GTK

[onlyican]

Hey

I use 3 php forums, this being the main one now, every forum I posted this. So now its phpfreaks turn.

I am sure most of you have heard by now, if not.
http://gtk.php.net/
(Allows you to build Desktop apps to run on a machine. But not just on Microsoft OS, it works on *nix OS, Macs and many more)

Whats everyones views on this.
Anyone started doing this?

Where shall I start?

[Ninjakreborn]

most people use pear, it's quicker, cleaner, and funner.  I haven't touched it yet, but of course I intend too.  What is this an advancement onto the pear package?

[onlyican]

GTK-PHP can work with pear as well as php
but GTK-PHP is not a website language
Think of .NET Window Forms, but for Macs, Linux, Windows ect ect

[trq]

This has nothing to do with pear. GTK is a widgets toolkit used for developing desktop applications in several languages. php-gtk is php's implimentation of the GTK API, and to be honest, its not (from my experince) very stable. Im not sure if its php itself, or the GTK implimentation but it just feels flaky when compared to GTK in Python, not to mention that it is quite behind the times. Seems developement is quite slow in this area of php.

IMO, if you really want to create simple desktop applications Python (armed with GTK) is a much better solution.

[onlyican]

GTK has JUST come out
I think in about 6 month to a year, it will be same line as .NET

[ober]

GTK has been out for QUITE some time.  It will never be as big as .NET.  You're out of your mind.

[onlyican]

GTK-PHP has only JUST been released

When PHP first came out, people said it would never be better than ASP

[ober]

*sigh*... GTK is on release 2.  Trust me.  It's been around for a long time.

[onlyican]

sorry yes, I am on about GTK 2
GTK1 was very flaky

[trq]

GTK2 has been around since early 2002, its just taken this long for the php-gtk developers ti impliment it.

As for it being anything like .NET, your way... way off track. GTK is just a widget toolkit, no more, no less. Im sorry onlyican, but Im not sure you know what your talking about.

[onlyican]

I am going by what I heard, which is with GTK-PHP you can build DESKTOP applications, which run on most OS's

and I guessed it was new because the website says
15 July 2006 GTK 2 Released

[ober]

That's correct.  And you could do this with the first releases of GTK.  That was the purpose then and is the same now.

[kksou]

[quote author=onlyican link=topic=102964.msg409429#msg409429 date=1154689627]
I am sure most of you have heard by now, if not.
http://gtk.php.net/
(Allows you to build Desktop apps to run on a machine. But not just on Microsoft OS, it works on *nix OS, Macs and many more)

Whats everyones views on this.
Anyone started doing this?

Where shall I start?
[/quote]

In case you're still interested in PHP-GTK,
[list]
[*][url=http://www.writingup.com/blog/phpgtk2]Ron Tarrant[/url] has written some good tutorials
[*]Scott Mattocks has written a great book on PHP-GTK: [url=http://www.amazon.com/Pro-PHP-GTK-Scott-Mattocks/dp/1590596137]Pro PHP-GTK[/url]
[*][url=http://www.kksou.com/php-gtk2/]PHP-GTK2 Cookbooks[/url] has a collection of sample codes, solutions and practical examples of PHP-GTK2
[/list]

The above should get you started.

By the way, we have developed and deployed commercial applications using PHP-GTK2. We find PHP-GTK2 very stable. We have been running our applications since the beginning of this year without any glitches. 

If you like PHP, I think you will find that PHP-GTK2 opens up numerous new possibilities of applications you can build with it.  And the best part is that if you already know PHP, you can start building GUI applications almost rightaway!

[onlyican]

Thanks

What do you use to deploy the apps, is it gnope?

[kksou]

[quote author=onlyican link=topic=102964.msg436448#msg436448 date=1158581604]
What do you use to deploy the apps, is it gnope?
[/quote]

gnope is an easy-to-use installer for php-gtk2, though you don't necessarily need it. It just simplies the process by automatically setting up things for you.

