The 10th Best CakePHP Web-App Development Company in The World

Today, we are thrilled to announce that Andolasoft is named at #10 in the Top 10 CakePHP Development Companies by bestwebdesignagencies.com.

We pledge this success to our customers for their continuous support which has brought us such laurels. We are pleased that our team of expert CakePHP developers, project management, and testing have done their job to perfection yet again.

Our Comprehensive Range of CakePHP Development Services

  • Custom PHP Web Development
  • PHP-Based CMS Development
  • PHP-Based eCommerce Development
  • PHP Migration Services
  • PHP Web-App Maintenance Services
  • PHP API & Plugin Development
  • PHP-Based Web Product Development

Key Solutions We Provide to Mitigate Customer Challenges

  • We offer full-stack CakePHP developers who create a seamless integration of front-end and back-end services to deliver a consistent user experience
  • Our expert team of developers provide high-level of customization both in terms of user-experience, user-interface and app-functionalities.
  • We employ the highest level of security measures to ensure our client’s and end-users’ data remain secure.
  • We follow an agile development process to craft PHP solutions in an iterative and incremental process.
  • Our team members are well-versed in using light-weight plugins to optimize web-performance.
  • Customers can collaborate with our team members and project managers on Orangescrum project collaboration tools.
  • We offer the quickest turnaround customer support during all stages of product development.

Why Brand Around the World Choose Andolasoft for CakePHP Web-App Development

Client-Friendly Approach

Our development team and project managers are approachable and easy-to-talk-to. They keep the atmosphere light and friendly when communicating with clients on project requirements.

Latest Tools and Technologies

Our team always keeps themselves updated with the latest tools and technologies giving our customers the winning-edge by crafting a solution that is more updated, secure and optimized.

Agile Development Model

We follow Agile methodology to develop solutions in an interactive and incremental manner which enables our team members to keep publishing various modules of the product faster.

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Why parallax scrolling is in trend?

It keeps our development process open to new changes and modifications.

Comfortable to work in your Time zone

We have dedicated developers who can work on your time zone and develop solutions exclusively for our clients.

Maintenance & QA

Out QA cover 100% of the modules, features and functionalities developed to ensure the credibility of the product developed. We leave no stone unturned and ensure that the product developed meets your business and functional requirements.

Quickest Turnaround Customer Support

Andolasoft has the quickest turnaround customer support. We reach out to our customers faster to resolve their queries and issues during all stages of our partnership.

No Hidden Cost

We charge only for the services we offer as defined while signing the NDA. We don’t surprise you with any hidden cost after delivery of your project.

Flexible Hiring Models

Our customers have the option to work with us by hiring our team of developers and designers on a per-hour basis or hire dedicated developers who will work exclusively on customer projects in their time zone.

Track Your Projects Through PM Tool

You can track the progress of your projects using Orangescrum PM tool.

Are you looking for a CakePHP developer

Contact Us

We keep our customers in the loop and keep updating them at every step of the development lifecycle.

What Factors Helped Us:

      • The development of CakePHP web-apps based on MVC architecture
      • Re-usability of code to develop robust apps in less time
      • Rapid web-app development with Agile methodology
      • Search engine friendly CakePHP apps
      • Secure apps with a logical separation of data, business logic, and design
      • Strong security measures to keep application data secured
      • Social Media, Payment gateway and other API integration to our web-apps
      • Best Practices Followed
      • On-time delivery
      • Faster Communication
      • Quick turnaround Support

Conclusion

The bestwebdesignagencies.com is an autonomous body that identifies and lists out the best design and development companies in the world. The purpose is to help customers to find the right ones in the industry. They adopt a stringent evaluation process to determine the quality of work delivered by each company to their customers’ satisfaction.

Using AJAX, How to Make Your Site Crawlable

AJAX_Crawler-image

Why Ajax?

AJAX is used to load the contents into the page faster with providing a superior user experience. It happens so as the data exchanges with a server and the web page reflects the changed data without reloading. So AJAX is gaining popularity among the developers.

Problems with AJAX usage:

However, it has its own limitation for not allowing Google and other search engines to crawl an AJAX based website. As a result of which AJAX can damage the SEO of the site, because the browser address bar does not change with AJAX load. You need to generate SEO friendly URL dynamically.

Solution:

Here I discuss how to balance out both AJAX as well as SEO. That means, the site can still be crawlable with AJAX on.

