I recently had the opportunity to give a presentation to the DFW Lamp User Group on Zend_Tool and how to use it to establish your project’s skeleton. The presentation began by going into a very brief overview of Zend Framework itself, the basic structure of a Zend Framework application, and Zend_Tool’s place in it all. I covered each of the components that make up the Zend_Tool ecosystem as well as how to install and use it on both Windows and *nix platforms. Towards the end of the presentation I covered how to write your own custom providers and manifests and presented several ideas on where this newly-acquired knowledge could take you.
I have made the slides and corresponding code examples available for viewing and download on the Presentations page, as well as I recorded the presentation for you to be able to view as well.
I hope this information is useful, and happy coding!