On the SaniSoft blog there's a new tutorial where Jatin Chimote introduces you to the world of building desktop applications with the help of the Appcelerator Titanium software.

The post is about creating desktop applications with the help of PHP. And No, we are not using PHP-GTK. You can now create desktop applications without learning a completely new programming language! That is with the help of a free and open source tool called "Titanium". Whats more you will use your existing CSS and Javascript and PHP knowledge.

They introduce the different parts of the Titanium platform - the Desktop SDK, Mobile SDK and Developer tools - as well as explaining what it takes to use them and what you'll need to download to follow along. They take you step-by-step through the process (complete with screenshots) of making a basic "currency converter" application using the Exchange API to to the heavy lifting.

As mentioned in this official release on their site, the Appcelerator project has officially launched PHP support for their product as an extension.

Appcelerator®, the leading platform for rapidly developing mobile, desktop, and web applications with web technologies, announced its support for building desktop and netbook applications with PHP. Developers can now use PHP, JavaScript, Python, or Ruby to quickly build native PC, Macintosh, or Linux applications with the web skills they use today. [...] Seeing the opportunity for desktop and netbook app development, Titanium community member, Zend Certified Engineer, and software architect Ben Ramsey decided to lead the charge for integrating PHP, with Titanium.

You can grab the latest version of Appcelerator from their website and get coding right away. If you'd like to see some examples to get you started, check out this category on Ben's blog for helpful tips to get started.

Ben Ramsey has a new post to his blog today on how to get a development version of the PHP integration into Appcelerator working until they get everything up and merged with the main branch.

If you’re not familiar with Titanium, it’s a development platform that allows you to build native desktop applications for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux using the Web technologies we use on a daily basis: HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Python, Ruby, and now PHP. [...] Since it may still be a while before the next release of Titanium that includes PHP, I’ve decided to provide instructions here on how to build the SDK from the master branch and connect it to the Titanium Developer application

You'll need to download and install the latest developer tool from the Appcelerator site, a package with the development SDK in it. Change a few links around, add some symlinks and you should be all set.

If you were at this year's Zend/PHP Conference & Expo, you probably remember the Appcelerator team that was there promoting their product in the expo. Well, they also spent some time interviewing some of the attendees about PHP and their experiences with it. The Zend Developer Zone points out that they've now posted these to YouTube.

Appcelerator was a sponsor at ZendCon 08 this year but obviously they were much more as well. They created a series of videos from interviews they shot while there.

It's a series of four videos with titles like "Developers Hate PHP!", "Developers Love PHP!" and some "PHP Developer Gripes". Check them out and see if you can spot some of the notable names in the PHP community.

Zend has issued a press release about a new series of online training classes they will be offering.

Zend Technologies, The PHP Company, continues its series of free online seminars started in early 2007.The so-called "Webinars" are aimed at anyone interested in PHP - web developers, consultants, project managers and technical decision makers. Topics include PHP as well as specific solutions and the tools Zend offers for enterprise-use of this programming language.

You can get more information on the events from the Zend website but here's a few to give you an idea: "Zend Cargo and Present: Using PHP to Build a Mobile Internet Platform", "Get Rich Quick: Building Ajax-based RIAS with Zend Framework and Appcelerator" and "i5 - Application Lifecycle Management for the Enterprise".

All of the webinars are free and, if you miss a session and you want to catch up, you can always download it from their archive.