Step-1: Load the AJAX content with the change in browser address bar:

  • We need to manage the address bar using client side code and add ‘#’ at the end of the URL, before the AJAX page name or parameters.
  1. If about-us page loads in AJAX, the URL will be: https://www.mysite.com/#about-us
  2. NOTE: the hash fragments are never sent to server
  • After refreshing the page, we can get the hash fragments using client side code and avail the AJAX contents

Step2: Change the URL format to crawl by the crawlers

  • ‘Googlebot’ still cannot crawl the content of ‘about-us’ page, because the crawler cannot get the content using client side scripting.
  1. Solution: it can be solved by adding an  ‘!’ after ‘#
  2. Example: https://www.mysite.com/#!about-us
  • The hash fragment (#!) works as a signal to Googlebot, to use an alternative URL (Ugly URL) for creating a snapshot of the page including the AJAX-loaded contents.

Step3: Avail the AJAX content to the crawler

  • Pretty URL: The URLs loaded on the client browser that loads dynamic content.
  1. Example: https://www.mysite.com/#!about-us
  • Ugly URL: The alternate URLs of Pretty URLs which is used by ‘Googlebot’ to get the content of the page “? _escaped_fragment_=” in place of “”#!”
  1. Example: https://www.mysite.com/?_escaped_fragment_=about-us
  • Important: There should be same page or content while accessing both the URLs.

Step4: Avail the crawlable URL format

  • Always have the Pretty URL (URL with “#!“) link on all <a href> attribute to load the AJAX content.
  • Add Pretty URLs to the XML sitemap.

How it works?

  • ‘Googlebot’ spider finds the Pretty URL “https://www.mysite.com/#!about-us” from the sitemap or from the webpage.
  • It would fetch the Pretty URL as “https://www.mysite.com/?_escaped_fragment_=about-us
  • The indexer sorts every word and stores the resulting index of words in Google database.
  • The query processor returns Pretty URLs to the user on the search results as  “https://www.mysite.com/#!about-us

Final Tidbits:

  • A URL may contain at most one hash fragment
  • Do not include links such as https://www.mysite.com/?_escaped_fragment_=about-us in the website sitemap; ‘Googlebot’ does not follow links that contain “_escaped_fragment_”
  • When “? _escaped_fragment_=about-us”is activated, you can only provide the “snapshot” of the page.
  • The crawler escapes certain characters in the fragment during the transformation. To retrieve the original fragment, make sure to un-escape all %XX characters in the fragment; specifically, %26 should become &, %20 should become a space, %23 should become #, and %25 should become %, and so on.
  • Test the crawl-ability of your app: see what the crawler sees with https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/158587?hl=en

Why Rails Framework is Popular Among Ruby Developers?

Most companies whether it’s a start-up or an established enterprise have evidently landed to the conclusion that Ruby on Rails is the most viable option for rapid and cost efficient web app development.

Ruby on Rails or simply called ‘Rails’ is an open-source, full-scale multilevel web app framework that implements MVC development architecture for the Ruby programming language and is supported by a strong community around it.

Several reasons lie to use Ruby on rails, the main one is that it is a better choice than any other tools. However, before proceed forward let’s have a quick look on:

What Is Ruby On Rails?

Ruby is a dynamic, general purpose, interpreted language used for object oriented programming. The Framework has simple coding that a non-technical person can understand to some extent.

Developing new software using Ruby seems to be bit tedious. Rails, a special tool, was developed to optimize the development process.

Rails is the web development framework which is written in the Ruby language. After 9 years of development, Ruby was introduced.

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With this development the ruby on rails developers can easily makes the web app programming.

Ruby on Rails(Source: Clariontech)

Let’s take a quick look on the features of ROR:

Mature Framework

Ruby on Rails was first released in 2003, which possessed several large and actively maintained APIs that make application development faster, easier and more manageable. One of the best examples is CSRF (Cross Site Request Forgery) protection; using which, you don’t have to do anything to add CSRF. Active Record is an extremely powerful feature in terms of building usable data models.

MVC Architecture:

With Ruby on Rails development is based on the model, controller and view pattern, widely used web application architecture. Therefore, developers using other MVC framework languages can find Ruby on Rails to be more user-friendly.

By using Ruby on Rails architecture, you can get separate codes for different functions, i.e. data layer, presentation layer, and can maintain a resource layer.

Generators/Scaffolding:

It’s a rapid prototyping tool; Rails’ scaffold will generate a starting point that allows us to list, add, remove, edit, and view things. It will explain the command, the model name and related database table, naming conventions, attributes and types.

