What PHP Everyday is
PHP Everyday is a collection of hands-on PHP and web development tutorials. The site covers everything from database abstraction with PDO and ADOdb through to full framework walkthroughs in CodeIgniter, Zend Framework, and Joomla. If you write PHP for a living - or you are trying to learn it seriously - this is the kind of resource that cuts straight to working code.
The idea is simple: every article should solve one problem or teach one concept. No sprawling 5,000-word posts that bury the answer in paragraph twelve. You get a practical intro, a code example you can actually run, and a heads-up about the mistakes that trip people up in production.
What we cover
The site is organized around topic series, each one focused on a single technology or workflow:
- PDO (PHP Data Objects) - The modern way to talk to databases in PHP. Prepared statements, error handling, BLOBs, and all the things
mysql_*never taught you. - CodeIgniter - A lightweight MVC framework. The series starts at installation and works up to a full CRUD form application with insert, update, delete, and list views.
- Zend Framework - Configuration, database operations, session management, and a complete login/authentication system with Zend_Auth and Zend_Acl.
- Drupal - Administration and configuration. Logging in, setting up error handling, caching for performance, file system paths, and date/time settings.
- jQuery UI - Dialogs, datepickers, framework classes, and the kind of UI polish that used to take days to build by hand.
- Smarty - Template engine basics. Separating PHP logic from HTML so your views don’t turn into spaghetti.
- Facebook Platform - Building applications with the Facebook API. Setting up apps, authentication, Graph API endpoints.
- ADOdb - Database abstraction that works across MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, and MSSQL without rewriting your queries every time.
- Joomla - Custom components, template building, and the MVC pattern as Joomla implements it.
- CakePHP - Quick start installation and project setup.
- PHPMailer - SMTP configuration and sending HTML emails with embedded images.
How the content is structured
There are three ways to navigate the tutorials:
Series are the backbone. Each series groups related articles into a reading order. Start at the beginning of the PDO series and by the end you will understand prepared statements, transactions, and error modes. Or jump to article six if you already know the basics and just need the BLOB handling reference.
Packs are curated step-by-step bundles. If you want to build a Joomla component from scratch, or set up Zend Framework login authentication, a pack walks you through it in order. Packs pull from the series articles but arrange them specifically for the task at hand.
The articles hub gives you a flat view of everything on the site, with filtering by topic. Good for when you know roughly what you need and just want to find it fast.
Philosophy
A few principles guide what goes on this site:
Show the code first. Theory is important, but most developers land on a tutorial because something is broken or they need to build something by Friday. Every article starts with what you are going to build and shows you a working example before it explains why the example works.
Flag the gotchas. Every technology has sharp edges. PDO’s silent error mode is the classic example - your query fails, PDO says nothing, and you spend an hour wondering why your data is empty. Articles on this site call out those traps explicitly.
Keep it practical. You will not find philosophical debates about ORMs versus raw SQL here. You will find the exact configuration array for a Zend Framework database adapter, the right MIME type header for embedded email images, and the jQuery UI option that stops your datepicker from appearing behind a modal dialog.
Internal links only. The site links to its own content. If you are reading about PDO prepared statements and the article mentions error handling, that link takes you to the PDO error handling article on this site. That makes navigating between related topics fast and predictable.
Technical details
PHP Everyday is a static site generated with Hexo. The content is written in Markdown, processed through custom EJS templates, and deployed to Cloudflare Pages. There are no server-side scripts running in production - everything you see is pre-built HTML, CSS, and a small amount of vanilla JavaScript for search and navigation.
Search works entirely client-side. When the site builds, it generates a JSON index of all articles. The search overlay loads that index and filters it as you type. No external search service, no tracking, no API calls.
The design uses self-hosted fonts from the Source family (Source Sans, Source Serif, Source Code Pro) and no external CSS frameworks. Code blocks are styled to look like editor panes, because that is where you are going to paste the snippets anyway.
Get in touch
If you have questions or suggestions, visit the contact page. For details about how data is handled, see the privacy policy.