Tutorial MVC pattern for Zend Framework

I like to use the Zend Framework (currently v1.0.0 RC 2) and I like to use a Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern to divide my business logic, my visual stuff and my own scripts. What I didn't find on the net was an actual example that would show you how to set up a basic application using the ZF and MVC, with the ZF standards in mind.
So, for my own reference (and the rest of the world) I write here a simple application using Zend Framework and the Zend Framework MVC model.

This tutorial uses LAMP settings, so for other setups you need to figure some stuff out yourself (and add them here as comments ;-)

My setup:

• Linux: 2.6.18
• Apache: 2.2.3
• MySQL: 5.1
• Php: 5.2.1
• Zend Framework: 1.0.0 RC 2

Step 1: Getting the Framework
Go to www.zendframework.com and download the latest version of Zend Framework. For easy maintenance, unpack the files in the /opt directory using version info in the directory (e.g. /opt/zend_framework_1.0.0_rc2).
Symlink /opt/zf to /opt/zend_framework_1.0.0_rc2, so you can switch easily to newer versions.
dev@system: # ln -s /opt/zend_framework_1.0.0_rc2 /opt/zf

Step 2: Setting your Apache server
We use a virtual host for our development
<virtualhost *:80>
  ServerName demo.example.com
  ServerAlias demo
  DocumentRoot /srv/www/htdev/demo
  <Directory /srv/www/htdev>
    Options Indexes FollowSymlinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from 127.0.0.1, localhost
    DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Step 3: setting up a development environment
ZF recommends the following default layout:
/applications
  /config
  /models
  /views
    /scripts
      /index
        /index.phtml
      /error
        /error.phtml
    /filters
    /helpers
  /controllers
    /IndexController.php
    /ErrorController.php
/htdocs
  /index.php
  /.htaccess

Step 4: Create the bootstrap
Adjusting /htdocs/.htaccess with the following lines:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule !\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$ index.php

Your bootstrapfile is /htdocs/index.php. This is where all requests pass thanks to the adjustments in the .htaccess file.

//include path to zend framework and models
set_include_path('.' . PATH_SEPARATOR . '/opt/zf' . PATH_SEPARATOR . '../application/models/');

//timezone and time options
date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Brussels');

//include the Front controller to handle all business logic
require_once 'Zend/Controller/Front.php';

//set the controller directory
Zend_Controller_Front::run('../application/controllers');

This is the basic you'll need to start running your ZF MVC.
In the next post I write a little application using this setting.