While CakePHP provides an EXCELLENT framework for coding PHP apps. When it comes to tools which help aid in the design phase of application development, some of you might have adopted some techniques to streamline the analysis and design phase.

For creating databases and CakePHP models, i would opt for DBDesigner combined with dbdesigner2cake.
DBDesigner allows easy creation of ERDs as well as implementation of databases in various DBMSs. dbdesigner2cake (http://dbdesigner2cake.cirello.org/) as per its site “DBDesigner 4 Scaffold Tools for CakePHP”.

But what about modeling business logic and user interfaces.
My approach would be to model business logic in DFDs (would be great to see a DFD to PHP app), while prototyping user interfaces in image manipulation tools such as Photoshop.

What form of documentation, processes and tools are folks using for application design?

UPDATE:Shorty after writing this post i stumbled across ArgoUML, it’s modular so it enables engineering of PHP code using the ArgoUML-php module (http://argouml-php.tigris.org/)

Another open source tool to consider is http://uml.sourceforge.net/index.php which is some what OS independent as well (Bonus points).

*The main trick here is to buy local bandwidth (IS is often most cost effective) and only download from local news servers with that bandwidth.

*Due credit to Cavan O’Conner for pointing this one out to me.

Go to www.newshost.za.net they have all the .nbz files hosted there. It’s simple, register and start downloading the .nbz files (its like downloading torrents).
If you use newsleecher the files that dont download correctly (this happens quite often), will be in caps. This is where the *.par2 files come in. par2 files can reconstruct a certain number of blocks in the files that havent completely finished dowloading. Use a proggie called quickPar to sort that out… under the cached section are all the files that will download at full speed.

The server address for IS is news.is.co.za and news.saix.net for SAIX.
Connection are made on port 119 and can have 5 simultaneous connections.

Application to use:
You simply need a newsreader which can transfer binary file in text messages.
The windows route: newsleecher or grabit
The linux router: pan http://pan.rebelbase.com/ (which also works in windows too)
& quickPar of par2repair

Some reference link if your interested

http://www.newsreaders.com/unix/clients.html
http://www.newshost.za.net/newshost/nzb-guide.php
http://www.robtex.com/dns/news.is.co.za.html
http://www.slyck.com/

This principle can be used on local DC++ hubs or local bittorrent host www.greenlab.co.za.
The only disadvantages with DC++ or p2p is that you always have to rely on other individuals connections. I know that with the local newshosts, if its cached its gonna run at full speed no matter what.

Rio de Janeiro - Sambodrome

Cape Town - Table Mountain

Cape Town - On top of Lions Head

Portugal - Madeira

Check it out at map.skyrove.com

Documentor (a penny for another name)
The application that makes documentation a cinch.
When all your notes and tad-bits are scattered, this application brings them all together
Combining wiki style document navigation and information cross-linking with version control, multi-user collaboration and format/template exporting

An application to store your thinking, thoughts, cerebration, intellection & other mentations.
Easily add ideas, images and any other kind of media you need to keep track of. No need to worry about documentation structure, leave the organising to this application. With advanced searching nothing will ever be forgotten - Never loose track of information with *incremental* searching. Highlight words or phrases and link them to pages, file your pages in a document category and generate documentation quickly and easily - Forget “documentation semantics”, this application allows for free flowing forward thinking.

So how does this relate to documentation, if documentations is based on a strict set of documents all with there purposed then how does this all fit together?… Well

Cross platform (Linux, Windows & Mac supported)

Basic features to achieve:

• Version Control (WikiWord/Page History).
• Wiki style markup (Wiki text styling).
• Inline editing and On the fly (realtime) WikiWords linking (linking of pages).
• Easy WikiWords navigation (Page navigation via WikiWords in normal view).
• Tree/Outline view.
• Wiki document attributes.
• View modes (Edit & Normal)… Dynamic views in tabs
• Incremental search.
• Search and Replace.
• Autosave.
• All your data is stored in plain text.
• URL and file linking.
• Unicode, Rich Text support, and image embedding.
• Web Sharing - Mini web app to share your pages with friends or co-workers on the internet without any pain.
• Access control
• Template exporting

And finally checkout the mockup