What's the quickest way to build admin interfaces in PHP?
It can be a framework, a library/libraries coupled with a particular approach, or whatever.
Background: I'm a Django developer spoiled by auto admin who has to deliver a web-app in PHP. The app is very admin-area/form heavy and has different access levels.
On PHP, Symfony, which has admin generators, is probably what you're looking for.
Maybe CodeIgniter. Haven't tried it but I had this colleague (PM) at work (a Java shop) always ranting about how he could do everything faster and better if we would be using CodeIgniter.
I also suggest symfony. Zend will be too much for small project. if you are building blog, then use Drupal.
If you insist on using a framework for this definitely go with CodeIgniter. Its lightweight M-V-C approach really makes project like these a breeze. I build a lot of database driven administrative applications with PHP and have found CI to be a time saver.
Of course it is entirely possible to accomplish this task using nothing more than vanilla PHP and libraries. I have built many administrative / management applications w/o frameworks.
If you have other questions let me/us know.
- Nicholas
The quickest way? Write it by hand. If there's potential for re-use, copy and paste at first, then refactor into libraries. This approach works best if you pretty much know what you're doing. Otherwise, a framework might be the answer.