotta change the base route in the .htaccess file. This allows the system to forward the URL to the routing system to let it do the controller bling stuff. I have found some situations prevent the setting of the WEB_ROOT constant correctly. In these situations it will become necessary for you to set them manually. This constant is declared in index.php.

Sys

Condor uses a simple system for accessing global variables. It lets you get accces to them without having to declare global inside daughter scopes, or by using the $GLOBALS array. It's pretty simple to use; basically, you just pretend like global variables exist in sys() like such:

sys()->variable = 'Set the variable';
echo sys()->variable;

This is how you might gain access to the database PDO instance - it is declared in lib/database.php. So, to get access to it you can just do: sys()->db->whatever;

Usage of sys is not required, but it is convenient as a means of setting global variables and accessing their contents easily.

Routes

Condor has a simple controller-level routing system. You can define routes per controller by adding a $routes instance variable to them. If defined, $routes should be an array where keys are the method to call if matched and the values are strings in the format of path/to/:route, where the controller is assumed and :name denotes a parameter. These parameters are considered get parameters and are subsequently handled with the getData validation object.

So for example, suppose you had a controller called users and wanted to route a user's profile, you could do class UsersController { public $routes = array( 'profile' => ':id/profile' );

	function profile($params) {
		// access to :id either via $params
		$user_id = $params['id'];
		// or via getData (prefered as it implies was validated)
		$user_id = sys()->getData->getintrange('id');
	}
}

If $routes is undefined or a match is not found, the default match will be in this format: WEB_ROOT/:controller/:action/:params

• :controller matches 'app' if empty
• :action matches 'index' if empty
• :params is 0 or more parameters and will be provided to the :action via array

So, /WEB_ROOT/app/index is the same as /WEB_ROOT.

Flash

Flash here isn't flash as in Adobe's Flash, but flash as in 'I have a swell message that I would like you to see as a result of your actions.' Condor has a simple flash system based on the flash system in Rails. By default css is provided for notice and error, but you can make your own and handle them however you wish.

sys()->flash->error = "Hey, you sucked at something.";
sys()->flash->notice = "You are awesome!";

Do and Do Not

• DO make controllers for your stuff.
• DO change the stuff up in /lib to work for you.
• DO validate your data by adding methods to /lib/userdata_app.php
• DO check out the simple demo provided and see how it fits together
• DO NOT modify files in /system unless you want to change them everytime you upgrade.
• DO NOT create variables that start with an underscore - these may interfere with Condor's system components.

Upgrading

In general you can upgrade to new versions of Condor by replacing the system folder in the upgrade with the one you have. Hopefully it will not become necessary to change anything outside of this directory, so upgrading is literally as simple as a drag and drop. That said, on occasion the need for a more elaborate upgrade might occur. If this happens, all of the upgrades that occur outside the scope of the system folder will be individually documented.

Be Aware

This isn't done yet (or even close to resembling it), so don't come crying to me if you download it and it maxes out your credit cards or kills your rabbit or something.

To Document

• purpose of each folder
• alternative templates
• alternative view renders
• provided js/css (assumption of jquery)
• provided functions

To Do

• add error page handling
• provide RESTful route options
• automatic (but optional) GET form URL rewriting based upon routes