DOMPDF in ZF2

17 Replies

If you’re using Zend Framework 2 (~~beta 4~~ beta 5) and need to easily generate PDFs, and you’d like to generate those PDFs from an HTML template, then boy do I have some good news for you!

For those of you who have dealt with generating dynamic PDFs, you know how much of a pain in the ass it can be (e.g. dealing with x, y coordinates, word-wrap (or lack of), etc.). There are a few options out there, some paid, some free, but none of them are as nice as DOMPDF (simple API, powerful, and free).

The true power behind DOMPDF comes from rendering standard HTML/CSS files instead of having to write ugly and unmanageable code.

Excerpt from their usage docs:

/* $html rendered/set... */
$dompdf = new DOMPDF();
$dompdf->load_html($html);
$dompdf->render();
$dompdf->stream('sample.pdf');

/* $html rendered/set... */

$dompdf = new DOMPDF();

$dompdf->load_html($html);

$dompdf->render();

$dompdf->stream('sample.pdf');

That’s it. That will take your HTML and stream a PDF file to the end-user. Awesome, right?

Ok, let’s bring this back around to ZF2. About a month or so ago I started using ZF2 beta4 for a new project that I’m working on and wouldn’t you know it, I have to generate PDF reports, receipts, etc. I had a choice; I could just drop in DOMPDF, ignore the conventions set by ZF2, and move forward with my work, or I could spend a little extra time and create a clean and elegant solution that my project, future projects, and the ZF2 community could benefit from.

What I came up with is DOMPDFModule. A drop-in 3rd-party module that wraps DOMPDF and takes full advantage of ZF2′s implementation of the ViewModel pattern.

Example:

namespace Application\Controller;

use Zend\Mvc\Controller\ActionController;
use DOMPDFModule\View\Model\PdfModel;

class ReportController extends ActionController
{
    public function monthlyReportPdfAction()
    {
        $model = new PdfModel();
        $model->setOption('paperSize', 'a4');
        $model->setOption('paperOrientation', 'landscape');

        return $model;
    }
}

namespace Application\Controller;

use Zend\Mvc\Controller\ActionController;

use DOMPDFModule\View\Model\PdfModel;

class ReportController extends ActionController

{

public function monthlyReportPdfAction()

{

$model = new PdfModel();

$model->setOption('paperSize', 'a4');

$model->setOption('paperOrientation', 'landscape');

return $model;

}

That’s it. The proper headers and template rendering happens behind the scenes. If you’d like the browser to prompt the user where to save the PDF file, call:

$model->setOption('fileName', 'monthly-report'); // File will be downloaded as monthly-report.pdf).

1	$model->setOption('fileName', 'monthly-report'); // File will be downloaded as monthly-report.pdf).

But wait there’s more! The installation of DOMPDFModule couldn’t be any easier, utilizing the increasingly popular PHP Composer dependency manager via Packagist repository. See README.md for installation instructions.

Cleaner Code in PHP 5.4

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trait Options
{
    private $options = [];

    public function setOption($key, $value)
    {
        $this->options[$key] = $value;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getOption($key)
    {
        if (false === isset($this->options[$key])) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Option {$key} does not exist.");
        }

        return $this->options[$key];
    }

    public function setOptions(array $options = [])
    {
        $this->options = $options;

        return $this;
    }

    public function getOptions()
    {
        return $this->options;
    }
}

class A
{
    use Options;

    public function __construct(array $options = [])
    {
        $this->setOptions($options);
    }
}

// Test it!

$a = new A([
    'name' => 'Ray',
    'sex' => 'Male'
]);

var_dump($a);

trait Options

{

private $options = [];

public function setOption($key, $value)

{

$this->options[$key] = $value;

return $this;

}

public function getOption($key)

{

if (false === isset($this->options[$key])) {

throw new RuntimeException("Option {$key} does not exist.");

}

return $this->options[$key];

}

public function setOptions(array $options = [])

{

$this->options = $options;

return $this;

}

public function getOptions()

{

return $this->options;

}

class A

{

use Options;

public function __construct(array $options = [])

{

$this->setOptions($options);

}

// Test it!

