11     Multimedia

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If you have previously only used PHP to work with HTML content, it will come as a nice surprise that working with multimedia content uses almost exactly the same process. It seems that many people just don't realise that PHP is capable of handling much more than non-HTML data, and hopefully this chapter will help shed a great deal of light on this exciting and challenging topic.

Through its extensions, PHP is able to easily handle creating image data in a variety of formats, generating Flash movies, and even generating PDFs - each have their own advantages and disadvantages, and are all in popular use. Having the ability to create custom multimedia content on the fly is very powerful indeed - although outputting content to HTML can do a lot, a picture says a thousand words! For example, by generating multimedia content, we can create dynamic weather forecasts, or user-customised PDFs - the possibilities are endless.

Note that in order to work with multimedia, you must first understand that each type of content, whether it be images, Flash, or PDF, all have their own unique file formats that need to be absolutely precise - you must be careful not to use any text in your multimedia PHP scripts, not even extra blank lines before or after your <?php and ?> tags. The RTF format allows text formatting to be contained using special text encoding characters, and therefore can be manipulated using simple string routines.

Topics covered in this chapter are:

• The multimedia formats that are available and their advantages

• Creating basic image formats

• Working with the rich-text format (RTF)

• Creating portable document format (PDF) files

• Working with the Shockwave Flash (SWF) format

Chapter contents

11.1. Brief history of web media

11.1.1. GIF
11.1.2. PNG
11.1.3. JPEG
11.1.4. RTF
11.1.5. PDF
11.1.6. Flash
11.1.7. SVG

11.2. Images

11.2.1. Creating new images: imagecreate(), imagedestroy(), imagecolorallocate()
11.2.2. Choosing a format
11.2.3. Getting arty: imagefilledrectangle()
11.2.4. More shapes: imagecreatetruecolor(), imagefilledellipse(), imagefilledarc(), imageellipse(), imagearc(), and imagerectangle()
11.2.5. Complex shapes: imagefilledpolygon() and imagepolygon()
11.2.6. Outputting text: imagettftext() and imagettfbbox()
11.2.7. Loading existing images: imagecreatefrompng(), imagecreatefromjpeg(), and getimagesize()
11.2.8. Colour and image fills: imagefill(), imagefilltoborder(), and imagesettile()
11.2.9. Adding transparency: imagecolortransparent()
11.2.10. Using brushes: imagesetbrush()
11.2.11. Basic image copying: imagecopy() and imagecopymerge()
11.2.12. Scaling and rotating: imagecopyresized(), imagecopyresampled(), and imagerotate()
11.2.13. Points and lines: imagesetpixel(), imageline(), and imagesetthickness()
11.2.14. Updating the drawing script
11.2.15. Special effects using imagefilter()
11.2.16. Introduction to special effects using simple algorithms
11.2.17. Special FX, Colour reduction: imagetruecolortopalette()
11.2.18. Special FX, Interlacing
11.2.19. Special FX, Screen
11.2.20. Special FX, Greyscale: imagecolorat()
11.2.21. Special FX, Duotone
11.2.22. Special FX, Noise
11.2.23. Special FX, Scatter
11.2.24. Special FX, Pixelate
11.2.25. Special FX, Blur
11.2.26. Special FX, Other special effects
11.2.27. Interlacing an image: imageinterlace()
11.2.28. Getting an image's MIME type: image_type_to_mime_type()
11.2.29. Keeping your files small
11.2.30. Making graphs

11.3. Working with RTF
11.4. Creating PDF documents

11.4.1. There's more than one way to do it
11.4.2. Getting started: pdf_new(), pdf_open_file(), pdf_findfont(), pdf_begin_page(), pdf_setfont(), pdf_show_xy(), pdf_end_page(), pdf_close(), and pdf_delete()
11.4.3. Adding more pages and more style: pdf_setcolor()
11.4.4. Adding imagery: pdf_open_image_file() and pdf_place_image()
11.4.5. PDF special effects: pdf_rotate() and pdf_skew()
11.4.6. Adding document data: pdf_add_note(), pdf_set_info()
11.4.7. PDF Conclusion
11.4.8. Point sizes in real life
11.4.9. ClipPDF interoperability
11.4.10. PDF without a module?

11.5. Creating Flash

11.5.1. A simple movie
11.5.2. Flashy text
11.5.3. Actions
11.5.4. Animation
11.5.5. Flash Conclusion

11.6. Summary
11.7. Exercises
11.8. Further reading
11.9. Next chapter