And with it comes with a whole bag load of new features, 4 of which i’m very eager to get using, in Zend_Application, and Zend_Tag, and Zend_Tool, and Zend_Navigation. There is another component which interests me, which is of course Zend_Validate_Db_RecordExists and Zend_Validate_Db_NoRecordExists, which were my small contribution to this release.

Zend_Application is a whole new way to bootstrap you application, and encompasses a whole bag of new features. One of which is a new autoloader, which of course means that the old one has now been depreciated. You can find excellent instruction on upgrading your legacy applications to 1.8′s new autoloader (to avoid the notices it will generate) at Akrabats blog, His famous tutorial has also been updated to encompass 1.8 and its new features. If you want the full low-down of the new autoloader, a slightly more in depth look can be found at devzone

Zend_Tool is The new CLI tool to provide scaffolding for your applications. It will save some of the tedium of setting up an application directory strucure, creating the various bootstrap, htaccess, and other miscelanous files you need to get you application started. Even better news about Zend_Tool, it will set your new application up to use Zend_Application, so you can get started with two of the latest features, simply by starting a new project! (I can’t wait!!)

Zend_Tag is a new component for generating those lovely new-fangled tag clouds you see on everyones blogs. It is a pretty simple to use component, but possibably my favourite feature is its weighting system, which i can see being useful for more than just generating simple tag clouds, but, with a little extension, also for relevancy matching. This is something i will definatly be adding to my current CMS application project which is consuming so much of my time currently. Also worth looking at, is DASPRiD’s screencast detailing how to use Zend_Tag to generate clouds, and how the decorators work. He even demonstrates it being used in a CLI application (Genius!), and as the author of Zend_Tag, obviously watching this screencast will be like getting instruction straight from the horses mouth.

Zend_Navigation is a nice way to create menus for your site. Its also a great way to optimise your site for indexing by search engines. It also provides a way to avoid using the dreded action(viewhelper|stack) for creating menus! Put simply this component should be used by everyone. I know i will be using it as soon as i get the chance to work it into my projects.