$a = new A([

'name' => 'Ray',

'sex' => 'Male'

]);

var_dump($a);

Produces

object(A)#1 (1) { ["options":"A":private]=> array(2) { ["name"]=> string(3) “Ray” ["sex"]=> string(4) “Male” } }

PX to EM Conversion

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PX to EM screenshot This is an oldie but still worth bookmarking: http://pxtoem.com/16

Zend, Twitter, and OAuth Made Easy

4 Replies

I have been working on a Twitter service as of late and ran into a problem that I am sure others have as well and ended up solving it in their own way. However, after searching high and low on the Internet for an elegant solution, I came up with nothing and found I was on my own. This post is for those of you who are, or will be, using Zend_Service_Twitter and need Twitter users to grant your application access to their account information in a secure way.

The project I am working on requires that users allow my Twitter service to access their account information. The only reason I require this is because this service makes several API requests over the course of time, and instead of having users use up all of my allotted API service requests, I use their’s instead, It’s a little more complicated than that, and a full explanation falls outside the scope of this post. All you need to keep in mind for this post is that I need to have access to their account so API calls are counted on their behalf and not my server’s.

Currently, Zend Framework 1.9 only supports basic authentication for the Twitter API, which works well, but leaves, or should leave, a bad taste in the end-user’s and developer’s mouth. I say this because a developer who wants access to a user’s account at a later time (e.g. if you are running scheduled API calls) will have to store the user’s credentials on the server. This means A) the user may be iffy about using your service since they may not trust your site and/or want their password stored on your server, and B) this creates more overhead for you because you now have to keep track of user information, keep it secure, etc. The way we get rid of this bad taste is to implement a system such as OAuth.

OAuth is an authentication protocol that allows secure API authorization for applications. What this means is that a user can grant you, the 3rd party developer, access to their information without providing you with their username and password. User login takes place at the source, in this case at Twitter.com. For more information about OAuth, please see the Twitter API Wiki / OAuth FAQ

If you are currently using the Twitter API, it is probably better to change over to using OAuth sooner than later since support for basic authentication will be going away in the future.

In order to get Zend_Service_Twitter working with OAuth, you will need to obtain OAuth via subversion since it is not in the currently released version of Zend Framework. It can be obtained here.

The code you are about the see takes place in my IndexController, meaning I am using Zend’s MVC setup. I have also put configuration information inline so you can see exactly what is passed into each object.

<?php

/**
 * Default Index Controller using Zend's MVC implementation.
 *
 * @author Raymond J. Kolbe <rkolbe@raymondkolbe.com>
 */
class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action
{
    /**
     * Login Action
     *
     * Performs user login through Twitter using OAuth.  If user's have not
     * granted our application access to their account, they will be sent to
     * Twitter to do so.  Once done, they will return to this page again so
     * that we can handle them (e.g. run our application for them).
     *
     * @param void
     * @return void
     */
    public function loginAction()
    {
        // Check to see if the user already has an OAuth access token
        if ($this->_session->access_token) {
            // You would redirect the user to the main part of your
            // application that they needed to be authenticated for.
        }

        // Configuration for OAuth. @see Zend_Oauth_Consumer
        $config = array(
            'signatureMethod' => 'HMAC-SHA1',
            'callbackUrl' => 'http://localhost/login',
            'requestTokenUrl' => 'http://twitter.com/oauth/request_token',
            'authorizeUrl' => 'http://twitter.com/oauth/authorize',
            'accessTokenUrl' => 'http://twitter.com/oauth/access_token',
            'consumerKey' => 'jDrJud90Jhg66whddj876',
            'consumerSecret' => 'UdjneHdyGsj90Bsg2UdjneHdyGsj90Bsg2'
        );

        $consumer = new Zend_Oauth_Consumer($config);

        // If we do not have a request token, generate one now
        if (!$this->_session->request_token) {
            $request_token = $consumer->getRequestToken();

            // Save the token for when the user returns to this page.
            // This will be used to get the user's access token.
            $this->_session->request_token = serialize($request_token);

