Tutorial Details
- Difficulty: Intermediate Advanced
- Length: 30 Minutes
In today’s screencast we are going to learn how to create our own helpers and libraries. We are also going to learn how to extend the existing helpers and libraries that come with CodeIgniter. At the end of the tutorial we will extend the Form Validation library to give it the ability to check for password strength.
Catch Up
- Day 1: Getting Started With the Framework
- Day 2: Database Selecting Methods
- Day 3: Sending Emails
- Day 4: Newsletter Signup
- Day 5: CRUD
- Day 6: Login
- Day 7: Pagination
- Day 8: AJAX
- Day 9: File Uploading and Image Manipulation
- Day 10: The Calendar Library
- Day 11: File and Directory Operations
- Day 12: Shopping Cart
- Day 13: Extending the Framework
Day 13: Extending the Framework

First comment.
Thanks Burak. Watching it now. Learned a lot from your CI screencasts, thank you so much.
Sorry for double post. You should put a download link at the end of the post, some of the visitors don’t know how to find it on blip.
Here it is:
http://blip.tv/file/get/NETTUTS-CodeIgniterFromScratchExtendingTheFramework635.flv
Once again thanx Burak, your CI tutorials are amazing.
Thanks a lot. This is the most exciting series of nettuts.
Thankyou Burak!!
I think this is the best series of the whole internet!!
Thank you very much Burak, it’s great that you took over this series and have given us such great tutorials during the last few weeks.
I have one question though, are the lastest CI screencasts going to be posted to Itunes? I’d like to download from there as I am suscribed to NetTuts on the Itunes store.
Again, thanks for your contribution.
Will be something like this so for Zend framework?
I’d appreciate that Zend screencast idea, too. BTW These series are the best, it helped me a lot in my thesis workflow, i’m doing it with CI & jQuery as well :) You rocks !
cool screen cast, but yet dint sync with iTunes :S
Thanks Burak for sharing this excellent screencast on extending the codeigniter framework.
why not .mp4, why flv? :(
flv sized more :(
I hope this is a nice tut, downloading and watch it later :D
Much appreciated! A request, a guide on how to program modular with CI.
Ya know what we be really cool? How about a tutorial on Unit Testing with CI. I am always too much “under the gun” to write a test suite. Later, when changes are made and bugs are fixed, I always regret not having a testing suite. Truthfully, it’d just be nice to see how PHP developers are doing unit testing these days. And particularly, if anyone is doing this with Codeigniter.
Great Burak! Best CI Tutorial so far. Can’t wait to see more
great series!
thanks
Best series ever!
Don’t stop it.
Could you please make a part describing working with moneybookers API?
That will be great.
Thanks.
I love this series and I’ve quite a bit from it. Keep up the good work.
One little thing in the screencast though. When you extend a helper file, you have to prefix it with MY_ just like with libraries. So, if you want to extend the date_helper file, you put a file named MY_date_helper.php in your applications/helpers folder. If you don’t prefix your helper files with MY_ then you are overriding all of the functionality of the native helper file instead of just extending it.
http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/helpers.html
that first line should read “I love this series and I’ve *learned* quite a bit from it. Keep up the good work.”
Thank you for the correction!
no problem :o), glad to help.
tnx for pointing this out :)
Great series, i must say i’m learning more from your tutorials than jeff way’s. One question though, do you plan on eventually making a fully featured blog platform like the original series said it would?
great series burak, very helpful
thank you.
All I see is a blank post… seriously.
Yes, I am replying to my comment…. I finally was able to watch the video. Don’t know why it wouldn’t display at first. I thought the end of the tutorial sort of went astray, off into the world of form validation a bit, but overall these CI tutorials are great. I won’t say that everyone should use CI, because there’s some times when I like plain HTML for smaller sites, or sometimes that I use WordPress. I can’t say how great I think CI is though. It’s a dream come true for getting things done fast, clean, organized, and for maintenance.
Can you take care of the *index.php somehow?
yeah would really like a decent solution for that all I find keeps messing it up..
Become a great fan of tutsplus after seeing this series :) Love you tutsplus. :). Seriously, I was so damn scared of frameworks and this totally removed the phobia.
Greetings from Argentina! This series are great. I’m happy you could continue Jeff’s work.
After reading tons of forums pages trying to set up a more advanced enviroment to develop (until now I was using e-text) I can’t get Aptana to auto complete anything. I’ve tried both 1.5 and 2.0 versions with no luck. And, for what I’ve read, there are many with the same problem. Could you share your Aptana config to us? Thanks in advance.
Ps: Sorry if my english isn’t great, I speak spanish :D
I am using 1.5 that doesn’t have PDT.
I love this series but the last few episodes have never been released on itunes!
What’s the go?
You’ve basically killed it for anyone who watches on their iphone/ipod!
Hello,
Thanks for a nice tutorial!
Does anyone know the name of the code editor that he is using?
Thank!
Aptana Studio with Aptana PHP plugin (not PDT!).
