Components for building web based business applications

[myitanalyst]

To be honest I don't know where to put this question so please forgive if this is the wrong area.

I come from a background of building pc based business applications with Delphi and Visual Studio. If you are familiar with either of these RAD systems you know that the use of components helps to rapidly build business applications. If I needed a calandar I used a calendar component, if I needed an advanced data grid then I used a component for this, if I needed a pivot table then I used a component for this. My point is I spent my time building business logic... NOT components.

Now I am dealing with web development in the LAMP world (not Microsoft's ASP.NET) so what I am running up against is HOW to utilize the same type of components to help speed up development so I can focus on business logic and not be tied down on building an advanced data grid or building a nice calendar.

I guess it would be helpful to give you some examples. The best thing I could point you to is http://www.devexpress.com and then on the right site of the screen under "Our Products" click on ASP.NET Components and you will see a list of components they have for ASP.NET. Now this company have some great components for the ASP.NET world, but I am wondering if there is anything similar for the PHP development world (or something that would work with any server side language). Another example of some views that look good and look to be from ASP.NET world can be seen here in the screenshots: http://www.officevp.com/features-crm-task-manager.aspx

I know with PHP you generally do not have a RAD environment ( think there are a couple... one being Delphi for PHP and another I think is PRADO). Anyway... in general I don't know many people at all that mention RAD with PHP. So what I am struggling with is finding solid client side "components" or tools that provide most of the framework so I can get to the business of coding business logic and less dealing with the details of making an nice component or tool.

I hope this makes sense.

Thanks in advance!

[myitanalyst]

To add a little clarification... I do see that some PHP frameworks have some basic grid and form capabilities, but I was hoping to find some more feature rich components or widgets or whatever names may be given to them.

[johanafm]

I recommend starting by having a look at wikipedia's framework list (]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Php_framework#PHP). The list contains more than just php frameworks and is not complete. But it does give something of a quick overview, including licensing information. The complexity and feature vary a lot, and while some of them have varying degrees of capabilities for testing, there are other tools available, such as PHPUnit[URL]. I'd recommend starting by having a look at Zend or CodeIgniter.

You might also want to have a look at [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_engine_(web)]template engines (http://www.phpunit.de/), such as Smarty (http://www.smarty.net)

Also, I'd look into javascript libraries as well, since some of the things you want or need most likely are better suited to deal with client side
For example YUI (http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/), Yahoo UI library, is a javascript library dealing with these things. It is far from the only one, but it's not listed on the wikipedia page for frameworks and I believe it's worth mentioning.
If you have need of an editor for user input, tinyMCE (http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/) is nice. Its documentation is good, and found at .

For javascript tests, I've heard some good things about [URL=http://siliconforks.com/jscoverage/]JSCoverage (http://wiki.moxiecode.com/index.php/TinyMCE:Index) and here is a list of other test tools (http://www.opensourcetesting.org/unit_javascript.php) (including more php test tools).

[myitanalyst]

johanafm,

Thanks for the reply... I started running across ajax controls last night and see that some of the stuff I would like to use are coming from the ajax world. Nothing quite as extensive as the DevExpress tools for ASP.NET, but at least I am starting to find a few things.

I'll check out the links you have provided.

Thanks for your time.