The generated script will produce files of Ruby code that the application can use to interact with the database. It is somewhat less convenient than dynamic scaffolding, but gives the programmer the flexibility of modifying and customizing the generated APIs.

Gems/Plugin:

Ruby gems are highly portable chunks of Ruby code that can be used inside any Ruby script or application.

Rails plugins have the flexibility to hook into every part of Rails, including generators, rake tasks and tests/specs. Rails-specific features cannot be used with other Ruby frameworks like Merb, Sinatra, etc.

Active Record ORM:

Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) is a technique that connects the rich objects of an application to tables in a relational database management system.

Active record pattern is an architectural pattern found in Ruby on Rails that stores its data in relational databases. It relies heavily on the naming in that it uses class and association names to establish mappings between respective database tables and foreign key columns.

Integrated Testing Tools:

Rails features a convenient testing tool, for which, it automatically starts producing the skeleton test code in background whilst you are creating the application models and controllers.

Rails tests can also simulate browser requests and thus you can test your application’s response without having to test it over the browser.

Some convenient tools for testing Rails application:

  • Test Unit
  • RSpec
  • Cucumber
  • Mocha
  • Flexmock
  • Factory Girl

Version Control Systems:

There are numerous version control systems. CVS was the first system widely used in the open-source community. Several years ago, it was largely replaced by Subversion (SVN). And in early 2008, most of the Rails world moved to a newer version control system, called GIT.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

Git is usually the best choice if you are new to Ruby, because nearly all code that you need to fetch as examples or libraries will be available via a GIT repository.

Conclusion

With Ruby on Rails providing a programming framework that includes reusable, easily configurable components commonly used for creating web-based applications, it is gaining traction with developers.

From the recent studies on the job growth trends, it is seen that Ruby on Rails developers are a very hot commodity. Ruby as the language of the cloud, the job market will continue to show high demand for the developers. It’s nearly impossible to be an unemployed Ruby on Rails developer.

RoR_graph_new1-1024x532 (1)

If you are in search of a dedicated developer, to create your ruby application, then contact us.

Our dedicated ruby developers will deliver a quick and efficient solution by developing a web application of your requirement.

How to use ‘Contextual Action’ bar in ‘ListView’ page

Android_list_item

Introduction:

‘Android.View.ActionMode’ is an Android API that is used to set up contextual actionbar with the help of xml. When an app enables this action mode by selecting an item, a contextual action bar is displayed at the header of the page. Here, users are enabled to perform on the currently chosen item.

The contextual action bar disappears when the user selects other action icon (in this case ‘delete’ icon), or selects the ‘Done’ action on the left side of the action bar.

Note: The contextual action bar works independently and overtakes the action bar position.

Steps to create a contextual action bar with the delete action:

1. In the main activity, implement the ‘ActionMode.Callback’ interface and override all implemented methods as per application requirements:

  • public boolean onActionItemClicked(ActionMode mode, MenuItem item)
  • public boolean onCreateActionMode(ActionMode mode, Menu menu)
  • public void onDestroyActionMode(ActionMode arg0)
  • public boolean onPrepareActionMode(ActionMode arg0, Menu arg1)

2. For selecting list item, implement the ‘setOnItemLongClickListener’ method on ‘ListView ‘object and call ‘this.startActionMode()’ to start ‘actionmode’ by passing ‘ActionMode.Callback’ object.

Example of Main-Activity:

[sourcecode]package com.example.contextualactionbardemo;

import java.util.ArrayList;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.AlertDialog;
import android.app.ListActivity;
import android.content.DialogInterface;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.ActionMode;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuInflater;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.AdapterView;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import android.widget.ListView;
import android.widget.AdapterView.OnItemLongClickListener;

public class MainActivity extends ListActivity {
protected Object mActionMode;
private static int selectedItem = -1;
private ArrayList list;
private String listItem = "";
private ArrayAdapter adapter;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
ListView listView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listview);
String[] values = new String[] { "Android List Item One",
"Android List Item Two",
"Android List Item Three",
"Android List Item Four",
"Android List Item Five",
"Android List Item Six",
"Android List Item Seven",
"Android List Item Eight"
};

list = new ArrayList();
for (int i = 0; i < values.length; ++i) {
list.add(values[i]);
}
adapter = new ArrayAdapter(this,
android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1, android.R.id.text1, list);
setListAdapter(adapter);

listView = getListView();
listView.setOnItemLongClickListener(new OnItemLongClickListener() {

public boolean onItemLongClick(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1,
int pos, long id) {
Log.v("long clicked","pos"+" "+pos);
if (mActionMode != null) {
return false;
}
selectedItem = -1;
selectedItem = pos;
listItem = list.get(selectedItem);
mActionMode = MainActivity.this.startActionMode(mActionModeCallback);
arg1.setSelected(true);
return true;
}
});

