giix Readme
===========

giix version 1.10 (dev, unstable)

giix official website:    http://giix.org/

You should always
download giix from:       http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/giix

giix on...
Yii Extension Repository: http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/giix/
Yii Forum:                http://www.yiiframework.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13154-giix-%E2%80%94-gii-extended/
Google Code:              http://giix.googlecode.com/
Ohloh:                    http://www.ohloh.net/p/giix

giix is gii Extended, a code generator for Yii PHP framework.
giix is inspired and based on gii-template-collection (gtc), by Herbert Maschke (thyseus).

giix is free software and is dual-licensed under the terms of the new BSD License and under the terms of GNU GPL v3. See the LICENSE file.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
----------------

giix is inspired and uses code from Yii PHP framework and gii-template-collection.
Many thanks to Qiang Xue, Herbert Maschke and the contributors of these software.

Also, thanks for the huge help from:
Thiago Talma (Athos)
Gustavo Salomé Silva (Gustavo)

FEATURES
--------

giix extends Yii's gii by providing:
- Proper handling of related model attributes, rendering appropriate form fields based on relation type.
- More support for HAS_MANY and MANY_MANY relations.
- Native support for saving MANY_MANY relations with the new method GxActiveRecord::saveWithRelated.
- Native support for saving multiple (related or not) records with the new method GxActiveRecord::saveMultiple.
- Automatic string representation for a model via GxActiveRecord::representingColumn() and GxActiveRecord::__toString().
- Better i18n support and easier to maintain: support to active record labels. You change the label once in the model and it is automatically updated in the views. This is especially useful for plurals.
- Out-of-the box i18n support by using Yii::t().
- Bundled translations (pending support on Yii core as of Yii 1.1.8. See <http://code.google.com/p/yii/issues/detail?id=2624> for details).
- Appropriate form fields are rendered based on model attribute/table field data type.
- Separated model and basemodel. Basemodel can be regenerated without overwriting your code in the model.
- Smart methods can query your database for just the needed data (usually the primary key and the field with the string representantion), avoiding manual setup or a "select *".
- Extensive use of default method parameters. Appropriate data is found automatically.
- Some (incipient) support for tables with composite primary keys.
- Generated code is completely free from styling and formatting. Your CSS controls the presentation.
- Generated code is (almost) free of comments.
- Well documented and commented source code. Ohloh says that 40% of the lines in the code are comments! You can understand and modify anything you want.

And a lot more! Read the CHANGELOG file and the (richly commented) source code to fully leverage giix's power.

Some of these features come from gtc.

WARNINGS
--------

Always download the latest release from the extension page at:
http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/giix

giix is not fully tested now, so please test your application and be careful using it.
giix is still in development. Some changes may break backwards compatibility.

Are you upgrading? Please don't forget to read the UPGRADE file for instructions!

REQUIREMENTS
------------

Yii 1.1.9+ is required.

giix should run with:
- Yii 1.1.8+ (tested with revision 3364 + patch*)
- Linux
- Apache 2.2 or nginx 0.8+
- MySQL 5.x
- PHP 5.2+

giix may run on other setups, but there is no official suppport for them.
There is no planned official support for other setups, including Windows/IIS, XAMPP/etc or other DBMS.

* You can use giix with Yii 1.1.8 if you patch your Yii installation with the patch provided in the issue 2624:
<http://code.google.com/p/yii/issues/detail?id=2624>.

INSTALLATION AND UPGRADING
--------------------------

Please see INSTALL and UPGRADE files for instructions.

USING
-----

After installing, you will see the giix generators on the gii page.
The giix generators' names start with "giix".
Read the gii doumentation on how to use it
<http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/GiiModule>.

If you want to use the GxActiveRecord::saveWithRelated method, you must first generate
the pivot model for the cross-reference table of the relationship.
The pivot model class is the active record between two other active records that have
a MANY_MANY relationship.
If you have already generated models for every table in your schema, you are ready to
use the method to save your MANY_MANY relations.
If you use the support for saving MANY_MANY relations as generated, you will need to
manually write code to support scenarios. This is an important security concern.

DONATE
------

Go to <http://giix.org/> and donate via Flattr or via Paypal.