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phpBlocks - building a more programmable web

phpBlocks is an in-browser graphical programming Library for PHP for creating blocks-based programming extensions. It uses the same visual grammar as the Scratch programming language and is heavily inspired by AppInventor from Google, but has a vocabulary more suited for data processing and PHP integration.

A web application using phpBlocks will call a block definition when certain things happen. phpBlocks are meant to do something. This is where the entire web becomes a programming platform. You can use this form of phpBlocks to allow others to extend your application. 

As in many current visual programming environments, it is easy to drag-drop blocks from toolbars to paint a extension which can be called from a PHP page.

What is phpBlocks not?

First of all you should know that phpBlocks is not a

• a ready to use software
• a Joomla or xtCommerce plugin
• a PHP Development Plattform or IDE

The concept of a phpBlocks is simple. It is an extensible Framework/Library for PHP programmer.

Why should I care?

Simply provide your users or customers the ability to customize their application. phpBlocks have enormous potential and are limited only by your imagination.To get your imagination spinning with your own ideas, here are some ways in which phpBlocks can be used to make your web more programmable:

• create notifications to you or anybody via email, IRC, Jabber, ...
• put the data in another app (real-time data synchronization)
• process the data and repost it using the app's API
• validate the data and potentially prevent it from being used by the app