Software Update: Zend Framework 1.9.0 Preview

Zend has released a preview of Zend Framework 1.9.0. This framework focuses on facilitating the design, writing and maintenance of php applications. To make this possible, various APIs from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo and Flickr have been integrated into Zend Framework, among others. Furthermore, the program includes search functionality, support for ajax and RSS and atom syndication. The corresponding announcement looks like this:

Zend Framework 1.9.0 Preview Release Now Available

The Zend Framework team announces the immediate availability of a preview release of version 1.9.0: http://framework.zend.com/download/latest
Note that because these packages are not stable, they will not be found on the zend.com CDN; please scroll to the bottom of the above page to find links to this release.

This preview release showcases many of the new features that will be available in the upcoming stable release:

• Zend_Rest_Route, Zend_Rest_Controller, and Zend_Controller_Plugin_PutHandler, which aid in providing RESTful resources via the MVC layer.
• Zend_Feed_Reader, which provides a common API to RSS and Atom feeds, as well as extensions to each format, caching, and a slew of other functionality.
• Zend_Queue and Zend_Service_Amazon_Sqs, which provide the ability to use local and remote messaging and queue services for offloading asynchronous processes.
• Zend_Db_Table updates to allow using Zend_Db_Table as a concrete class by passing it one or more table definitions via the constructor.
• Annotation processing support for Zend_Pdf, as well as performance improvements.
• Zend_Dojo custom build layer support.
• Numerous Zend_Ldap improvements.
• Zend_Log_Writer_Syslog, a Zend_Log writer for writing to your system log.
• Several new view helpers, including Zend_View_Helper_BaseUrl.

The 1.9.0 release is shaping up quickly, and we expect to launch a beta late next week, with a stable release a week or so later.

Again, this is a preview release; do not use it in production environments. Do, however, test it thoroughly and let us know what is and is not working for you so we can deliver a solid release with 1.9.0!