I just modified zipdiff, a Java library to calculate differences between zip files. I use this library to generate incremental updates of ZenMagick and also to build the file change history.

This has been broken for a while and even though I could not get it to working again I figured out that it (or, ZipInputStream) crashes when trying to handle an embedded zip file.

I added an option to disable this feature. If anyone is interested I’d be more than happy to provide the modified source files. Seeing that the sourceforge code didn’t change for about 3 years I think there isn’t a lot of development going to happen anytime soon

So, the good news is that the next ZenMagick release will include the file change file again!

I really like to read the blog stats for this blog. As bloggers out there will know it’s easy to see referers and search keywords used that bring people to my site.

One of the most common searches is for adding new pages to zen-cart and ZenMagick. I’ve written about that before, so I won’t repeat it. It amazes me though, that this is such a common problem. On the other hand it’s something that is not everyones thing to do, in particular with non existing or only very rudimentary PHP knowledge.

So, when filling the wiki I’ll try to keep an eye on the stats to make sure the articles I write bear some relevance to what people out there are actually searching for.

It’s actually also useful to (indirectly) pick up feature requests. Yesterday I saw a search for setting a static page as homepage - voila! already checked in

ZenMagick has had the pleasure of being LOL’ed and I thought I’d share this in case you feel the site is to darn boring…

http://lolinator.com/lol/www.radebatz.net/mano/

http://lolinator.com/lol/zenmagick.radebatz.net/

.. not quite, but I am happy to announce that I am now able to offer commercial support and coding for ZenMagick,  zen-cart, Mozilla (Extensions) and other web work (Java, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, the works).

The official company website is mixedmatter.co.nz. Not a lot there yet, but i’s in the making…

Just to be sure, ZenMagick is FREE and will always be FREE (have a look at the licence if you don’t believe me). Still, I feel that there is perhaps a need for some security about ZenMagick and the future of it, especially for developers/companies that plan to use ZenMagick for their work.

There will also be an official announcement on the mixedmatter site once we get around to doing that. Until then, this somewhat informal announcement will have to do.

People using less aggressive ad-blocker will notice that of now the blog is displaying some ads in the right hand navigation. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and might add it to the ZenMagick site as weel as part of the new release that will include a Google AdSense plugin.

I’ve tried a few layouts and thought about banners too, but in the end I found the current version the most elegant for now. It might change over time or disappear again - well see

Something I’ve been wanting to write about for quite some time…

To answer this question we first need to get a good understanding of what ZenMagick actually is. ZenMagick is:

• An object oriented API that allows to access most of zen-carts data in an abstract way, so the caller does not need to know anything about the underlying database structure
• It also is/contains an alternative templating/theme system. This does behave similar to what zen-cart has to offer with a few exceptions:
  • ZenMagick theme files do use the ZenMagick API - there is never going to be SQL in a template file!
  • Due to the fact that the API is used, there is no need to require/include back and forth to make business logic
    available to theme files, making them much smaller and easier to write
  • ZenMagick does not support all of zen-carts options to configure the look&feel

(more…)

Finally I managed to update my site and join the zillions that blog away - we’ll see how that is going to work out for me…

I tried to stay close to the old design as this is definitely not one of my strong sides

I hope to use the blog to document a few ZenMagick things and keep people up to date about the current development. Drop me a line or leave a comment if you feel anything is missing.