Well that was fast, new maintenance release of Zend Framework is now out! Checking out the changelog, noticed this little gem: Addition of module generation capabilities to Zend_Tool; I posted about that in my initial thoughts of ZF 1.8 post.

I started using 1.8 on a new project recently, while actual hands-on usage of the new stuff (Zend_Application, Zend_Tool) and the documentations are great, there are still some confusion with regards to how the Resource Autoloader works, there are some conflict with the quick-start tutorial from Zend and the actual reference documentation. According to the documentation, Resource Autoloader should work automatically when using Zend_Application, but according to the quick-start tutorial, you have to initialize it in the Bootstrap. Maybe i’m missing something, but I’ve decided to go with the quick-start tutorial for the time being since it works. I’ve also noticed that there are some new view helpers like ($this->cycle for one) minor stuff but very helpful!

Using Zend_Form is still an exercise in frustration, especially the decorators. I love the way symfony handles the form layouts, it just passes the form object as an array to the view layer and gets out of the way, allowing designers to actually do the form design. Zend_Form just seems counter-intuitive. They got majority of the stuff correct, but laying out the forms to display how you want them is very hard. Let the view layer handle the layout stuff, allowing the Form object to be more flexible and reusable.

Been playing around with the new version of Zend Framework (1.8). The command line Zend_Tools has alot of potential and is very useful for newbies, but still lacks a lot of functionality (support for modules in the command line would be pretty cool!). I loved the Application/Bootstrap approach this puts a lot of much needed structure to a very flexible framework. It also centralizes plugins to the front controller and of course custom initializations using _init methods in the Bootstrap file. Although missing in the reference documentation are examples when using a more modular approach when using the Zend_Application.

Also the quick-start tutorial from Zend’s website has been updated! It includes a very nice approach to models (much needed overhaul in the next version of ZF). Overall a very solid release from the community. Looking forward to using it in new projects.