I’ve just released amfphp 1.2 beta. This release brings quite a few changes, most of which I’ve already discussed here. The first thing that you’ll notice when unzipping is the folder structure change. All of the amfphp framework is now in the amf-core folder, on the same level as the services and browser. It sounds like a very minor change but actually it makes things a lot easier to browse.

The first thing you’ll probably want to look at is the improved service browser. It has seen a complete overhaul. On the left hand side, services are shown in a tree view with grouping by package. Clicking on any service brings up the new method testing interface. Select the method of your choice, use JSON syntax to specify arguments, press enter and you can test your services directly in the browser. That means that you don’t even have to make a Flash movie or a test harness to see if your service works. I developed this feature while working on a joint FlashCom/amfphp project (FlashCom is a bitch to debug, as you may know) and it has proved invaluable already. I am sure you will wonder how you ever lived without it.

The code generation now features saving from the service browser and now generates stub code for ARP. This last one makes setting up ARP much much easier and was developed in conjunction with the man Aral himself. The methodTable generator can also save the methodTable to separate file, which saves another step.

Amfphp now features comprehensive incoming and outgoing class mapping possibilities. This is perfect for implementing value objects, which should be good news for ARPers once again. You can read the inline comments in ‘advancedsettings.php’ to see how it works. Careful however, the old class mapping (using the arguments array in the methodTable) has been taken out completely (although I am almost certain very few people used it).

Since I added class mappings, I figured I would take out unneeded or dead code to compensate for the very slight performance hit brought about by class mapping. As it turned out, I may have gone a bit overboard, and used just about every trick in the book to bring down the size of the amf-core folder by a third. Taking out this lint will make it easier to build on amfphp to support amf3 and JSON for version 2.0.

A word of caution: I have fixed a bug with sql adapters which may have introduced some other issues. As I only have access to MySQL, these changes are largely untested except for the mysql adapter, so if you use another database, please test your functions using the service browser and report any issues my way.

Finally, I’ve built upon the debuggateway and I think I’ve fixed the issues that people were having. Let me know.

Download it here

Update: I’ve posted a video live demo of the service browser here.

Also available are a bunch of video tutorials on the subject.