Greetings, all -- We originally intended to ship a CAPTCHA form element in 1.5, but due to time constraints, were unable to prepare it in time. Since then, we have approved two components that can serve as additional adapters to it -- Zend_Text_Figlet and Zend_Service_ReCaptcha.
Captcha adapters implement Zend_Validate_Interface, and also provide their own interface with methods for generating and rendering the captcha. The design is such that they could actually be used outside Zend_Form in most cases; you could theoretically create a web service that generates captchas, much like the ReCaptcha service. When used with Zend_Form, you would create a Zend_Form_Element_Captcha element for your form, and tell it which captcha adapter you wish to use (you can even indicate a plugin prefix path for specifying your own adapters). When the adapter is registered with the element, it also registers it as a validator -- which allows you to use the element out-of-the-box with no additional work. Additionally, it utilizes a Captcha decorator by default (which uses the adapter's render method to render the actual captcha). The original design of the component had all adapters under Zend_Form_Element_Captcha. We have decided that since the adapters can actually be used standalone, and because we do not want to have any confusion between elements and adapters in the Zend_Form_Element namespace, that we should move the adapters to their own top-level namespace, Zend_Captcha. This decision, however, never went through a formal community proposal. At this time, we'd like to hear from you, the potential users of Zend_Captcha. We are prepared to finish testing and documentation for the component in time for 1.6.0RC2. However, we would like to know if there are any in the community who would like further time to review the component and/or a formal proposal. If so, we can easily push completion to 1.7 (which should follow very quickly after 1.6.0). What are _your_ thoughts? Include Captcha in 1.6, or postpone to allow for more feedback? -- Matthew Weier O'Phinney Software Architect | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Zend Framework | http://framework.zend.com/