            // Send the user off to Twitter to grant our application access
            $consumer->redirect();
            return;
        }

        // If we made it here, the user has been to Twitter to grant our
        // application access and now we must get an access token that
        // will allow us to make API calls on behalf of the user.
        $access_token = $consumer->getAccessToken($this->_request->getQuery(), unserialize($this->_session->request_token));

        // We no longer need the request token so remove it
        unset($this->_session->request_token);

        // Save to session so that reloading of this page will send the user
        // to your application main page or wherever you want them to go.
        $this->_session->access_token = serialize($access_token);

        // This line is very important. Since Zend_Service_Twitter does
        // not have support for OAuth (yet), this is how we get it to work.
        // All we are doing is making Zend_Service_Twitter use OAuth's
        // HTTP Client instance, which will automatically append the proper
        // OAuth query info to any Twitter service call we make from here
        // on out.
        Zend_Service_Twitter::setHttpClient($access_token->getHttpClient($config));

        // Username and password are passed in as null because we will not be
        // authenticating using a user/pass combo (which uses basic
        // authentication).
        $twitter = new Zend_Service_Twitter(null, null);

        // This is not required but shows you as an example that OAuth did
        // in fact work.
        $response = $twitter->account->verifyCredentials();

        // Your code goes here.  This would be the point you want to save
        // the access token to the database for later use and/or save a cookie
        // on the user's system.
    }
}

<?php

/**

* Default Index Controller using Zend's MVC implementation.

* @author Raymond J. Kolbe <rkolbe@raymondkolbe.com>

class IndexController extends Zend_Controller_Action

{

/**

* Login Action

* Performs user login through Twitter using OAuth. If user's have not

* granted our application access to their account, they will be sent to

* Twitter to do so. Once done, they will return to this page again so

* that we can handle them (e.g. run our application for them).

* @param void

* @return void

public function loginAction()

{

// Check to see if the user already has an OAuth access token

if ($this->_session->access_token) {

// You would redirect the user to the main part of your

// application that they needed to be authenticated for.

}

// Configuration for OAuth. @see Zend_Oauth_Consumer

$config = array(

'signatureMethod' => 'HMAC-SHA1',

'callbackUrl' => 'http://localhost/login',

'requestTokenUrl' => 'http://twitter.com/oauth/request_token',

'authorizeUrl' => 'http://twitter.com/oauth/authorize',

'accessTokenUrl' => 'http://twitter.com/oauth/access_token',

'consumerKey' => 'jDrJud90Jhg66whddj876',

'consumerSecret' => 'UdjneHdyGsj90Bsg2UdjneHdyGsj90Bsg2'

);

$consumer = new Zend_Oauth_Consumer($config);

// If we do not have a request token, generate one now

if (!$this->_session->request_token) {

$request_token = $consumer->getRequestToken();

// Save the token for when the user returns to this page.

// This will be used to get the user's access token.

$this->_session->request_token = serialize($request_token);

// Send the user off to Twitter to grant our application access

$consumer->redirect();

return;

}

// If we made it here, the user has been to Twitter to grant our

// application access and now we must get an access token that

// will allow us to make API calls on behalf of the user.

$access_token = $consumer->getAccessToken($this->_request->getQuery(), unserialize($this->_session->request_token));

// We no longer need the request token so remove it

unset($this->_session->request_token);

// Save to session so that reloading of this page will send the user

// to your application main page or wherever you want them to go.

$this->_session->access_token = serialize($access_token);

// This line is very important. Since Zend_Service_Twitter does

// not have support for OAuth (yet), this is how we get it to work.

// All we are doing is making Zend_Service_Twitter use OAuth's

// HTTP Client instance, which will automatically append the proper

// OAuth query info to any Twitter service call we make from here

// on out.

Zend_Service_Twitter::setHttpClient($access_token->getHttpClient($config));

// Username and password are passed in as null because we will not be

// authenticating using a user/pass combo (which uses basic

// authentication).

$twitter = new Zend_Service_Twitter(null, null);

// This is not required but shows you as an example that OAuth did

// in fact work.

