ZF2x Magazine -- launch date 1st May 2012 SUBSCRIPTION OPEN

[Mike A]

After many weeks of hard graft the ZF2x Magazine will launch on 1st May 2012, soon after Beta 4 release.

ZF2x seeks to expand and drive the international Zend Framework community and audience. Along the way it will, of course provide news, views, articles and feedback from a wide development perspective revolving around Zend Framework. Modules will provide a section of special interest as they arrive.

A free wholly independent multimedia magazine, we hope to collaborate with Zend staff. For example, by promoting places for ZF2 certification, conferences and local meetings. Intial distribution will take the form of PDF. Our software can produce other formats, for the iPad for example, but these will take about three months to emerge. A monthly email will go out to registered subscribers, with download links for preferred formats as they arrive.

Registration is now open. There are some small technical hiccups to overcome, like producing an online registration module (which we have little time to make). For now, subscribe by email to [e-mail]. Note, subscription details will not be passed onto third parties or sold (we consider them private).

The magazine website, zf2x.com will need to "evolve" inline with subscriber wishes and in accord with the overall Zend Framework 2.0 spirit. It will not contend with ZF sites.

Arriving at this stage has not come without a few headaches. Apparently simple things like look-and-feel, font mix and overall layout were far more difficult than at first thought. That was not helped by a three-week delay in the arrival of new systems and their set-up. We pulled through though! We shall persist each month!

Is it commercial?

A little. Plans to attend, film and report upon 6-10 conferences each year come with substantial costs. The aim is to meet these costs with advertising, but not so much as to make the magazine tacky. And for the time being there's a ton of free advertising for those who want to pimp their modules and services. We shall invite paid ads from agencies who provide employed positions, contracts and project collaboration.

Some articles are finished. Some in process. Helpers, article writers and positive comments are very welcome! [[e-mail]]  We also have yet to obtain approval for use of images (like the one of MWO on the draft front page shown here, which will probably change a little). Oh, and someone will attend to film and write about the Whisky Web conference (April, Edinburgh, Scotland: whiskyweb.co.uk]. We should have a good magazine come 1st May!

Early subscribers will receive a ZF2x "short" of about 12 pages when it's ready.

Hopefully the end result will appeal not only to our regular community but to newcomers, agencies, academic institutions and firms. From this audience we hope to expand interest and activity around Zend Framework 2 in a way other frameworks without their own magazine cannot do!

Thanks for reading! [Now subscribe: [e-mail]  :) ]

[macest]

Your registration page has a nice user friendly error message, might want to turn off the displayExceptions flag on production:

----

A 404 error occurred
Page not found.
The requested controller could not be mapped to an existing controller class.

Controller:
Exception:
Class index could not be located in provided definitions.

Stack trace
#0 /home/ma8/vendor/ZendFramework/library/Zend/Di/Di.php(130): Zend\Di\Di->newInstance('index', Array)
#1 /home/ma8/vendor/ZendFramework/library/Zend/Mvc/Application.php(332): Zend\Di\Di->get('index')
#2 [internal function]: Zend\Mvc\Application->dispatch(Object(Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent))
#3 /home/ma8/vendor/ZendFramework/library/Zend/EventManager/EventManager.php(441): call_user_func(Array, Object(Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent))
#4 /home/ma8/vendor/ZendFramework/library/Zend/EventManager/EventManager.php(202): Zend\EventManager\EventManager->triggerListeners('dispatch', Object(Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent), Object(Closure))
#5 /home/ma8/vendor/ZendFramework/library/Zend/Mvc/Application.php(251): Zend\EventManager\EventManager->trigger('dispatch', Object(Zend\Mvc\MvcEvent), Object(Closure))
#6 /home/ma8/public_html/index.php(29): Zend\Mvc\Application->run()
#7 {main}

[Mike A]

Lol, yes!
It's there as a reminder to complete the registration module. With doing so many things over very long days to prepare the magazine it's difficult to find time at the moment -- desperately seeking help for that sort of stuff. If someone happens to develop a working registration module though*... ;)

Manual registration is open: send an email to [e-mail]. :)  Had many registrations already, although surprisingly, not from some I had expected (nudge nudge...).

Thanks!


* Haven't time to get into the intricacies of what ZfcUser doesn't do in the registration process yet. If it was just a matter of using ZfcUser a registration module may have been done.

[Mike A]

Folk pointed out that because the zf2x.com website registration page was broken* it seemed subscriptions were not yet being taken. Subscriptions are open! Lots subscribed already. Early subscribers will receive an extract of about 10 pages within a few days so they can provide feedback (quote regarding Ol' Grumps column: "Hilarious!").

We are about to embark on marketing throughout the world to PHP developers; competitor framework developers and employment agencies in major cities.

Copy deadline: 15 April for articles, news, meeting information and so on. We can extend the deadline a few days if someone has working modules with examples (astonished after so long that there's no working login/registration example using ZfcUser yet -- we would publish!!!)


*  "Broken" implies it worked -- development remains in progress, but our focus is on articles for the magazine rather than the website ATM.

[Mike A]

Try as we did, we could not produce ZF2x for release today. We are working hard.

My fault! Just arrived back from the other end of the country after a small emergency with my parents (both late '80s). Had to stay more than a week.

Plans now are to get the magazine out as soon as possible. This week if all goes well and expected articles/ads arrive.