Our application runs on windows platform. The standard gnope installer suits our needs very well. So we use it to setup the php-gtk2 platform on each and every client machine. As for the actual application, they are just a bunch of normal php scripts which we simply ftp over the network.

For commercial deployment, of course we need to worry about protecting the script.

There are many so-called php compilers around. They might work well with php5 (e.g. Zend Guard). However, we have yet to find one that works 100% with php-gtk2. Until we find one good compiler, we just go with the simpler solution of php obfucation.

In any case, the initial set up of the php-gtk2 is a one-time process. After that, each time we need to update the application, it's a simple matter of ftp over the scripts - extremely fast and east. You can even write a script to automate the entire process.

[kksou]

[quote author=onlyican link=topic=102964.msg436448#msg436448 date=1158581604]
The one thing that put me off last time was the fact that I could not
convert my .php pages to .exe

Can you give me some links, tips or anything to deploy a PHP GTK application
[/quote]

Yes. Top on our list when we're first evaluating whether to go ahead with PHP GTK is whether it can be "protected".

Note that our criteria is not that it can be compiled to a standalone .exe. We're fine with just the script being encoded. Some .exe has a whole bunch of .dlls. So what's the differnce between this as compared with a php decoder + encoded script?

Anyway, below are some of the more established php compilers:
[list]
[*][url=http://www.roadsend.com]Roadsend[/url] which claims that [url=http://forums.roadsend.com/viewtopic.php?t=61]support for PHP-GTK2[/url] is well under development.
[*][url=http://www.zend.com/products/zend_guard]Zend Guard[/url] is great for php web applications. But tried it on php-gtk2. Didn't work 100%. And it's US$995!
[*][url=http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/Obfuscators/PHPObfuscator.html]Thicket Obfuscator for PHP[/url] I tried this on PHP-GTK2. Seems to work pretty well. But it's US$399!
[*][url=http://www.ioncube.com/]ionCube PHP Encoder[/url]
[*][url=http://www.sourceguardian.com/]SourceGuardian[/url]
[*][url=http://www.phpcodelock.com/]PHP Code Lock[/url]
[/list]

There are two open-source PHP encoder/obfuscator:
[list]
[*][url=http://turck-mmcache.sourceforge.net/index_old.html]Turck MMCache for PHP[/url]
[*][url=http://pobs.mywalhalla.net/]PHP Obfuscator (POBS)[/url]
[/list]

You might also want to take a look at the following two posts:
[list]
[*][url=http://beeblex.com/lists/index.php/php.general/200340]http://beeblex.com/lists/index.php/php.general/200340[/url]
[*][url=http://beeblex.com/lists/index.php/php.general/54649]http://beeblex.com/lists/index.php/php.general/54649[/url]
[*][url=http://codenewbie.com/forum/php/4154-php-obfuscation-complete-waste-time-2.html] PHP Obfuscation: Complete waste of time?[/url] This one has a bit of heated arguments. However, after reading through it, you might not be so concerned about encoding your php script. I've seen people who read assembly language like reading a novel! To a good hacker, they can reverse-engineer and decode almost anything, no matter how much you tried to protect them.
[/list]

[quote]
And, as you use PHP GTK
Can you confirm that I can build full Desktop Applications, not just widgets
as suggested in the forum.
[/quote]

I would not want to say "confirm". It really depends on what you want to do. Some programming languages are just more suited for certain tasks. For example, if you are dealing a lot with control devices, it might be better off for you to use low-level C language.

However based on my experience and knowledge with php-gtk2, you can practically build full desktop applications on almost anything that you can think of with php-gtk2. It gives you all the power of PHP5 and the ability to provide users with a user-friendly GUI interface.

So if you are very comfortable with PHP5, I would suggest you give it a try. Don't worry so much about encoding your script for now. There are already practical solutions now for your php deployment. And I believe there will be many more better and more robust compilers emerging in the market as php-gtk2 gains more popularity.