Your Handbook to Yii Framework

Custom web development feels like an uphill battle even before someone starts working on it. And the battle is the same for both the website owners and the web developers.

How is that now, you ask?

Well, for a website owner, the most important thing to decide is – where to get the website developed. It can be an intimidating question and also the task of finding the right web developer that follows is also unnerving.

Besides, the story is different altogether for a professional web developer because what intimidates him the most is the choice of the right web development framework!

Even if the web developer is specialized in one language like PHP, the choice is quite wide. To choose the right framework, a web developer must know almost everything about it.

Your presence here is the evidence that you’re considering using the Yii PHP framework for your development project. So, let’s have a look at this amazing PHP framework:

Yii Framework and It’s Features

Yii stands for Yes, it is in a context that the phrase is an answer to all the questions that web developers might get surrounded with while considering Yii.

Is Yii a fast framework? Is it suitable for your web development needs? Is it acceptable as a competent development framework?

The answer is Yes, it is

Yii is a PHP web development framework, known to be one of the high performing frameworks of its time. This open source framework utilizes PHP5 codes for the development of 2.0 web applications. The brilliant features of Yii are the reason why even the best professionals delivering open source development services, consider this framework as the best choice for PHP development.

Besides being a young web development framework, Yii is among the most widely used PHP frameworks of today. The framework is available free of cost and is popularly used for the creation of sophisticated, neat, and DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) web designs.

Regardless of the size of your project, whether big or small, Yii can make the development process much easier and faster. Even the larger projects with a complex layout and requirements can be handled with Yii like a breeze!

Laced with a great number of features, Yii is being used by almost every competent PHP Development Company for big as well as small projects. Let’s have a look at some of these features:

1.  Data Access Objects (DAO)

To access the data stored in various Database Management Systems (DBMS), there is a need for a generic API. This generic API is provided by the Data Access Objects (DAO) in the Yii framework.

Thus, the original DBMS can easily be changed to another one without a code change. The Yii framework allows the web developers to create a database in the form of objects. This saves a PHP Development Company from the intimidating task of writing SQL queries on a repetitive basis.

2.  CRUD (Create, Read, Update, and Delete)

The Yii framework comes with the CRUD feature that saves a lot of the time of the professionals and makes the web development process a lot easier.

Let’s take an example. Suppose you have to develop a user creation form for your web development project. With the help of the CRUD feature of Yii framework, the user creation form can be built by just creating the user table and other necessary fields. This is to be created in the database itself.

Now, by using a robust tool offered by the Yii PHP framework, called Gii, the model for user creation form can easily be created along with its CRUD. This can easily be managed with just a few clicks by the user.

3.  MVC Design Pattern

One of the most famous and commonly adopted web development architecture pattern – Model View Controller (MVC) is found in the Yii framework. With the help of MVC, the UI considerations can be managed and categorized separately from that of the business logic.

So, the developers can change one part of their web development framework without affecting the other part. The following functions are performed by this feature of the Yii PHP framework:

• Model: represents the business rules and other basic information
• View: contains the UI elements like input, text, etc.
• Controller: manages interaction between the model and view
  

4.  Theme Directory

While developing web applications with the help of Yii framework, a PHP developer can utilize its theme directory to the fullest. There are a number of themes available with the theme directory of Yii framework that can be applied to your web development project.

Inside a config file, a web developer can easily switch between different themes as well. Thus, the web designs can be implemented with a great ease!

5.  Error Handling

With the Yii framework, a PHP expert or PHP Development Company can handle web development errors very comprehensively. The errors can be handled as well as corrected in a very smooth and easy manner and the log messages are also characterized in a proper way.

With methods like handleException and handleError, Yii can easily handle the errors, PHP notices, and warnings.

Thus, because of this feature, it is easier for the web developers to work on their project, error-free!

6.  Data Caching

With the help of the caching feature of the Yii framework, the speed and performance of your web development project increases. Thus, if you’re making a website using Yii framework, it will have a great speed and performance.

With the help of Yii, the professionals delivering open source development services can integrate various caching components in different situations. Thus, the page load time gets faster.

7.  High Security

This is one of the most important and popular features offered by the Yii framework  high security. Because of this feature, even the best PHP Development Companies use the Yii framework for their web development projects.

With a number of security measures, the Yii framework prevents the websites from the harms and damages occurring from cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL Injection, cookie tampering, cross-site request forgery, etc.

Over time, the Yii framework has evolved as per the latest technological trends prevailing in the world of web development. Thus, every update keeps on adding to the features of this brilliant web development framework and cuts down on the bugs or errors experienced before.

Recently, the latest version of the Yii Framework has been launched. Let’s have a look at what this latest version has in store for the web developers:

Yii 2.0.11

On February 01, 2017, the company announced the release of the Yii Framework, version 2.0.11.

The version was said to be “a minor release of Yii 2.0” with 110+ augmentations and bug fixes and 4 minor changes.

Give below is a brief description of the features offered by this new version of Yii PHP framework:

1.  Improvement of Test Coverage

The new version of Yii doesn’t accept the pull requests in the absence of unit tests. This feature helps the web developers by bettering the quality of code and utilizing lesser time used for the reviewing of codes.

The methods of tests are now more understandable and smaller.

2. Better Performance

The new release of the Yii framework has made a number of enhancements with the issues related to database query, unique validator, and RBAC, etc.

Thus, the new version of the framework ensures a better performance of websites, again making it popular among the professionals delivering open source development services.

3. Enhanced Security

With the new versions, the Yii framework comes with a PHP solution so that the header attacks can be hosted. The problem was quite common with the earlier versions of the framework when the header attacks were not solved by the web servers on shared hosts.

Thus, the bug has been fixed in the latest version of the Yii PHP framework.

This is done with the help of the addition of a HostControl filter.

Along with these major features, there were a few others like:

• Presence of a GPG signed tag for the developers to know and verify if their code is published by the Yii framework team
• Incorporates a new version of the composer installer that keeps a track of the extensions installed within the framework and helps in their bootstrap without configuration
• Addition of the enhanced and extensible widgets
• Compatibility with the enhanced PHP versions – PHP 7.0 and PHP 7.1

Thus, Version 2.0.11 of the Yii framework is something a lot better and improved than the previous versions. From bigger enhancements to smaller bug fixes, the framework gets better with every new release. Thus, it delivers the best web development experience for experts delivering open source development services.

So, if you’re looking for a good PHP framework for your next big web development project, Yii framework is the thing for you! With so many amazing features and a great ease of use, the framework comes in handy for large as well as small projects.

If you’re a website owner looking for experts to develop your website using Yii framework, you can choose the best PHP Development Company located near you.

Related Read: 9 Changes and Improvements introduced in Recently Launched PHPStorm 2017.1 Edition