Today we’re going to talk about sending amazing, templated, parsed HTML emails using PHP and the PHPMailer class. I know it sounds trivial- “Oh sure! Let’s send some messages!”, however, I do get a ton of requests for assistance when dealing with email templates and parsed content within those templates, so I figured this would be a good thing to write about! Background When I refer to email templates, I’m referring specifically to chunked, individual […]

If you’ve been to this site before,  you’ll probably notice that I’ve switched from the syntax highlighter that I’d used to display code to something a ton cleaner (the credit does not go to me, the new syntax highlighting plugin came from this TutsPlus article). Until a few hours ago, I used SyntaxHighlighter Evolved, which looked great, and was super easy to use, however, there were some issues with using it on a website displaying code that people […]

If you’re a PHP developer, and you prefix questionable function calls with the “@” symbol, you should be aware that I’m onto you!  If the first line of code you write after <?php is “error_reporting(0);”, then we shouldn’t be friends anymore.  Error reporting in PHP is really really really important, and you should probably also stop reading, because this article will just fill your soul with rage. Keep in mind, this article isn’t about whether or […]

As I’m sure anyone who has visited this site more than a single time knows, I love php functions!  They make repeated processes and actions a breeze to initiate and take effect without having to copy-paste the same block of code into 25 different pages.  Then g-d forbid you should need to make a change to how it operates, or even worse- it’s just generally terrible and needs a full do-over! The day I discovered […]

And here we are on part 3 of “Getting Started with PHP”! Today we have… Using effective website structure to make your life easier Overview of PHP isset and empty commands Using PHP to do your heavy lifting (using variables) Overview of PHP Isset && Empty Commands Within PHP, it is important to determine if our variables ‘actually’ exist, and/or are specified in any number of formats. For example: $variable = NULL; echo $variable; Will […]

Continuing the tutorial series on getting started with PHP (see “Getting Started with PHP” for the last batch), today I’ll provide some information on… Including external files Assigning PHP variables and constants Overview of variable and constant usage Including External Files PHP allows us to include external files that allow us to decrease the amount of redundant/repeated code used, as well as a security measure for important files such as files containing database connection details, […]

I figured that since I spend most of my time buried DEEP in complex php functions, classes, and tips, it may be helpful to provide some background on what the hell you’re actually supposed to do if you have no idea! That being said, I’m going to begin adding some more introductory content that will hopefully provide some insight and tips on where to get started, so that you can more effectively work with more […]