}

private ActionMode.Callback mActionModeCallback = new ActionMode.Callback() {
@Override
public boolean onActionItemClicked(ActionMode mode, MenuItem item) {
switch (item.getItemId()) {
case R.id.action_delete:
AlertDialog.Builder alertDialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(MainActivity.this);
// Setting Dialog Title
alertDialog.setTitle("Confirm Delete…");
// Setting Dialog Message
alertDialog.setMessage("Are you sure you want to delete?");
alertDialog.setPositiveButton("YES", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog,int which) {
adapter.remove(listItem);
adapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
}
});
// Setting Negative "NO" Button
alertDialog.setNegativeButton("NO", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
dialog.cancel();
}
});
// Showing Alert Message
alertDialog.show();
mode.finish();
return true;
default:
return false;
}
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateActionMode(ActionMode mode, Menu menu) {
mode.setTitle(listItem);
MenuInflater inflater = mode.getMenuInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.menu.deletemenu, menu);
return true;
}

@Override
public void onDestroyActionMode(ActionMode arg0) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
mActionMode = null;
selectedItem = -1;
}

@Override
public boolean onPrepareActionMode(ActionMode arg0, Menu arg1) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
return false;
}
};
}[/sourcecode]

Example of /res/menu/deletemenu.xml:

Conclusion:

Contextual action mode is useful in following cases:

  • To show customize menu display with icon of edit, rename, delete
  • To display dynamic customize menu over the action bar

Have something to add to this topic? Share it in the comments.

How to show Captured Images dynamically in “GridView” Layout

There are numerous camera apps in the market which displays shopping items (i.e. image view). In these camera apps we need to arrange each photo items in a list view, basically a ‘Grid View’.

In such cases, ‘table layout’ would be easier to use; but it is difficult to arrange large number of items in

gridview_sample-253x300

side scroll view. As ‘table view’ is just a layout manager, it doesn’t allow direct interaction with each item to the users.

In order to tackle such development issues, it would be smart to implement ‘Grid View’ Layout.

What is “Grid View” Layout?

Grid View (android.widget.Grid View) is a layout that is implemented to show two-dimensional view with scrollable structure.

With the help of ‘List’ adapter, we can add images dynamically to a ‘Grid View’ layout by customizing the number of columns.

Let me tell you the process to show your Android Smartphone captured images dynamically in “Grid View” layout with some example.

Example of Layout xml

[sourcecode]<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
tools:context=".MainActivity" >

<RelativeLayout
android:id="@+id/RelativeGridLayout"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >

<GridView
android:id="@+id/gridviewimg"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:gravity="center"
android:numColumns="2"
android:scrollbarStyle="outsideInset"
android:smoothScrollbar="true"
android:verticalSpacing="10dp"
android:paddingBottom="50dp"
android:paddingTop="10dp"
/>
</RelativeLayout>

<RelativeLayout
android:id="@+id/RelativeLayout01"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="40dp"
android:layout_alignBottom="@+id/RelativeGridLayout"
>

<Button
android:id="@+id/capture_btn1"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:text="Camera" />
</RelativeLayout>

</RelativeLayout>[/sourcecode]

Example of Main form Activity class

1.MainActivity.java

[sourcecode]package com.example.gridviewimagesdemo;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.text.DateFormat;
import java.text.SimpleDateFormat;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.Date;
import java.util.List;

import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.os.Environment;
import android.provider.MediaStore;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.ActivityNotFoundException;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.widget.BaseAdapter;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.GridView;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity implements OnClickListener {

Button captureBtn = null;
final int CAMERA_CAPTURE = 1;
private Uri picUri;
private DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss");
private GridView grid;
private  List<String> listOfImagesPath;

public static final String GridViewDemo_ImagePath = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath() + "/GridViewDemo/";

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

captureBtn = (Button)findViewById(R.id.capture_btn1);
captureBtn.setOnClickListener(this);
grid = ( GridView) findViewById(R.id.gridviewimg);

listOfImagesPath = null;
listOfImagesPath = RetriveCapturedImagePath();
if(listOfImagesPath!=null){
grid.setAdapter(new ImageListAdapter(this,listOfImagesPath));
}
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
// Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
return true;
}