$response = $twitter->account->verifyCredentials();

// Your code goes here. This would be the point you want to save

// the access token to the database for later use and/or save a cookie

// on the user's system.

}

Solar e-mail helper that stops spammers

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Tonight I created a helper for Solar that encodes mailto href addresses so SPAMers that scrape HTML pages will never get your addresses.

To use this helper, just do the following in your views/layouts:

echo $this-&gt;email('someuser@somehost.com', 'Ray');

1	echo $this->email('someuser@somehost.com', 'Ray');

Here is the helper code:

&lt;?php

/**
 * Generates an encoded mailto href to stop spammers from scrapping email
 * addresses from your web pages.  This code is based on the PHP example
 * from http://rumkin.com/tools/mailto_encoder/
 *
 * @category Whitebox
 * @package Whitebox_View
 * @author Raymond J. Kolbe &lt;rkolbe@gmail.com&gt;
 */
class Whitebox_View_Helper_Email extends Solar_View_Helper {
    /**
     * The encoded email address.
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $_encoded_string = '';

    /**
     * The encoded index used to decode $_encoded_string/
     *
     * @var string
     */
    protected $_encoded_indexes = '';

    /**
     * Generates an encoded mailto href to stop spammers from
     * scrapping email addresses off your web pages.  Returns
     * an inline javascript code block that allows web browser
     * to read the mailto href.
     *
     * If javascript is disabled in the web browser, only the
     * link text is shown to the user.
     *
     * @param string $spec The email address (e.g. rkolbe@gmail.com)
     * @param string $text Href
     * @param array $attribs An array of href attributes
     * @return string An inline string of javascript to handle the
     * encoded mailto href
     */
    public function email($spec, $text = null, $attribs = null) {
        // escape the email address
        $spec = $this-&gt;_view-&gt;escape($spec);

        // build attribs, after dropping any 'href' attrib
        $attribs = (array) $attribs;
        unset($attribs['href']);
        $attribs = $this-&gt;_view-&gt;attribs($attribs);

        $this-&gt;_obfuscate(&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;mailto:$spec&quot;$attribs&gt;$text&lt;/a&gt;&quot;);

        $script = $this-&gt;_getScript();
        $script .= '&lt;noscript&gt;'.$text.'&lt;/noscript&gt;';

        return $script;
    }

    /**
     * Takes a given href and obfuscates it.
     *
     * @param string $link A full mailto href
     * @return void
     */
    protected function _obfuscate($link) {
        $scrambled_chars = str_shuffle($link);
        $this-&gt;_encoded_string = $this-&gt;_escapeString($scrambled_chars);

        $string_indexes = '';
        for ($i = 0; $i &lt; strlen($link); $i++) {
            $index = strpos($scrambled_chars, substr($link, $i, 1)) + 48;
            $string_indexes .= chr($index);
        }

        $this-&gt;_encoded_indexes = $this-&gt;_escapeString($string_indexes);
    }

    /**
     * Returns a block of javascript used to decode the mailto href.
     * This only allows web browsers to see the mailto address.
     *
     * @param void
     * @return string An inline block of javascript
     */
    protected function _getScript() {
        return $this-&gt;_view-&gt;scriptInline('&lt;!--
            chars = &quot;'.$this-&gt;_encoded_string.'&quot;;
            indexes = &quot;'.$this-&gt;_encoded_indexes.'&quot;;
            href = &quot;&quot;;

            for(j = 0; j &lt; indexes.length; j++){
                href += chars.charAt(indexes.charCodeAt(j) - 48);
            }

            document.write(href);
            // --&gt;');
    }

    /**
     * Prepares (escapes) a string for javascript.
     *
     * @param string $string The string to escape
     * @return string The escaped string
     */
    protected function _escapeString($string) {
        $string = str_replace(&quot;&quot;, &quot;\&quot;, $string);
        $string = str_replace(&quot;&quot;&quot;, &quot;&quot;&quot;, $string);

        return $string;
    }
}

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<?php

/**

* Generates an encoded mailto href to stop spammers from scrapping email

* addresses from your web pages. This code is based on the PHP example

* from http://rumkin.com/tools/mailto_encoder/

* @category Whitebox

* @package Whitebox_View

* @author Raymond J. Kolbe <rkolbe@gmail.com>

class Whitebox_View_Helper_Email extends Solar_View_Helper {

/**

* The encoded email address.

