Codecaine.co.za / A new, improved Zoopy

Dec 5, 2008 11:15:08 AM

Hi again.

So it's been just about three months since my last post. I've been neglecting my blogging duties because I've been working pretty much non-stop during that time on rebuilding Zoopy. The new, improved Zoopy launched on Sunday night after a grueling weekend of copying files, migrating databases and last-minute bugfixes.

So what's new?

Zend Framework: The previous version of the website was built completely using Zend Framework (version 1.0.1 I think it was -- or at least one of the early 1.0.x builds). The new version has continued to use this framework proudly, though it's been upgraded to Zend Framework 1.7. The jump in versions allowed me to use a bunch of new featured in ZF, including (but not limited to) Zend_Form and Zend_Service_Twitter. Though I haven't used Zend_Form's abilities to render forms intro HTML, I've made extensive use of their ability to chain validators together and tighten up form processing.

XHTML: The new version of the website is essentially XHTML1.1 STRICT. I say essentially because I have a few remaining issues to iron out, particularly related to ad serving, but the site is effectively compliant. This marks an enormous jump from the previous version of the site, whose W3C error counts per page read like Cricket test match scores.

Database access: The new Zoopy website has been cleft from its database, so that the website and database don't compete for resources. Although we are still running a relatively simple database architecture, the website is ready for separation of reads and writes. This is thanks in no small way to ZF's Zend_Db, which provides a consistent API for database access. Zend_Db_Select has also been used more extensively, particularly for more complex queries and multi-table joins. Zoopy continues to run on MySQL, tough we've switched back from InnoDB to MyISAM for most tables.

Uploads: Apart from our move to multiple file uploads using SWFUpload, we've also vastly improved the way uploads are validated and handled. We no longer employ mime types for validating file content -- instead we pass uploads through our encoding system and just throw an error if that fails. Though moving away from MIME detection was a necessity (Flash doesn't supply MIME types when posting files, so using SWFUpload we lost that anyway), we feel the new system is less likely to give hassles because of inconsistent MIME handling between different clients.

We've also separated metadata input from uploading, so that you can upload your media and publish them at a later point.

Go check the new site out and let me know what you think!

Discussion

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Charl van Niekerk

Dec 6, 2008 3:00:12 PM

Many congratulations on the new Zoopy! Very impressed!

Just one "small" correction on your blog post, it's "XHTML 1.0 Strict", not "XHTML 1.1 Strict". XHTML 1.1 does not have a "backwards compatible" Traditional flavour like HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0.

But otherwise, keep up the great work!