Concrete5 Z-Ray Plugin Now Available for Zend Server 8.5
Zend just released version 8.5 of their Zend Server application server. A major part of this release is the plugin gallery, which provides an App store for Zend Server extensions. These extensions can add application-specific debugging features to the Z-Ray Debugger. At Concrete5 we've been big fans of Zend, their libraries and their products for a long time, so we wanted our plugin to be in the gallery on day one.
What the Plugin Does
Z-Ray plugins automatically run behind the scenes of any application you have installed on Zend Server. Each installed plugin profiles your application, and sends data into a handy in-page toolbar. The Concrete5 plugin sends Concrete5-specific data. These plugins can be complimentary: for example, if you install the Symfony plugin and the Concrete5 plugin together, you'll get two tabs in Z-Ray, because Concrete5 uses Symfony events. Here's what it looks like:
Click on the tabs and you'll get more information about specific Concrete5 areas of interest.
The plugin can display:
- A list of the current page's blocks, including whether they were served from the cache, (5.7.5 and greater), the area they came from, whether they were rendered, and their corresponding searchable content, and how long they took to render.
- Which page objects were requested from the current page.
- Which config values were requested from the current page, their values, and how many times they were requested.
- Which custom permissions are in place on a particular page (requires 5.7.5 or greater)
- The current user's access entities, including which groups they belong to, whether they quality as a "file uploader" and more.
Getting the Plugin
You can download the plugin from the Zend Server plugin gallery, which is accessible from within a Zend Server installation. Here's what the gallery looks like:
Just click that install button and you'll be on your way.
Get the Source
Want to see how I did it? You can find the source to the Concrete5 Z-Ray plugin on Github. Good luck – hope this leads to healthier and snappier applications. Happy developers won't be far behind.
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