* @var string

protected $_encoded_string = '';

/**

* The encoded index used to decode $_encoded_string/

* @var string

protected $_encoded_indexes = '';

/**

* Generates an encoded mailto href to stop spammers from

* scrapping email addresses off your web pages. Returns

* an inline javascript code block that allows web browser

* to read the mailto href.

* If javascript is disabled in the web browser, only the

* link text is shown to the user.

* @param string $spec The email address (e.g. rkolbe@gmail.com)

* @param string $text Href

* @param array $attribs An array of href attributes

* @return string An inline string of javascript to handle the

* encoded mailto href

public function email($spec, $text = null, $attribs = null) {

// escape the email address

$spec = $this->_view->escape($spec);

// build attribs, after dropping any 'href' attrib

$attribs = (array) $attribs;

unset($attribs['href']);

$attribs = $this->_view->attribs($attribs);

$this->_obfuscate("<a href="mailto:$spec"$attribs>$text</a>");

$script = $this->_getScript();

$script .= '<noscript>'.$text.'</noscript>';

return $script;

}

/**

* Takes a given href and obfuscates it.

* @param string $link A full mailto href

* @return void

protected function _obfuscate($link) {

$scrambled_chars = str_shuffle($link);

$this->_encoded_string = $this->_escapeString($scrambled_chars);

$string_indexes = '';

for ($i = 0; $i < strlen($link); $i++) {

$index = strpos($scrambled_chars, substr($link, $i, 1)) + 48;

$string_indexes .= chr($index);

}

$this->_encoded_indexes = $this->_escapeString($string_indexes);

}

/**

* Returns a block of javascript used to decode the mailto href.

* This only allows web browsers to see the mailto address.

* @param void

* @return string An inline block of javascript

protected function _getScript() {

return $this->_view->scriptInline('<!--

chars = "'.$this->_encoded_string.'";

indexes = "'.$this->_encoded_indexes.'";

href = "";

for(j = 0; j < indexes.length; j++){

href += chars.charAt(indexes.charCodeAt(j) - 48);

}

document.write(href);

// -->');

}

/**

* Prepares (escapes) a string for javascript.

* @param string $string The string to escape

* @return string The escaped string

protected function _escapeString($string) {

$string = str_replace("", "\", $string);

$string = str_replace(""", """, $string);

return $string;

}

Maillog Logger 0.2.0alpha1 released

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It’s out! Maillog Logger 0.2.0alpha1 was released overnight and is a great improvement over 0.1.0. We now have new CSS styles, MySQL vs. SQLite for security, and an easier install procedure.

Get it now!

“The Party of ‘No’” says “Yes we can” to Obama’s web site design

4 Replies

obama_otten_logo_ripoff

Bangor Daily News has an article out right now about how Republican Les Otten, exploring the possibility of running for governor of Maine in 2010, has ripped off Barack Obama’s “O” logo. However, what they fail to point is the fact that Otten’s entire website is a rip-off.

The website not only has the same layout (navigation placement aside), but the font colors, font sizes, placement of content, and content borders are almost 100% the same.

To really get the full impact of how horribly ripped off this site/logo is, let me show you some screen shots–you be the judge.

: www.barackobama.com as of July 1st, 2009

: www.lesotten.com as of July 1st, 2009

What’s worse is the blatant logo ripoff. I have compiled a progression from Obama’s logo to Otten’s, increasing Otten’s logo by 25% opacity until it was 100% opaque. I also blew up the image so you could see it in more detail. I apologize for the pixelation.

