Get To Business.

[Note: Due to its length, this review has been split up in three. This is Part 1 of a three part review, Part 2 can be found here]

A software framework is a reusable design for a software system (or subsystem) [quote: Wikipedia on Software Framework].

The Zend Framework is a software framework written in PHP and aimed to provide useful and reuseable solutions to (mostly) common web-development issues.
Zend is the company behind the PHP engine, which makes it especially qualified for creating such a framework, all of the developers involved in the Zend Framework project being current/past web-developers with a rich background in the web environment.

While there are many other PHP frameworks available at varying levels of maturity and stability, we chose the Zend Framework for reasons I will elaborate later on. Some of the more prolific PHP frameworks available are CakePHP, Symphony and Prado. For a more comprehensive list, check out this Wikipedia entry and this article on PHPit

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As many other web developers probably do – we encountered a layout problem: too much information to display on the page, too little horizontal space, and a strong desire to avoid scrolling when possible.

So, after a nice brainstorming meeting, with a few possible solutions in the air – we decided to give tabs a try. I took the concept and started playing around with it, trying to fit it to the rest of the design. As I went along, things very quickly fell into place, and most of it felt right.
After showing the first draft to my colleagues, it was obvious to all of us that it is the right step to take. So, after a few more rounds of fixes and tweaks, the design looks good, and the implementation of tabs begins.

The tab design has many up-sides:
- Functionality is clear and stays intuitive
- Much screen space is conserved for content (1-2 text lines instead of a menu column that takes up a significant chunk of vertical space)
- Spices up the design, adding some graphical elements that make the overall feeling more interesting.

Thus far I’ve encountered only one downside – fitting many different content panels with tabs – when there are more than 8-10 tabs, it starts to get a bit tight. But we’ll find the solution to that as well.

Here are the before and after designs:

That’s it for now,
Tal.

I will start by introducing myself - I’m Tal Zubalsky, Octabox’s Lead Designer. This is my first blog entry here, so nice to meet you!
A couple of weeks ago I upgraded to Adobe CS3, and I’ve primarily worked with the new Flash and Photoshop releases since then.

As far as the work on the Octabox layout is concerned (which takes place mostly in Photoshop, a bit Illustrator too here and there) the new features don’t change or improve my workflow, basically because I just don’t use any of them for that kind of work.

On another project I’m working on, on the other hand, the new features in Flash and Photoshop, and the correlation between them really make a hell of a difference.
As a designer with a basic knowledge of actionscript (Flash’s Java-like scripting language) the road from designing a layout in Photoshop to having a fully functional interactive page in Flash, with animated transitions and buttons, is shorter than ever.

Some of the highlight features, for me at least :
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Alpha week #5 has officially ended today, following our weekly meeting. A quick recap of developments in recent weeks:
- User interface API is ready for integration in the Octabox service. The UI API (don’t you love those acronyms..) has been the main focus of development in recent weeks, its core is very nearly done and we’re quite pleased with the results (I will ellaborate on the API in upcoming posts).
- Several graphical widgets were created/updated using the UI API, such as Rounded Corners widget (using all CSS techniques known to man), DivTable widget for esoteric layout positioning, Dialog Box widget with outside buttons and more.
- Statistics recording inside the Octabox service.
- New designs and UI approach for several modules: Private Messages, User Preferences, To-Do. Soon all modules will recieve overhaul for the new Tab and Tag oriented approach.
- Small update to ver. 0.9.3 of the Zend Framework. Upcoming: A review of the Zend Framework

Further updates are forthcoming