framework

Six years ago this month the Zend framework preview was released and Rasmus Lerdorf published a blog post titled “The no-framework PHP MVC framework” (italics added). R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah noted irony.

The BuddyPress forums have a number of threads about handling invitations (two worth looking at: one, two), but no real solution has emerged. At the same time, there’s also a need for some means of confirming other actions such as password resets, email changes (both of those are already handled by WPMU, I know), cell phone numbers to receive SMS messages, and other actions that need to be confirmed later.

So I’m proposing a generic API to handle things like this. The built-in WordPress cron and ajax functions seem to offer a clear pattern for creating such an API: Simply, plugins and core code could register an action and a function to be called when that action is executed. The API could also store data to be sent to that function when it is executed.

Among the things I’d do with this?

• Confirm email addresses
• Confirm cell phone numbers via text message
• Confirm IM accounts
• Confirm Twitter accounts
• Confirm password reset requests
• Confirm invitations in BuddyPress

Anybody else interested?

I’m a fan of the Sandbox WordPress theme because it does so much to separate application logic from design, and a few small changes to the CSS can make huge changes to the look of the site. I think that’s the idea behind Yahoo! Developer Network’s Grids CSS library. That is, well structured HTML allows very sophisticated styling. All you have to do is plug in your content. To wit:

The foundational YUI Grids CSS offers four preset page widths, six preset templates, and the ability to stack and nest subdivided regions of two, three, or four columns. The 4kb file provides over 1000 page layout combinations.

That got Alister Cameron excited; he’s building a Sandbox-inspired, Yahoo! CSS-based WordPress theme he’s codenamed Vanilla.