In a pair of related announcements, Zend Technologies says it is releasing new versions of its Zend Framework and Zend Studio. Zend Framework 1.9 features PHP 5.3 support, along with enhanced community-built features for web application development, while the Zend Studio 7.0 IDE now features support for PHP 5.3 as well as tight integration with Zend Server and Zend Framework.
New features in Zend Framework 1.9 include:
- Support for PHP 5.3.
- REST-based web services made easier through automated routing/detection
- Message queues which are useful for offload processing (credit card transactions, media uploads, and more), cross-platform communication, and chat functionality.
- LDAP support for Microsoft ActiveDirectory and Novell, plus searching, filtering, and tree features
- RSS and Atom support
- DBUnit support for unit testing
Built on Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT) 2.1, Zend Studio 7.0 provides support for PHP 5.3 features such as such as namespaces and closures. Additionally Version 7.0 provides new syntax highlighting and point-and-click creation of Zend Framework applications. Zend Studio 7.0 also supports Zend Server -- Zend's Web application server for deploying, managing and monitoring PHP Web applications.
According to Zend's Andi Gutmans, "Zend Studio, together with Zend Framework and Zend Server, provides a PHP solution that addresses the entire Web application lifecycle, from development to production."
