10 Innovative Ways to Leverage the Power of PHP

PHP is easy to use and supported by almost every web host. So it makes sense that it’s one of the most popular languages ​​for back-end web development. Developers have been using PHP for a variety of things.

Let’s look at some of the most creative and exciting uses of PHP.

1. Create an e-commerce website

E-commerce is a very popular category in website development. Any business that wants to sell any product or service online must use an existing e-commerce service or develop its own e-commerce website.

Any e-commerce website will have basic features such as a shopping cart where customers can add products, adjust quantities, etc. and must provide payment gateway integration so that users can securely pay for the products they purchase. You can do all of this using PHP.

In fact, there are dedicated solutions available so you don’t have to start from scratch when developing an e-commerce website. You can use free open source frameworks like OpenCart and PrestaShop to create your own e-commerce store.

2. Create a content management system

Almost everyone involved in web development has heard of WordPress. It is currently the most popular content management system. Guess which language WordPress uses to power its backend. PHP!

Content management systems are used to create various websites. This can include something as simple as a personal blog site or a portfolio site. You can also use them to build your own e-commerce store through plugins such as WooCommerce for use with WordPress.

WordPress isn’t the only CMS that uses PHP. Other popular examples of PHP-based content management systems are Joomla and Drupal. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, you can even create your own custom CMS.

3. Creating WordPress Plugins and Themes

No CMS can do everything on its own. Therefore, we need themes and plugins to enhance existing functionality. You can use PHP to create themes and plugins for your favorite CMS. It won’t be as daunting as creating an entire CMS, and you can still customize things to fit your needs.

Take WordPress as an example. There is an official directory of free themes as well as plugins created by other developers that you can install and activate on your website. There are also marketplaces like CodeCanyon that sell all types of WordPress plugins.

We also have Envato Tuts tutorials that teach you how to create your own WordPress plugin from scratch.

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4.Create online forums and communities

Dedicated online forums and communities are popular among enthusiasts where they can share their passion with others. Forums are also useful for resolving issues related to a product or service, providing customer support, and sharing bug fixes or new updates.

Having a forum gives users the option to discuss issues among themselves. If someone has a problem using your product, they can get help from others active in the community rather than having to wait for a response from a company employee.

PHP provides everything you need to build your own forum from scratch. If you don’t want to start from scratch, you can also use a framework like Laravel to create a forum.

If you have a WordPress-based website, you can use some plugins to integrate the forum into your website. People looking for a dedicated, free and open source forum solution can take a look at phpBB.

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All these frameworks, plugins, and packages use PHP to handle everything on the backend.

5. Create a social media website

You can also create your own social media website using PHP. Facebook, one of the most popular social media websites, uses PHP style to run its services on the backend. It relies on its own PHP engine (called HHVM) for every last bit of performance. Performance only becomes an issue when you get very large.

If you’re not too keen on developing your own social media site, you might consider developing apps for existing social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. All these websites have dedicated sections for developers to use their APIs in their preferred language.

6.Develop your own API

Another interesting use case for PHP is developing APIs so that others can use your services. Having an API will bring you several advantages. For starters, it will be easier for other existing services to integrate what you offer. They will be able to exchange information and communicate easily.

Having an API can also promote innovation, as others may use your API to provide services to your users in a more convenient way. Once you've used another service's API, your next step should be learning how to develop your own.

7.Develop live chat support and chat rooms

Have you visited websites that offer different types of services, such as web hosting? They usually have a button in the bottom right corner that you can click to contact chat support. Chat support can be live or non-live. In either case, you can develop the functionality using PHP.

We have a tutorial on Envato Tuts to help you get started with some of the basic features of live chat support.

We've also put together a collection of free and paid live chat scripts that you can use for inspiration or integrate into your product instantly.

8.Create and edit images

PHP has dedicated libraries for processing images. The ability to edit images programmatically is useful in a variety of situations. For example, you can write a small script to batch resize images to create thumbnails.

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You can also use the PHP GD library to manipulate images to replace colors in the image, apply different filters, rotate the image, etc. The same library can also be used to add watermarks to images or edit parts of an image simultaneously.

Similarly, you can even draw basic shapes like circles, rectangles, and lines to create your own artistic masterpiece from scratch. Drawing these shapes using loops can produce excellent results if done correctly.

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9.Create form

Forms serve many purposes on websites. People use them to register users, log registered users in, allow users to communicate with them, and more.

You can use PHP to create all types of forms, no matter how complex. Browse the following tutorials to learn how to create login and contact forms using PHP, or add verification codes to your forms.

10.Create PDF document

PDF documents are widely used for sharing information. Files in PDF format can be invoices, bills, books, manuals, brochures, magazines, etc.

PHP also allows you to create PDF files from code. Let's say you are running an e-commerce store to sell products. You need to generate invoices for products sold. Generating these invoices using PHP is very easy by using a free library.

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  How to generate PDF files using PHP

  

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Final Thoughts

In this tutorial, we looked at ten different ways to use PHP. Once you have a good grasp of the language, you can use PHP to create almost anything you can imagine. That’s not to say you should just focus on doing all of these things with PHP.

Each programming language has its own advantages and disadvantages. You should consider them when deciding which language to use. It's much easier to use PHP directly with HTML, so you can get started quickly.

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