how do I...client side applications

sobbayi

I want to write a client side application for my website. to be downloaded and installed on the windows (and later unix and mac) platform and make use of the dbms on the computer This program should will allow users to select and process stuff from the database offline and just click a button to have the orders processed. in that case the program will be able to communicate with the site and handle regular updates automatically so when i update the site, those that have this program can at intervals synchronize their units by updating from the site. I am thinking something similar to norton anti virus live update virus definations. I am a newbie in this phpGTK thing. So I ask. is PHPGTK up to this task? Can it run on windows and have access to hardware resources? Will it run at a resonable speed? And will the user have to download extra software such as interpretors etc etc. I would like to know all the pros and cons. Thanks

mithril

The answer to most of it is yes. GTK is just a GUI Toolkit used to create the windows, the underlying logical code is written in PHP. Thus, within reason, almost anything you write for Win32 in php-gtk will run on *Nix as well. Some of the GTK functionality hasn't been ported to Win32 yet, but that's not really a big deal as long as you're careful. There is no GTK port for Mac though.... thus PHP-GTK doesn't run on Mac.

You can have the remote client-side apps open a socket or ftp connection to your site and grab source file updates when you've modified the program. However there's only one proggie thus far that will create a Win32 exe file from a PHP script, and development on it is currently stagnated. It doesn't work with PHP-GTK versions higher than 0.0.4. It also can't buffer more than 5,999 chars of code. You must therefore distribute most of your program's source in text files. Unless you purchase and use the Zend Encoder, it will be plain-text and your customers will be able to read/modify the program's logic (possible security hazard). You will also have to distribute a copy of the PHP interpreter and it's supporting libraries, the php-gtk extension, and the GTK runtime libraries.

I'm not sure what you mean when you ask about hardware resources. GTK is only a GUI toolkit... the underlying code is written in whatever language you choose... PHP in this case. GTK does have access to some hardware directly, but this is usually carried out by either GDK or GLib and you have no direct access to those libraries (GTK accesses them for you).
Any further questions you have regarding php-gtk should probably be directed to the one of php-gtk mailing lists (php-gtk-general is the best for this kind of question). I don't think many folks who read PHPBuilder are developing using php-gtk yet, so you're more likely to find a more knowledgable audience on the lists.

-geoff

sobbayi

Thanks Geoff, I think that puts me in perspective of what i am to go through if i decide to try out php GTK . Any other stuff I will proberbly direct to the php lists.
Thanks