cvs: php-gtk /docs/en/chapters intro.xml

sfox Mon Mar 12 10:56:38 2001 EDT Modified files: /php-gtk/docs/en/chapters intro.xml Log: general clean-up

Index: php-gtk/docs/en/chapters/intro.xml diff -u php-gtk/docs/en/chapters/intro.xml:1.4 php-gtk/docs/en/chapters/intro.xml:1.5 --- php-gtk/docs/en/chapters/intro.xml:1.4 Thu Mar 8 10:48:38 2001 +++ php-gtk/docs/en/chapters/intro.xml Mon Mar 12 10:56:38 2001 @@ -5,24 +5,24 @@ <title>Introduction</title> <simpara> This section of the manual will introduce you to the ideas - and the technolgies behind php-gtk as well as its uses. + and the technologies behind php-gtk as well as its uses. </simpara> </sect1> <sect1 id="intro.whatis.phpgtk"> - <title>What is PHP-GTK</title> + <title>What is PHP-GTK?</title> <simpara> PHP-GTK is a <ulink url="&url.php;">PHP</ulink> extension that enables you to write client-side, cross-platform - GUI applications. This is the first such extension for + GUI applications. This is the first extension for <ulink url="&url.php;">PHP</ulink> of its kind and was written in part to prove that <ulink url="&url.php;">PHP</ulink> is a capable - general-perpose scripting language that is suited to more + general-purpose language that is suited to more than just the web application environment. </simpara> <simpara> - This extension will not allow you to display GTK+ + This extension will <emphasis>not</emphasis> allow you to display GTK+ applications in a web browser. It is intended for creating standalone GUI applications. </simpara> @@ -34,27 +34,24 @@ <title>A History of GTK</title> <para> GTK+ was originally developed for - <ulink url="&url.gimp;">GIMP</ulink>, The - <ulink url="&url.gnu">GNU's</ulink> + <ulink url="&url.gimp;">GIMP</ulink>, the + <ulink url="&url.gnu">GNU</ulink> Image Manipulation Program. GTK stands for - the GIMP Tool Kit for this reason. GTK+ has - grown from these beggingings and is now used + the GIMP Tool Kit. GTK+ has + grown from these beginnings and is now used as a central part of <ulink url="&url.gnome">Gnome</ulink>, the GNU - Projects desktop enviroment. GTK+ has also been - ported to BeOS and Win32 which makes it the perfect - choice to use as the basis for a PHP extension as it - keeps PHP as cross platform as possible and allows - people too write Windowed apps in PHP for Linux, BeOS + Projects desktop environment. GTK+ has also been + ported to BeOS and Win32, which makes it the perfect + choice to use as the basis for a PHP extension, keeping PHP as cross-platform as possible and allowing the creation of + Windowed applications in PHP for Linux, BeOS and Windows. </para> </sect2> <sect2 id="intro.whatis.gtk.whatitdoes"> - <title>What Does GTK do?</title> + <title>What does GTK do?</title> <simpara> - GTK is a set of libaries written in C to create graphical - user interfaces. It has an object oriented architecture - that is developed in three libaries. +GTK is a set of libraries written in C to create graphical user interfaces. It has an object oriented architecture developed in three libraries: </simpara> <para> <itemizedlist> @@ -63,7 +60,7 @@ <emphasis>GLib</emphasis> </simpara> <simpara> - This libary provides various tools to the programmer for + provides various tools for use when programming with GTK+. </simpara> </listitem> @@ -72,7 +69,7 @@ <emphasis>GDK</emphasis> </simpara> <simpara> - This libary abstracts the low level window drawing functions. + abstracts the low-level window drawing functions. </simpara> </listitem> <listitem> @@ -80,7 +77,7 @@ <emphasis>GTK</emphasis> </simpara> <simpara> - This libary provides the set of widgets for use when creating + provides a set of widgets for use when creating your GUI. </simpara> </listitem> @@ -90,76 +87,59 @@ </sect1> <sect1 id="intro.whatis.php"> - <title>What is PHP</title> + <title>What is PHP?</title> <sect2 id="intro.whatis.php.history"> <title>A History of PHP</title> <simpara> - <ulink url="&url.php;">PHP</ulink> started life, and is still - primaryily used as a Server Side HTML-embedded scripting language. + <ulink url="&url.php;">PHP</ulink> started life and is still + primarily used as a server-side HTML-embedded scripting language. </simpara> <simpara> PHP, known originally as Personal Home Pages, was first conceived in the autumn of 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf. - He first wrote it as a way to track people who visted his CV - online. The first real version was released in early 1995, by which - time Rasmus had found by making the project open source people would - fix his bugs. The first version was very simple and had a simple - parser which only reconised a few special macros and provided a few - utility's which were in common usage on homepages back then. - </simpara> - <simpara> - The parser was rewritten in mid 1995 and renamed PHP/FI Version 2. - This FI in this version stood for Form Interpreter which Rasmus had - added to PHP to cope with the growing needs of webpages. mSQL support - was also added at this time. PHP/FI underwent massive growth and - other people started to contribute code to it regualy. - </simpara> - <simpara> - In Mid 1997 Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewrite the main parser - and the project changed from being Rasmus' own project to a more - group orientated project. This formed the basis for Version 3 of - PHP, now renamed PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, a recursive ancronym. - </simpara> - <simpara> - The latest version is yet another rewrite by Suraski and Gutmans and - is now based about the <ulink url="&url.zend;">Zend</ulink> engine. - PHP now has over two hundred contributors working on various parts - of the project. It has a massive amount of third party extensions - and supports all popular servers nativly. - </simpara> - <simpara> - Latest statistics show that PHP is now in use on over 6 million - domains and has had a growth rate of about 15% for the past few - months. To put that in perspective Microsoft IIS is now running on - 5.9 Million sites on the internet. + He wrote it as a way to track visitors to his online CV. The first version was released in early 1995, by which time Rasmus had found that by making the project open-source, people would fix his bugs. The first version was very straightforward and had a simple parser which recognised a few special macros and provided some of the utilities which were in common usage on homepages back then. </simpara> + <simpara> + The parser was rewritten in mid-1995 and renamed PHP/FI version 2. + The "FI" in this version stood for the Form Interpreter which Rasmus had added to PHP to cope with the growing needs of webpages. mSQL support was also added at this time. PHP/FI underwent massive growth and other people started to contribute code to it regularly. + </simpara> + <simpara> + In mid-1997 Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewrote the main parser + and PHP shifted from being Rasmus' own to a more + group orientated project. This formed the basis for PHP3, now named PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor - a recursive acronym. + </simpara> + <simpara> + The latest version, PHP4, is another rewrite by Suraski and Gutmans and + is based around the <ulink url="&url.zend;">Zend</ulink> engine. + PHP now has over two hundred regular contributors working on various parts of the project. It has a massive amount of third party extension modules, supports all popular servers natively, and has inbuilt MySql and ODBC support. + </simpara> + <simpara> + The latest statistics show that PHP is now in use on over 5.5 million + domains, and has had a steady usage growth rate over the past year. It is far and away the single most popular Apache module; to give this some perspective, Apache currently holds nearly 60% of the market share of Internet webservers, whereas IIS servers (natively supporting ASP) hold less than half that proportion of the market. + (Figures taken from <ulink url="&url.stats;">&url.stats;</ulink> March 2001.) + </simpara> </sect2> <sect2 id="intro.whatis.php.whatdoes"> <title>What does PHP do?</title> <simpara> - PHP is a general perpose scripting language. It is normally put - to use as a scripting language for use on the web but it can also - be used as a shell scripting language or even now as a language - to write windowed applications in. + PHP is a general purpose language. It is normally put to use as an html-embedded scripting language for use on the web, but it can also be used as a shell scripting language or even as a language to write windowed applications, in the form of php-gtk. </simpara> <simpara> - Due to PHP's opensource nature if there is somthing that you cant - currently do in PHP itself there is nothing stopping you from - writtig C code to extend PHP with so that you can do what you want - from within PHP itself. This is made possible through the well - documentated API which PHP makes avalible to programmers. + Due to PHP's open-source nature, if there is something you can't + currently do in PHP itself there is nothing stopping you from + writing a PHP module or extension in C code to extend its functionality so that you can do what you want from within PHP itself. This is made possible through the well-documented API which is available to all. </simpara> <para> - PHP 4.0 two main parts to it. + PHP4 has two main parts to it: <itemizedlist> <listitem> <simpara> - <emphasis>Zend Engine</emphasis> + <emphasis>The Zend Engine</emphasis> </simpara> <simpara> - The Zend Engine is the part of the PHP package that keeps - track of the requests, processes scriting files and handles - variables and resources. It's homepage can be found at + is the part of the PHP package that keeps + track of the requests, processes scripting files, and handles + variables and resources. Its homepage can be found at <ulink url="&url.zend;">&url.zend;</ulink>. </simpara> </listitem> @@ -168,9 +148,7 @@ <emphasis>PHP</emphasis> </simpara> <simpara> - This is the part of PHP which implements 90% of the functionality - that the enduser sees. It provides all the modules such as MySQL, - ODBC and XML support. + implements 90% of the functionality seen by the end user. It provides a wide range of modules such as MySQL, ODBC and XML support. </simpara> </listitem> </itemizedlist> @@ -186,7 +164,7 @@ <email>&email.james.henstridge;</email></ulink>, the author of PyGTK (Python GTK+ Bindings). His help and advice have proved invaluable during the development of - this extension and a fair amount of the source code is + this extension, and a fair amount of the source code is based on or inspired by what he has developed for PyGTK. </simpara> <simpara>