Web Applications for Everybody (WA4E)

Hello and welcome to my site where you can work through these modules and learn to develop PHP-based database-backed web applications.

1: Introduction to Dynamic Web Content

We look at the basic structure of a web application and how a web browser interacts with a web server. We explore the Request-Response Cycle that is the basis of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

2: HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

We briefly cover the basics of the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) that is the markup for web pages.

3: Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

We briefly cover the basics of cascading Style Sheets (CSS) that allow us to style the markup for web pages.

4: Installing PHP and SQL

The first task is to work through the installation steps including installing a text editor, installing MAMP or XAMPP (or equivalent), creating a MySql Database, and writing a PHP program.

5: Introduction to PHP

We begin learning PHP.

6: PHP Arrays

We look at unique aspects of arrays in the PHP language.

7: PHP Functions

We look at functions in PHP language.

8: PHP Forms

We look at how HTML forms are created and processed in the PHP language.

9: Introduction to Structured Query Language (SQL)

We learn about single table queries and the basic syntax of the SQL language.

10: Database Design

Covering database design with multiple tables, foreign keys, and the JOIN operation..

11: PHP Objects

We look at the object oriented pattern in the PHP language.

12: PHP and MySQL

We look at how we connect to a MySQL using the Portable Data Objects (PDO) library and issue SQL commands in the the PHP language.

13: PHP Cookies and Sessions

We look at how PHP uses cookies and manages session data.

14: PHP Routing, Redirect and Authentication

We look at how PHP avoids double posting data, how flash messages are implemented, and how we use a session to log in users in web applications.

15: Building a CRUD Application

Now we build our first 'complete' application that has multiple screens to Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) our data. This brings all the previous concepts together and will form the basis for all later web applications.

16: Basic JavaScript

We take a quick look at the JavaScript language. We assume that you already know PHP - so it is a pretty quick introduction focusing on what is different about JavaScript.

17: JavaScript Objects

We do a quick look at how the JavaScript language supports the Object-Oriented pattern.

18: jQuery

This is a brief introduction to the JQuery library which is widely used to do in-browser manipulation of the Document Object Model(DOM) and event handling.

19: JSON - JavaScript Object Notation

In this section we look at JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). JSON is commonly used as a syntax to exchange data between code running on the server (i.e. in PHP) and code running in the browser (JavaScript/JQuery).

20: Handlebars UI Templates

In this section we look at moving the templates to build HTML fragments from the server (PHP) in to the browser (JavaScript) using the Handlebars library.

21: Advanced SQL

This section covers some advanced SQL topics.

22: SQL Transactions

This section covers SQL transactions.