I’m seeing NetBeans 6.9 in this video. I use use NetBeans as well, but I haven’t figured out how to get code autocomplete to work for CI yet. Anyone else here figure that out?
thanks
your tutorial is very nice.
but you have forgot to pur source file code.
i learned more about ci
thanks once again
I want to work with CI directory in Aptana studio. Right now I have to go through couple of directories to go to CI application and system folders. Any help will be appreciated . Thanks in advance ….
Nice tutorial, again. Thank you!
Hi Burak, I am trying to use the aptana because I saw is the one you are using, I already install it and I am having problems with the instalation I dont know why is sending me and error with the files of codeigniter if i create my php file I dont have problems but when I open a codeigniter file it send me this error Could not open the editor: Editor could not be initialized. Can you help me telling me what I am doing wrong
Where is the download Version?
This has been a very useful tutorial! Thanks a lot!
GREAT serie :) please don’t stop :)
Hi Burak,
I am just wondering if you can add tutorial of how to perform multiple files upload using CI upload library? General idea over the internet is to loop over the $_FILES array and change its key to ‘userfile’ – accepted by CI’s upload library. Still I couldn’t find elegant solution so I was wondering if a professional PHP programmer such as You or Jeffrey might help?
Thanks in advance, still i am not pushing you do do so. :)
Adam
hello! thanks for the great tutorials! I am “catching up” (video number 3 now) and I hope I can start using CI very soon!
thanks for making it look so easy! I am learning everyday something new thanks to u guys! :)
quick question: are you planning on explaining how to develop a multilingual website in CI?
I will need to have 4 languages supported in a website and I really dont know where to start from as text and images have to change depending on the language selected by the user + I’d like to display the website in the ‘correct’ language depending on the language of the browser OR the selection of the user (if he has already registered an account and kept the session alive)
languages are English, French, Chinese and Bahasa…
Any suggestion / screencast would be great at this stage :)
Thanks!
Hi,
if you find a good solution for multilingual website in CI, please let me know.
Thanks!
x2
A multi language site would be a very nice idea for a next tutorial. :)
I second this!! Looking forward for a screencast about a good way to go multilanguage with CodeIgniter.
I think its a basic thing to do in most of the middle size sites to reach more users, why isnt it it the first x-days series on CodeIgniter?
I saw some writen tuts around using language.php (already available in CodeIgniter) thought not complete.
They tell u some ways, more or less eficient, to use the class to translate the content but are lack of basic information like:
-How to get the right language content from the bd (using the session variable, for example)
-How to translate the friendly urls correctely so the system doesnt point in english (ie default language) to a section in other language (for example: http://site/es/news/ should be http://site/noticias or site/es/noticias)
Hope it will be reaching soon, as i guess lots of us are in need of some complete tut on this :)
Hi, can you please tell me how to build template system in CI for website?
Thanks for the great series on CI. Keep it up with more of your splendid hands out ….Your the best gurus.
great tutorial! very helpful, but where is the zip file? could yoou guys try to do one with symfony?
I really like this series but I would be great to see the videos available as a podcast.
Thanks Burak for the nice tuts, I love these screencasts !! =)
I remember when Jeff first started the series, he was supposed to cover how to integrate a custom CMS to a website with CodeIgniter.
I’d love to see that in the future, I’m planning to do that this summer for a project of mine, hope you can cover that until then, that would be really appreciated.
Keep it up, theses tuts are amazing ! =)
this was awesome! Im on day 4 of the CI tutorials. great way to get up and running. Is there more stuff regarding CI with that monthly subscription for $9?
Can anybody suggest me some good articles for creating search functionality with codeigniter.
Thanks in advance
Why are these tutorials no longer being added to the itunes video podcast?
Thanks Burak! you’re doing a great job, keep it up!
I would love to learn about phpUnit and testing code with CI
Cheers!
Luque
I could watch these all day… Actually I did.
This is the most excited I’ve been about updating the ol’ knowledge base since learning javascript.
Are we still heading towards creating a CMS?
Hello,
See different types of weakness and their solving techniques on tahSin’s gaRAge
Really great tut Burak! Please keep this series alive!
I have to ask question, cause i have been fighting days and days with this problem.
I use URI language selector with CI and it extends core Language library with MY_Language.php file. Inside that file there is MY_Language function. So this “language thingy” will load itself automatically and you don’t have to call it anywhere and it does it’s job on background.
My problem is that i want to make little changes there. That it would store lastly used language from URI to cookie, so when user next time visits on site it would load default lang from there. Problem occurs when i try to load helpers inside MY_Language function. Cause i can’t assign $CI =& get_instance(); inside MY_Language function and for that reason i can’t load helpers.
Is there any way that i could use helpers in this situation… OR is there better way to do this?
Thanks very much from Slovakia!
seriously u’re the best……
i’ve searched a lot on you tube abt CI…..& found ur some videos…..
thanx a lot man
Amazing! Thank you!