I've been running CLI-based PHP scripts for scripting and more complex "applications" since the CLI was introduced back in PHP 4.3. As time has gone along, the applications have become more complex and varied. I only use some of these applications every few months, so it's easy to forget how to run the application without the guidance provided by a GUI.
For quite some time I've been looking for something along the lines of HyperCard whereby I can put together a simple GUI without too much work; however, this would be in the context of my existing PHP scripts.
I could always put on a GUI by using HTML and running the scripts under a web server. But I have a lot of these scripts all over the place, and I just don't want to bother with the Apache configuration needed to set these up.
I toyed with Adobe AIR, but I didn't want to get bogged down with a new environment. I still liked the idea of using HTML for the UI and possibly JavaScript for event binding and screen refresh. Eventually, as server-side JavaScript matures, I think "pure JavaScript" will be a viable option for my purposes. But for now, I looked at Microsoft HTA's (HyperText Applications) and other methods like ZZEE and POW (Plain Old Web server).
HTA's didn't seem to support my existing PHP scripts, and lacked good MySQL support via JavaScript. With ZZEE I couldn't see a way to get the interactivity (event and data binding) that I was looking for. POW seemed to have the limitations of Apache (trying to force scattered scripts into one document root).
After some experimentation, it seems like I'll try using PHP-GTK. I know this has been around for a while, but without a lot of documentation nor acceptance in the PHP community. I'll update with some of my experiences with PHP-GTK.