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Packt Open Source


Packt Open Source books will continue to be built around the “community experience distilled” motto, focussing on taking real advice from the community around projects, and refining and distilling it into easy to follow specialist information.

Through this, the Open Source Royalty Scheme will continue to support open source projects, offering a royalty for the sale of each book to the project on which that book was written.

Latest Open Source Articles

Examples of MySQL Daemon Plugin

by Andrew Hutchings | September 2010 | MySQL Open Source Web Development

In the previous article, A look inside a MySQL Daemon plugin, we were introduced to the MySQL Plugin API. It talked about the most simple plugin type—Daemon plugins. It starts with the basic structure of a plugin—what a plugin declaration should look like, what plugin types are, and so on. Then it described features common to all plugin types—initialization and de-initialization callbacks, status variables, and configuration system variables.

This article, by Andrew Hutchings, co-author of MySQL 5.1 Plugin Development, describes and analyzes line by line four Daemon plugin examples—from a simple plugin that prints Hello World! when loaded, to a system monitoring plugin that periodically logs the number of connections, to a system usage status plugin that displays the memory and I/O usage of the MySQL server.

We will specifically cover:

  • A Hello World! Daemon plugin
  • A system and status variables demo plugin
  • A simple monitoring plugin
  • System Status Variables plugin
Read Examples of MySQL Daemon Plugin in full

A Look Inside a MySQL Daemon Plugin

by Andrew Hutchings | August 2010 | MySQL Open Source Web Development

In this article, by Andrew Hutchings, co-author of MySQL 5.1 Plugin Development, we will be introduced to the MySQL Plugin API. It talks about the most simple plugin type—Daemon plugins. It starts with the basic structure of a plugin—what a plugin declaration should look like, what plugin types are, and so on. Then it describes features common to all plugin types—initialization and de-initialization callbacks, status variables, and configuration system variables.

We will specifically cover:

  • A look inside a Daemon plugin
  • Why write a Daemon plugin
  • Installing and using Daemon plugins
  • The role of a version
  • Defining Daemon plugins
Read A Look Inside a MySQL Daemon Plugin in full

Python Multimedia: Animation Examples using Pyglet

by Ninad Sathaye | August 2010 | Open Source

The previous article, Python Multimedia: Fun with Animations using Pyglet, introduced you to the fundamentals of developing animations using Python and Pyglet multimedia application development frameworks.

In this article by Ninad Sathaye, author of Python Multimedia Beginner's Guide, we will:

  • Work on a project, 'Bowling animation', where animations can be controlled using inputs from the keyboard.
  • Develop relevant code to create an animation using different regions of a single image.
  • Work on an exciting project that animates a car moving in a thunderstorm. This project deals with many important things covered throughout this article.
Read Python Multimedia: Animation Examples using Pyglet in full

MySQL 5.1 Plugin: HTML Storage Engine—Reads and Writes

by Sergei Golubchik | August 2010 | MySQL Open Source Web Development

In this article by Sergei Golubchik, co-author of MySQL 5.1 Plugin Development, we will consider a complex example, a complete read-write storage engine, but with no support for indexes. Let's say, it will be an "html" engine—an engine that stores tables in HTML files. Such a file can be later loaded in a web browser and the table will be shown as an HTML table. Thus Reads and Writes presents a storage engine plugin that keeps table data in HTML tables and uses it to explain how to implement an updatable data stores.

Read MySQL 5.1 Plugin: HTML Storage Engine—Reads and Writes in full

Python Multimedia: Fun with Animations using Pyglet

by Ninad Sathaye | August 2010 | Open Source

Animation is a sequence of frames displayed quickly one after the other. This creates an optical illusion where the objects, for instance, appear to be moving around. This article by Ninad Sathaye, author of Python Multimedia Beginner's Guide, will introduce you to the fundamentals of developing animations using Python and Pyglet multimedia application development frameworks. Pyglet is designed to do 3D operations, but we will use it for developing very simple 2D animations in this article. Specifically, we will:

  • Learn the basics of Pyglet framework. This will be used to develop code to create or play animations.
  • Learn how to play an existing animation file and create animations using a sequence of images.
Read Python Multimedia: Fun with Animations using Pyglet in full

Adding Advanced Form Features using ChronoForms

by Bob Janes | August 2010 | Joomla! Content Management Open Source Web Development

Joomla! is a fantastic way to create a dynamic CMS. Now, you want to go to the next step and interact with your users. Forms are the way you ask questions and get replies. ChronoForms is the extension that lets you do that and this article tells you how.

