Introduction to the framework

The purpose of this page, is to give the reader an overview of the different chapters in this section.

Chapter Description
Simple data attributes
An introduction to the SMAttribute collection that lets the developer save and retrieve attribute values with just one line of code. This is useful to store settings for extensions.
Authentication
Describes how the administrator is authenticated, and how authentication may be changed.
Configuration files
Learn how to read configuration files such as the config.xml.php file in the root of the Sitemagic directory
Data Sources (DB)
Data Sources covers our mechanism for storing and retrieving data from databases. In Sitemagic these are called data sources, as not only a DataBase Management System may be used, but also XML files. Insert and extract data with just a few lines of code.
Environment data
A description of useful functions for obtaining environment information such as session/cookie values, response and request data, different directory locations and more.
Extension base class
Describes the class from which all extensions must inherit.
The extension context
Extensions are provided with a context object which provides access to the template and some context information. This object is covered in this chapter.
The extension manager
This chapter describes the SMExtensionManager class which contains a set of static functions useful to get different kinds of information about extensions, among other things.
Filesystem function
A set of functions for manipulating files and folders on the file system - ie create folders, rename files, receive file uploads etc.
The Form component
The Form component is what makes GUI controls capable of restoring their values after post back. This is described in greater details in this chapter.
Image provider
Provides access to a set of default icons commonly used for link buttons
Key Value Collections
Most data is passed around in Sitemagic using Key Value pairs. This object type is described in details here.
Language handling
It is easy to implement support for multiple languages. Read this chapter to learn how to use the language handling class and create new language packs for extensions.
Logging and error handling
This chapter contains useful information that will help the reader debug extensions. Information about logging and error handling is also found here.
GUIDs & Random numbers
Describes how to create unique numbers (GUIDs) and random numbers.
Send and receive data
Sitemagic also provides easy means to send and receive data using the GET and POST methods.
String utilities
Contains information about string functions extending the capabilities of PHP.
Templating engine
This chapter contains information about the simple yet powerful templating engine that comes with Sitemagic.
Text files
Learn how to easily read data form, and write data to, text files.
Strongly typed
Sitemagic comes with a mechanism to ensure that variables are of a given type expected. This to ensure proper execution of code without unexpected results, if a bug has been introduced to an application, which suddently changes the type of a variable.