Sameer has posted an example of a new(ish) component of the Zend Framework - the Zend_Figlet component - and how you can use it to render the multi-line ASCII text figlet users are familiar with.

Zend_Text_Figlet is a Zend component which enables developers to create a FIGlet text. A Figlet is nothing but a technique of creating large letters using ordinary text. I don't know how to make a use of this in my daily matters, but its a nice recreation. A short history on Figlet can be found here. An example and the code to generate it is shown below.

He includes a few quick code examples to show it in action - including how to make it work with your own fonts and styles.

The latest version of the Zend Framework, 1.7.0, has officially been released:

The Zend Framework team would like to thank everyone who made this release possible. As always, our generous ZF community has provided countless new features, bug fixes, documentation translations, etc. We'd also like to thank Adobe Systems and Wade Arnold for contributing the new Zend_Amf component. A big thanks to PHP Belgium and everyone who participated in bug hunt day and/or the Zend Framework bug hunt week.

This update includes lots of new components and features such as: an update to Dojo, Zend_Service_Twitter, support for Open Office Documents in the Zend_Search_Lucene component, Zend_ProgressBar, I18N improvements and much, much more. Check out the full list on this post on the Zend Developer Zone or just head over the download the latest edition.

You can also check out some of Matthew Weier O'Phinney's comments over on his blog as well as thoughts from Zend's own Andi Gutmans on his blog.

Brian DeShong has posted an update for his Zend_Log_Writer_Mail component of the Zend Framework - its now "Ready for Recommendation".

Almost a year ago, I proposed a really simple Zend Framework module, Zend_Log_Writer_Mail. [...] I've received a great deal of feedback, and have only recently committed myself to really pouring over that feedback to polish up the proposal. Thanks to everyone that commented! So, as of tonight, I polished the code up, made what I felt to be the most worthwhile changes, and marked it as "Ready for Recommendation."

You can find out more about the component and leave your own thoughts via the proposal page on the Zend Framework site.

Jani Hartikainen has made a few updates to his packageizer script for the Zend Framework to improve its interface.

Now, based on some feedback from users, I've improved the user interface of the tool: You can now select multiple items for inclusion in the package, and I've made it possible to get the packages in .phar format. It also has initial support for different libraries, ie. Zend Framework 1.6 and Zend Framework SVN trunk, but currently only 1.6 stable is available.

The tool allows you to select just the packages out of the Zend Framework that you might want to work with and packages them up, along with their dependencies, into a simple, portable file that can be used anywhere the Framework normally could.

Alessandro Crugnola has posted an update on the future of the AMFPHP project (an interface between Adobe's Flex products and PHP) and how it relates to the work being done on the Zend Framework's Zend_Amf component.

But after the partnership between Zend and Adobe things started to change and amfphp started to move forward to the Zend Framework... and in fact many developers were afraid about the real future of amfphp. But, as Wade said, the amfphp core will remain separated from the framework implementation ( a framework which I will never use however ), in order to have a shared core and 2 different branches for the implementation.

He notes, though, that he might be being a bit skeptical, but doesn't see things working out in their favor and that Zend_Amf will "win out" over the AMFPHP project and get the larger share of the backing from the larger companies.

In this new post to his blog, Manfred Webber shares an example he's put together to combine the PureMVC framework with the Zend_Amf component of the Zend Framework.

Since PureMVC is my framework of choice I could not resist creating a simple demo connecting PureMVC to the new Zend_AMF.

The sample application just responds to a button click by displaying a message inside of a text container. You can download the source that includes both the Flex and PHP sides.

Michelangelo van Dam has posted his summary of the recent BugHuntDay that happened in Roosendaal (the Netherlands) this past weekend:

Bughuntday is a whole day developers can come together to start fixing bugs for open-source frameworks and libraries. This Saturday we started these series with Zend Framework, a hugely adopted PHP framework within enterprise and professional web application development.

He also includes the slides from the presentation and a video of Jurien Stutterheim's talk introducing everyone to testing and the Zend Framework. There's pictures of the event on Flickr too.

This past weekend the Belgian PHP usergroup gathered together for a "bug hunt day" to find and fix as many problems as they could in the Zend Framework. Stefan Koopmanschap was there and has posted about his experiences.

Yesterday was the first BugHuntDay that our dutch PHP usergroup organized together with the Belgian usergroup. Somewhere between 25 and 30 people (I forgot to do an actual headcount) came together in Roosendaal to work on fixing bugs in Zend Framework.

He recounts their arrival (he and their speaker Jurrien), his talk on the structure of the framework and how to test it and some of the bugs that he worked on. Everyone that attended also received an elePHPant for their contributions. Other "goodies" like Zend t-shirts and a coupon for a free Zend Certification Exam we're passed out too.

Sander van de Graaf has put together a new post for his blog today that looks at a few ways you can optimize your Zend Framework application.

In the process we're also porting all of our applications to Zend Framework (talking about migrations ;)). After finishing our first project, and moving it over the performance testing phase and all, we encountered quite a few issues. [...] While we don't have the visitor numbers he has for this particular project, we also have a lot less hardware to work with. Let me emphasize that. We have a lot less hardware to work with.

So, to squeeze the most out of their current setup, Sander worked through the process to see how their machine perform and a dew things that they did to give them a bit more of a boost. There's some general tips (like Apache settings) and some more PHP and Zend Framework specific suggestions.

Andi Gutmans has posted an update on the status of the Zend_Amf component of the Zend Framework to his blog today, including links to some examples and updates from other developers.

At ZendCon this year we announced a partnership between Zend and Adobe. The goal of the partnership is to help make it easier for PHP developers to use Flex. Since then there has been a flurry of activity including blog posts and the introduction of Zend_Amf into the main trunk of Zend Framework.

Some of the resources he links to include several examples written up by Kevin Hoyt showing how to get started with the component, the webinar from Matthew Weier o'Phinney and Lee Brimlow as well as a manual page for it over on RIAFox.com.