In this article by Bob Janes, author of the book ChronoForms 1.3 for Joomla! Site Cookbook , we will cover:

  • Using PHP to create "select" drop-downs
  • Using Ajax to look up e-mail addresses
  • Get information from a DB table to include in your form
  • Show a form in a smoothbox

This article gives you recipes for some typical advanced form features—we encourage you to adopt and adapt to the ideas here to meet your particular needs.

Read Adding Advanced Form Features using ChronoForms in full

Using ChronoForms to add More Features to your Joomla! Form

by Bob Janes | August 2010 | Joomla! Content Management Open Source Web Development

Joomla! is a fantastic way to create a dynamic CMS. Now, you want to go to the next step and interact with your users. Forms are the way you ask questions and get replies. ChronoForms is the extension that lets you do that and this article tells you how.

In the previous article we covered:

  • Adding a validated checkbox
  • Adding an "other" box to a drop-down
  • Sending an SMS message on submission
  • Signing up to a newsletter service
  • Adding a conversion-tracking script

In this article by Bob Janes, author of the book ChronoForms 1.3 for Joomla! Site Cookbook , we will cover the following features:

  • Showing a YouTube video
  • Adding a bar-code to a for m e-mail
  • Adding a character counter to a textarea
  • Creating a "double drop-down"
Read Using ChronoForms to add More Features to your Joomla! Form in full

Overview of REST Concepts and Developing your First Web Script using Alfresco

by Piergiorgio Lucidi Ugo Cei | August 2010 | Content Management Open Source Web Development

Alfresco 3 is one of the most versatile open source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platforms. This is a real open source alternative to commercial product such as Microsoft SharePoint and EMC Documentum. It is also very well designed and suitable to be customized and extended. The open source adoption allows developers to contribute on the project and that's why you can find more than 240 extensions in the Alfresco Forge.

This article by Ugo Cei and Piergiorgio Lucidi, authors of the book Alfresco 3 Web Services, takes you through an overview of REST concepts and also provides you a step-by-step example to start developing your first Web Script.

Read Overview of REST Concepts and Developing your First Web Script using Alfresco in full

Python Multimedia: Working with Audios

by Ninad Sathaye | August 2010 | Open Source

Decades ago, silent movies lit up the screen—but later, it was audio effect that brought life into them. We deal with digital audio processing quite frequently—when just playing a CD track, recording your own voice or converting songs into a different audio format. There are many libraries or multimedia frameworks available for audio processing. This article teaches some common digital audio processing techniques using Python bindings of a popular multimedia framework called GStreamer.

In this article by Ninad Sathaye, author of Python Multimedia, we shall:

  • Learn basic concepts behind GStreamer multimedia framework
  • Use GStreamer API for audio processing
  • Develop some simple audio processing tools for 'everyday use'. We will develop tools that will batch convert audio file formats, record an audio, and play audio files
Read Python Multimedia: Working with Audios in full

The Model-View-Controller pattern and Configuring Web Scripts with Alfresco

by Piergiorgio Lucidi Ugo Cei | August 2010 | Content Management Open Source Web Development

Alfresco 3 is one of the most versatile open source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platforms. This is a real open source alternative to commercial product such as Microsoft SharePoint and EMC Documentum. It is also very well designed and suitable to be customized and extended. The open source adoption allows developers to contribute on the project and that's why you can find more than 240 extensions in the Alfresco Forge.

In this article by Ugo Cei and Piergiorgio Lucidi, authors of the book, Alfresco 3 Web Services, you will learn:

  • How to properly design Web Scripts using the Model-View-Controller pattern
  • How to configure a Web Script for things such as authentication, transactionality, and cacheability
  • How clients can request a specific response format
  • How to deploy Web Scripts in Alfresco
Read The Model-View-Controller pattern and Configuring Web Scripts with Alfresco in full
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