FreeEnergy

FreeEnergy is the PHP 5 framework for web applications using MySQL. The FreeEnergy methodology has been used to build applications for Autodesk, John Muir Health, AG Ferrari, Thrasher Magazine and many others.

The FreeEnergy system breaks Web pages into seven modules: action, configuration, database, layout, navigation, screen and utility:
- Action modules perform some sort of write function to a database, file or possibly to the network. They are executed before the screen module, and may override the user's request for a particular screen. Action modules never send data directly to the screen. Instead, they add messages to a stack to be popped later by the layout module.
- Configuration modules control the behavior of the application, particularly access to scripts and databases.
- Dababase modules encapsulate all the of the database interface code. Tables are typically modeled as PHP Classes.
- Layout modules contain just enough code to arrange the output of screen and navigation modules, which are invoked using include.
- Navigation modules contain links and repeating elements, such as a vertically-oriented column of buttons.
- Screen modules contain the content unique to the particular page being displayed. They may be plain HTML, or they may be primarily PHP code.
- Utility modules tend to be catch-all. Any module may rely on a utility module. Some of them are called for each page load, while others relate to particular functionality such as assembling an HTML email.