[horde] Making a project using the Horde framework

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

Quoting Federico Sevilla III <jijo at i-manila.com.ph>:

> As earlier mentioned, I know very little on web application development. I
> was wondering if starting my project using the Horde framework would be a
> good idea. And while we're at this, what exactly is meant by using the
> Horde framework?

It pretty much just means using the basic 'helper' libraries that Horde
offers.  In the development stream, this means classes to help with logging,
preferences, browsers, locales, encryption, online-help, session management,
MIME, and so forth.

The current effort is geared towards solidifying the Horde API, so that
its releases can be totally separate from IMPs.  Currently, they are pretty
tied together.  When this happens (which should happen when the 2.3.x 
development release becomes the 2.4 series), the framework should be safe
to use in your own applications.

> 1. I want to be able to reuse whatever I can reuse from the Horde
> framework as far as session management, security and authentication are
> concerned. I would rather not reinvent the wheel and have all sorts of
> duplications and redundancies (ie: two separate session containers, users
> logging in separately for every application).

Sounds good.

> 2. I want to be able to maintain the look and feel of Horde, since the
> users are already very comfortable with IMP.

Again, sounds good.  In Horde 2.3, everything is done with stylesheets, so
it's very easy to replicate the colours and fonts that IMP uses, by drawing
from the common stuff.

> 3. If possible, I want to have a single login point, enabling them to
> seamlessly work on both mail and whatever applications I write.

Ooh, now you're talking :-)  There's been discussion of a common Horde login,
and Chuck has said it's something he definitely wants in.  The idea at the
moment is that you have a single Horde login, and that stores your credentials
to IMAP servers, LDAP servers, etc in a secure fashion (probably two-way
encryption keyed off the Horde password).

So yes, this is on the cards, but for the future - it isn't there yet.

> 4. In the future, I would love to release my projects (as soon as they're
> worth releasing) to the community. I have absolutely no restrictions on
> this as far as our company is concerned. They're very Open Source and FSF
> friendly, since we use quite a bit of applications borne from these
> philosophies. They also don't argue much with me, and I'm an avid
> supporter of FSF.

Excellent!  Horde is covered by the GPL, and the modules under the LGPL,
last I looked.

> I would really appreciate it if you could help me out. I am currently
> reading "Web Application Development with PHP 4.0" by Ratschiller and
> Gerken, and also have "Professional PHP Programming" published by
> Wrox. Any other reading assignments? Any particular tips for this
> development newbie?

Those sound like good books.  Best advice is just to dig in, and ask lots
of questions ;)  Good luck!

-- 
Anil Madhavapeddy, <anil at recoil.org>