Symfony 1.1 introduced the ability to embed forms inside other forms. Symfony 1.2 enhanced this feature greatly by providing the ability to automatically save any related objects found within these nested forms (see this blog post). Another new feature introduced in 1.2. is the ability to automatically handle file uploads in forms. Basically if you have a propel object with a file field, and define this field in your form validation schema as an sfValidatorFile, symfony takes care of removing any old field, saving the new one, and updating the column in the object to reflect the new file name. Pretty sweet. (You can read more about this feature in What’s New in 1.2.)

Everything is nearly perfect, except one problem: File fields in embedded forms are *not* processed automatically. It took me a long time to track down the issue, but it was a good opportunity for me to explore some of the new sfForm framework and really get under the hood to understand how it all works. More…

As much as I love the command line for mysql, sometimes it’s nice to have a GUI to see your tables and columns visually or to do a data dump into CSV. On OS X I’ve always used CocoaMySQL, although it became apparent a long time ago that it was no longer under development. My brother recently told me about Sequel Pro, a “MySQL database management app for Mac OS X 10.5.” You can download it here. So far it’s been working great. It truly does feel like CocoaMySQL with a Leopard interface.

There is something gratifying about starting a new project. You get to start fresh and it may be the only time during the project lifespan where everything is perfect.

Over time I’ve learned a few tricks that personally make my project environment a pleasure to work with. More…