PHP Cheat Sheet iPhone Reference App Review

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Posted on 02. Jun, 2009 by iPhone App Reviewer in $1, 9 Star Ratings, iPhone Reference App Reviews

php Cheat Sheet: Making web developers around the world wanting the iPhone even more…

Version Reviewed: 1.0
Developer: Concentric Sky
Price as of Review: $0.99
Current iTunes Rating: 3/5

Before I start, know that this is actually a mixed review, I’ll be reviewing most of the Cheat Sheet by Concentric Sky series, this includes CSS, PHP, and jQuery cheat sheet apps. If you’re a web developer who’s looking for a portable offline reference to various web coding topics then you’ll definitely want to take a look at Concentric Sky’s apps, well, you pretty much have no choice either as these applications are one of a kind in the app store.

As a web developer myself I was quite excited when I found out about php cheat sheet, and ecstatic to find out there was even more. Now I always keep these applications handy when doing web work, even on iPhone App Reviewer itself. The apps are quite simple, they allow you to browse through different categories and subsections about the language, going over markup and functions. Although still very useful (especially for a buck) these cheat sheets only have limited information. Some main complaints from myself are the lack of depth in explanation of functions. A lot of the php function references do not include example or syntax code, simply the function name and a short description. Nonetheless, it’s still useful to have around, especially with the search feature. Let’s say you want to know an array function, you remember what it does but can’t remember the function name. With php cheat sheet you can simply use it’s search feature to find it, and then look up the function at php.net.

The CSS cheatsheet however is great and covers almost every element and attribute there is to know all with a list of values, syntax, description, and example! I absolutely love it, it’s almost better than my Visibone cheat sheets (not an iPhone app)! Everything is categorized nicely just like the PHP version. Lastly we have the jQuery cheatsheet app which covers tons of jQuery library functions and goes in depth for all of them. If only the PHP version was just as good… The one thing that CSS and jQuery lacked was the category menu that PHP had.

CSS Cheatsheet: 9/10
PHP Cheatsheet: 6/10
jQuery Cheatsheet: 9/10

Normal Rating System:

Usefulness: 9/10 – Would honestly get a 10/10 but we have to dock a point for some lacking in the application

User Interface: 9/10 – Clean as a whistle

Price: 9.5/10 – Cannot complain, a buck!

Technology: 6/10 – It works offline but an online mode would be nice too, how about using the tilt controls for a <shake to switch category>?

Execution of Concept: 7/10 – There’s more that could be done….

Overall Rating: 8.1/10

Recommended For:

Web Developers

Further Improvements:

More in-depth information for some functions, markup, styles, etc…
Have each reference page link to the corresponding page about the function, style (or whatever) on php.net or w3schools.com
An online mode which fetches the most recent data about the functions, then downloads the information for offline reading
Cover flow mode or a more visual/quicker way of going through functions and categories
For CSS, a tag category, examples on styling most HTML tags

More screenshots here

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