At this point, you have downloaded the Solar system, made a vendor space to work in, and configured the system. Next, we will create a database table and make a model to map to it. Create a table called posts in your database. If you create an SQLite database, make sure to chmod it so that the web server has read and write privileges. At the command line, in the SYSTEM directory, issue the make-model command. You will see something like the following: $ ./script/solar make-model Acme_Model_Posts Making model 'Acme_Model_Posts'. Will write to 'SYSTEM/include/'. Will connect to database for column information. Using table 'posts'. Not using inheritance. Making class directory ... done. Writing model class ... done. Writing record class ... done. Writing collection class ... done. Creating setup directory ... Done. Saving table name for setup ... done. Creating empty table cols setup ... done. Connecting to database ... connected. Fetching table cols ... done. Saving table cols for setup ... done. Creating empty index info setup ... done. Connecting to database ... connected. Fetching index info ... no indexes found. Creating locale directory ... done. Saving locale file for en_US ... done. Done. What happens here is that Solar looks at the class name passed to make-model, takes the part after the last underscore, and uses that as the table name. It then looks up that table in the database and creates files for the model definition, record class, collection class, column and index setup information, and locale strings. Solar models are smart enough to recognize basic validation constraints based on the column definitions (e.g., NOT NULL fields must be not-empty before being saved). However, we usually need additional validation on model data. Let's make it so that the status column must be one of a list of values. Open SYSTEM/source/acme/Acme/Model/Posts.php and edit the _setup() method to add a filter on the status element. _addFilter('status', 'validateInList', array( 'draft', 'public', )); } ]]> There are lots of filters available to validate and sanitize data. You can examine the SYSTEM/source/solar/Solar/Filter directory for a full list of them.