@Override
public void onClick(View arg0) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
if (arg0.getId() == R.id.capture_btn1) {

try {
//use standard intent to capture an image
Intent captureIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
//we will handle the returned data in onActivityResult
startActivityForResult(captureIntent, CAMERA_CAPTURE);
} catch(ActivityNotFoundException anfe){
//display an error message
String errorMessage = "Whoops – your device doesn’t support capturing images!";
Toast toast = Toast.makeText(this, errorMessage, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT);
toast.show();
}
}

}

protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
//user is returning from capturing an image using the camera
if(requestCode == CAMERA_CAPTURE){
Bundle extras = data.getExtras();
Bitmap thePic = extras.getParcelable("data");
String imgcurTime = dateFormat.format(new Date());
File imageDirectory = new File(GridViewDemo_ImagePath);
imageDirectory.mkdirs();
String _path = GridViewDemo_ImagePath + imgcurTime+".jpg";
try {
FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(_path);
thePic.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 90, out);
out.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.getMessage();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
listOfImagesPath = null;
listOfImagesPath = RetriveCapturedImagePath();
if(listOfImagesPath!=null){
grid.setAdapter(new ImageListAdapter(this,listOfImagesPath));
}
}
}
}

private List<String> RetriveCapturedImagePath() {
List<String> tFileList = new ArrayList<String>();
File f = new File(GridViewDemo_ImagePath);
if (f.exists()) {
File[] files=f.listFiles();
Arrays.sort(files);

for(int i=0; i<files.length; i++){
File file = files[i];
if(file.isDirectory())
continue;
tFileList.add(file.getPath());
}
}
return tFileList;
}

public class ImageListAdapter extends BaseAdapter
{
private Context context;
private List<String> imgPic;
public ImageListAdapter(Context c, List<String> thePic)
{
context = c;
imgPic = thePic;
}
public int getCount() {
if(imgPic != null)
return imgPic.size();
else
return 0;
}

//—returns the ID of an item—
public Object getItem(int position) {
return position;
}

public long getItemId(int position) {
return position;
}

//—returns an ImageView view—
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent)
{
ImageView imageView;
BitmapFactory.Options bfOptions=new BitmapFactory.Options();
bfOptions.inDither=false;                     //Disable Dithering mode
bfOptions.inPurgeable=true;                   //Tell to gc that whether it needs free memory, the Bitmap can be cleared
bfOptions.inInputShareable=true;              //Which kind of reference will be used to recover the Bitmap data after being clear, when it will be used in the future
bfOptions.inTempStorage=new byte[32 * 1024];
if (convertView == null) {
imageView = new ImageView(context);
imageView.setLayoutParams(new GridView.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT));
imageView.setPadding(0, 0, 0, 0);
} else {
imageView = (ImageView) convertView;
}
FileInputStream fs = null;
Bitmap bm;
try {
fs = new FileInputStream(new File(imgPic.get(position).toString()));

if(fs!=null) {
bm=BitmapFactory.decodeFileDescriptor(fs.getFD(), null, bfOptions);
imageView.setImageBitmap(bm);
imageView.setId(position);
imageView.setLayoutParams(new GridView.LayoutParams(200, 160));
}
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally{
if(fs!=null) {
try {
fs.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
return imageView;
}
}
}[/sourcecode]

Example of Manifest.xml file content:

Example of AndroidManifest.xml

[sourcecode]<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example.gridviewimagesdemo"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0" >

<uses-sdk
android:minSdkVersion="8"
android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
<activity
android:name="com.example.gridviewimagesdemo.MainActivity"
android:label="@string/app_name" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>

</manifest>[/sourcecode]

Conclusion:

So, a ‘Grid view’ implementation would result in following features and benefits:

  • In ‘GridView’ layout items would be listed in a static grid, defined in layout xml file.
  • ‘Gridview’ extends android.widget.Adapter, so it could be used where large amount of data is managed in a single page frame.
  • Enhanced data source binding capabilities (Direct interaction with SQLite Data Source)
  • Built-in support for sorting and paging mechanism
  • Additional Column types (ImageField)

I would like to recommend you to go through my previous article on where I have clearly narrate the process to display your iPhone captured images in Grid View layout.

I hope you find this useful. If you want to develop android or iPhone mobile app for you or for your organization, then you can hire single or group of developers from the pool of skilled and accomplished android specialists. Drop me a line below with your thoughts, thanks.

