Difficulties when learning Zend Framework 1.8

Question

I am a newbie of Zend Framework.

I downloaded the Zend Framework and then followed the official quickstart tutorial to build a very simple registration form. But after that, I find very hard to learn different elements of Zend Framework.

Many tutorials mention frontController and registerAutoload() in the bootstrap file. However, it seems that I can't see it again in the code in version 1.8 (both in the official quickstart tutorial and Getting Started with Zend Framework 1.8). Many tutorials contain the old version of code and it seems very different in v1.8.

I start with writing registration form with password confirmation. I read the official document and find the custom validator for password confirmation. It just puts the class there and doesn't mention how I can use it. I don't know where I should put this file and I can't find any hints in Google. The "class not found" error always makes me sick (I've tried addPrefixElement, set_include_path but they don't work).

User registration, email activation, login, access control are very common tasks. But I don't even find a piece of sample code in v1.8 that I can run in my machine. I am very frustrated about Zend Framework.

Does anyone give me some advices?

Answer 1

I have also just started learning the zend framework. I also find alot of old tutorials that make learning confusing and hard, but there are some resources that I find help in learning the zend framework:

• http://www.zendcasts.com/ - they have tutorials on ZF1.8 already, like Bootstrapping using Zend_Application, etc.

Some useful blogs that might help:

• http://weierophinney.net/matthew/
• http://www.thomasweidner.com/flatpress/index.php
• http://smartycode.com/zf/
• http://codeutopia.net/blog/

Forums to ask your questions:

• http://www.nabble.com/Zend-Framework-Community-f16154.html - alot of ZF developers seem to be here to answer your questions :) much more than the official Zend Forums below ...
• http://forums.zend.com/viewforum.php?f=69

As to class not found, I think you didn't autoload?

• http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.loader.autoloader-resource.html