: Obama/Otten logo overlay as of July 1st, 2009

After studying the logos on top of each other you notice a few things:

The “O”s both have starbursts around them, Obama’s has 40 “arms,” Otten’s has 50
The distance from the outer edge of the “O” to the beginning of the whitespace within is the same. The difference is that Otten’s has the stem that encircles his “O” making his border appear thicker.
The stripes are in the same quadrant of the circle and have the same perspective–from left to right.

If you saw Otten’s logo independent of his web site/campaign, you might assume this was Obama 2.0, the launch of a new PR push within the Obama administration. It’s no coincidence that Obama’s campaign won a couple of advertising awards from Cannes Lion, those guys knew what they were doing–you see the “O”, you think “Obama.”

According to the Bangor Daily News, Edith Smith, Otten’s spokeswoman, explained that the web site design firm “used standard industry templates and colors found on political Web sites nationwide.”

Here’s a random list of other politicians’ sites that meet Smith’s “industry standards” without reusing Obama’s layout and logo. In fact, I can’t seem to find another site that does.

Savant3 URI Plugin

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I started working on a small project last weekend for a [H]ard|Forum member that would allow viewing maillog log info from a web site. I wanted to make an app that would have a small footprint and would be easy to manage (code base wise as well as UI). My first instinct was to use a MVC framework like Solar or Zend but those two have more features than what I needed for this project. Remember, I wanted a small footprint.

I decided to give Savant3 a shot. This at least allows me to separate my controller logic from my view logic. I only had one controller and one template so code overhead wasn’t an issue.

One of the things missing from this system was a way to easily handle URIs/URLs. Since Savant3 is a template engine, I wouldn’t necessarily expect a URI handler. However, I felt that having a plugin that handles URIs was worth the effort, even with a project of this size.

Since the plugin code is still a bit messy (missing inline docs, needs a little bit of refactoring, etc) I can only show you usage examples for now. I plan on cleaning up the code and releasing the plugin on this site shortly.

Here is how one might use this URI plugin in a Savant3 template:

// builds the URI based off of the current URL
$uri = $this-&gt;uri()-&gt;fromCurrentUrl();

// allows setting query info
$uri-&gt;query = 'order=name_asc';

// this adds to the query, it does not overwrite it
$uri-&gt;query = 'page=2';

// returns only the query portion: '?order=name&amp;page=2'
$uri-&gt;get();

// this will update page to 'page=3'
$uri-&gt;query = 'page=3';

// again we only return the query portion: '?order=name&amp;page=3'
$uri-&gt;get();

// we can also set a full query as well and we can provide keys without values
$uri-&gt;query = 'order=name_desc&amp;page=3&amp;submitted'

// currently there is not a way to remove a single piece of the query
// we have to reset the whole query and rebuild it
unset($uri-&gt;query);

// passing 'true' to get() gives us the whole URI
// for example: http://raymondkolbe.com/somedir/index.php
$uri-&gt;get(true);

// builds the URI based off of the current URL

$uri = $this->uri()->fromCurrentUrl();

// allows setting query info

$uri->query = 'order=name_asc';

// this adds to the query, it does not overwrite it

$uri->query = 'page=2';

// returns only the query portion: '?order=name&page=2'

$uri->get();

// this will update page to 'page=3'

$uri->query = 'page=3';

// again we only return the query portion: '?order=name&page=3'

$uri->get();

// we can also set a full query as well and we can provide keys without values

$uri->query = 'order=name_desc&page=3&submitted'

// currently there is not a way to remove a single piece of the query

// we have to reset the whole query and rebuild it

unset($uri->query);

// passing 'true' to get() gives us the whole URI

// for example: http://raymondkolbe.com/somedir/index.php

$uri->get(true);

The rest of the functionality works much like Solar_Uri (currently w/the exception of path and query behavior), being able to set each piece of the URI before returning a newly built URI.

RaymondKolbe.com

Programming the world one line at a time

DOMPDF in ZF2

Cleaner Code in PHP 5.4

PX to EM Conversion

Solar e-mail helper that stops spammers

Maillog Logger 0.2.0alpha1 released

“The Party of ‘No’” says “Yes we can” to Obama’s web site design

Savant3 URI Plugin