Why Implement Fat Model And Skinny Controller in CakePHP

Fat Model and Skinny Controller in CakePHP framework encourages developers to include as much business logic into the application models and the controllers should translate the requests, instantiating classes, getting data from the domain objects and passing it to the view.

  • This development methodology is not new but rarely adopted among the developers. Developers should focus on creating model behaviors rather than creating controller components.
  • It is a simple and powerful concept to implement is offers numerous convenient features to the developers.
  • Controller is responsible for handling & executing the actions routed through the router, it should be lightweight and agile in nature.
  • It is not about counting the lines in controller, rather putting codes in the right place.

Why Fat Model and Skinny Controller:

After developing for a while, when you look back at your code you’ll realize how hard it is to keep track of all these things. When you have a Fat Controller, it can get pretty messy even with a proper formatting.
Put as much of your code that deals with data manipulation in your Model and it solve the problem.

  • When we need some actions repeatedly in different controller, we can have them in Model.
  • We can reduce the use of requestAction() in CakePHP sites with fat models.
  • It’s easier to find out what went wrong when your methods are smaller and specific. Because, model methods are more specific than controller methods.

How To use?

Code-you should put in Controllers

  1. Usually the only functions you should have in controllers are the view functions.
  2. “before” functions, Index, Login, Signup, Add, Edit, View, Delete.

Everything else can go to your model.

Code-you should put in Models

  1. You should put the code and functions in your model that relates to Model and its data.
  2. Formatting, Retrieving, Searching, Pagination are few examples.
  3. Keep all your business logic in the models (try to write generalized methods whenever possible). Call your generalized methods from controller by passing the required parameters.
  4. Using this you will end up writing self-documented code.
  5. It is absolutely fine if your view contains some PHP code which deals with the presentation logic.
  6. You can use the Model’s callback methods like: beforeFind, afterFind, beforeValidate, beforeSave, afterSave, beforeDelete, afterDelete, onError

Skinny_Controller_logic

Example with Sample Code

Below is the example of a listing page using CakePHP paginate, search, sorting with the concept of Fat Model and Skinny Controller.

Let’s get the User list,

  • In your Controller’s Action

[sourcecode]$limit = 10;
$this-&gt;paginate = $this-&gt;User-&gt;_Pagination($limit,$_GET[‘search’]);

//To write your business logic, lets call another Model method
$listdata = $this-&gt;User-&gt;formatListing($this-&gt;paginate(‘User’));

$this-&gt;set(‘listdata’, $listdata);[/sourcecode]

  • In Your corresponding Model

[sourcecode]public function _Pagination($limit = 30,$search){
$conditions = array(‘User.is_active’=&gt;1);
if(isset($search) &amp;&amp; trim($search)) {
$search = urldecode(trim($search));
$conditions[‘User.name LIKE’] = ‘%’.$search.’%’;
}
$params = array(
‘conditions’ =&gt; $conditions,
‘fields’ =&gt; array(‘id’,’name’,’email’,’created’),
‘limit’ =&gt; $limit,
‘order’ =&gt; array(‘User.name’=&gt;’asc’,’User.created’ =&gt; ‘desc’),

);

return $params;
}
public function formatListing($userList){
$listdata = array();
foreach($userList as $ukey=&gt;$data) {
$listdata[$ukey][‘id’] = $data[‘User’][‘id’];
$listdata[$ukey][’email’] = $data[‘User’][’email’];
$listdata[$ukey][‘name’] = $data[‘User’][‘name’];
$listdata[$ukey][‘created’] = date(‘M d, Y’,strtotime($data[‘User’][‘created’]));
}
return $listdata;

}[/sourcecode]

Why FAT Model and why not Components?

  • Components should have the logic that can be shared across multiple controllers.
  • Logic should be placed inside the Components to get the data for the view. If the logic includes manipulating of the data, then it should be in a model.

Note these Check points while implementing above steps:

  • When you need to call controller methods inside a model then you are obviously doing something wrong and need to re-examine your code.
  • CakePHP will create an automatic model (instance of AppModel) when there is a table but no model file. When you create a model with wrong model file name, still CakePHP will access auto-model. Hence, it results in different behaviors and all your validations and custom functions will not work.

Too much eating may cause gaining weight, once you’re overweight; it’s too hard to lose that extra weight.
If you don’t want to end up with overweight controllers which eventually will require surgical intervention, just follow the basics and that’s Fat Model and Skinny Controller

CakePHP_fat_models

 

Suggest me if I am somewhere wrong. Any suggestions are welcome.