On the Zend Framework blog they're asking for your help with the project's documentation. They're looking to the users and community members around the framework to help them make the documentation more useful and stay up to date.

A piece of software is only as good as its documentation. The Zend Framework team and a dozen or so contributors are working hard to improve the Zend Framework 2 documentation, but we still want you to help us improve it even more. Any kind of help is welcome and greatly appreciated.

Most of what they're looking for is clarity - they want to ensure that what's in the manual makes sense (and is correct for the release it relates to). They're also looking for feedback on what helps you learn best - tutorials, user guides, API docs, etc. Issues and suggestions should be posted to the issue tracker in github. If you're not sure where to start, check out the contributors guide.

In a new article from php|architect Joel Clermont shares a few henlpful hints on what he did to help prepare for the Zend Framework Certification Exam.

Well, the only two official resources are a downloadable study guide and an instructor-led course. The study guide lists all the main areas of the framework that will be tested and offers a high level explanation of how they work. [...] I don't have any personal experience with the course, so I can't offer any specific comments on it. I have taken other courses from Zend, however, and the quality of those have been quite good.

He also points out this presentation from Rob Allen as another source. His recommendation, though, is that you read as much as possible from the Zend Framework's manual, but leaving out points on Zend_Tool and Zend_Application (they didint seem to make it into the test). He passed on the first try, so hopefully this advice, somewhat proven now, can help you down the right path.

Paul Jones has added a new post to his blog today (in response to this one from Michelangelo van Dam about models in Zend Framework) on how to work with models in the Solar Framework and how the experience compares.

I read the article, and wondered how hard it would be to replicate his narrative using the Solar Framework model system. Turns out it’s pretty easy: there’s a lot of work that Solar does for you.

He describes the process in a series of ten steps with most of them being done for you by the tools included with the framework (the ones that aren't just setup tasks). The "solar system" toolkit includes a command line application that helps you build out the models and relating them is as easy as changing some values in the model classes with methods like "hasOne" and "belongsTo".

On the PHP in Action blog, there's a new post about a method for testing a controller as a part of a Zend Framework application with its own view helpers.

I came across a Zend Framework (ZF) example I wanted to refactor. You really have to have unit test coverage to refactor effectively, and since there were no tests, I started trying to find out how to test it. There didn't seem to be a wealth of information available on the web, so I've tried to figure it out by myself.

He walks through the testing process he followed - making some new default objects (for SimpleTest) and, using the flash messenger view helper, makes some mock classes to simulate sending the flash messages in an application.