Hypothetical Template

A Hypothetical website template for bootstrapping new projects.

• Written and maintained by Kevin MacMartin
• Based on Laravel 5.6

Setup

The following steps can be followed to get things running for the first time:

1. Copy the .env.example file to .env and configure its values as required.
2. Create a new database named whatever you've set DB_DATABASE to in the .env file.
3. Run the init.sh script and wait for it to complete.

Environment File

The .env file includes deployment-specific configuration options, and Laravel has documentation explaining it in further detail HERE.

The APP_ENV and APP_DEBUG variables should be configured in one of the following combinations depending on the scenario:

• Local development should be configured with APP_ENV=local and APP_DEBUG=true.
• A remote staging server should be configured with APP_ENV=staging and APP_DEBUG=true.
• A remote production server should be configured with APP_ENV=production and APP_DEBUG=false.

Init Script

The init.sh script is located in the root of the project and is used to keep the database and compiled assets in sync with the codebase.

It's the recommended way to handle the initial project setup, and can also be run manually or by deployment scripts to keep things up to date after pulling in changes.

The following steps are performed in this order when run:

1. Checks the local system for dependencies required by the script and exits with an error if any are missing.
2. Checks to see if the .env file exists and exits with an error if it doesn't.
3. (artisan) Puts the website in maintenance mode.
4. Downloads and updates non-development composer dependencies.
5. Checks to see if the APP_KEY variable in the .env file is empty, and if it is, generates a value for it.
6. Clears the route and blade cache to ensure everything will be build fresh against the current codebase and dependencies.
7. Updates the CACHE_BUST variable in the .env file, which changes the value of a version query string appended to compiled assets and prevents clients from using a previous version in their cache.
8. (artisan) Run new database migrations.
9. Cleans, downloads and updates npm dependencies.
10. Cleans, downloads and updates bower dependencies.
11. Runs gulp --production to build project files and copy fonts to public/fonts (uses the local version of gulp installed in node_modules).
12. (artisan) Takes the website out of maintenance mode.

NOTE: Items with (artisan) prepended to them won't be run if init.sh is run with the --no-artisan flag.

Utilities

Gulp

In the root of the project is a file named gulpfile.js that can be used by gulp to copy fonts, compile javascript and sass, and watch files for changes during development.

Reading through its contents is encouraged for a complete understanding of what it does, but the following commands should handle most of what it's needed for out of the box:

• gulp: Update the compiled javascript and css in public/js and public/css, and copy fonts to public/fonts.
• gulp --production: Does the same as gulp except the compiled javascript and css is minified, and console logging is removed from the javascript (good for production deployments).
• gulp default watch: Does the same as gulp but continues running to watch for changes to files so it can recompile updated assets and reload them in the browser using BrowserSync (good for development environments).

NOTE: If gulp isn't installed globally or its version is less than 4, you should use the version included in node_modules by running "$(npm bin)/gulp" in place of the gulp command.

BrowserSync

BrowserSync is used to keep the browser in sync with your code when running the watch task with gulp.

For this to work on browsers that aren't on the computer running gulp, the BS_HOST variable in the .env file should be set to the IP address of that computer.

Public

The default public facing website uses Vue.js. To configure a non-SPA traditional website, look at the files in traditional-bootstrap.

The following list of files and directories are where various pieces of the public website are located:

• resources/views/templates/base.blade.php: The outer template for the entire website
• resources/views/templates/public.blade.php: The inner template for the public site
• resources/assets/fonts: The folder containing website fonts (these get loaded into public/fonts/ by the gulpfile)
• resources/assets/js/app.js: The main javascript file that loads the public site
• resources/assets/js/mixins: The folder containing Vue.js mixins that can be applied globally in resources/assets/js/app.js or in individual components
• resources/assets/js/mixins/base-page.js: The base-page mixin with page functionality that should be imported into all page components
• resources/components: The folder containing Vue.js components
  • resources/components/pages: Page components that should be imported into vue-router in resources/assets/js/app.js
  • resources/components/sections: Section components (single-use per page) that should be imported into mixins or page components
  • resources/components/partials: Partial components (multi-use per page or section) that should be imported into mixins and/or page and section components
• resources/assets/sass/app.scss: The main sass file for the public site
• resources/assets/sass/_fonts.scss: Stylesheet containing font declarations and mixins declared to use those fonts in other stylesheets
• resources/assets/sass/_var.scss: Stylesheet containing variables to be used in other stylesheets
• resources/assets/sass/pages: Stylesheets for page-specific styles wrapped in the respective page component class
• resources/assets/sass/sections: Stylesheets for section-specific styles wrapped in the respective section component class
• resources/assets/sass/partials: Stylessheets for partial-specific styles wrapped in the respective partial component class
• resources/assets/sass/classes: General stylesheets for classes that can be used anywhere
• resources/assets/sass/mixins: Stylesheets declaring SCSS mixins for use in other stylesheets

Dependencies can be included with bower or npm and loaded either into the jsPublicLibs array in the gulpfile or imported in the javascript.

Other information about database interaction, routing, controllers, etc can be viewed in the Laravel Documentation.

Language

The default language is set by the DEFAULT_LANGUAGE variable in the .env file; this will be the language used until the cookie has been updated.

The language cookie can be updated a number of ways:

• Visiting a link to /language/{lang} will update the language to whatever {lang} is set to and then reload the current page.
• Running Language::setSessionLanguage($lang) in PHP will update the language to whatever $lang is.
• Running this.$store.commit("setAppLang", lang); in a Vue.js component will update the language to whatever lang is as well as update component text to the current language on-the-fly.

A multi-language text block can be included in a number of ways depending where it's being done:

In PHP or a Laravel blade:

    {{ Language::select([ 'en' => "This is a sentence", 'fr' => "C'est une phrase" ]) }}

In a Laravel blade:

    @lang([
        'en' => "This is a sentence",
        'fr' => "C'est une phrase"
    ])

In a Vue.js component:

    <lang :c-strings="{ en: 'This is a sentence', fr: 'C'est une phrase' }" />

Dashboard

Registration

The REGISTRATION variable in the .env file controls whether a new dashboard user can be registered.

The system admin can control registration by configuring the REGISTRATION variable in the following ways:

• REGISTRATION=false: Registration is disabled
• REGISTRATION=true: Registration is enabled for everyone
• REGISTRATION=192.168.1.123: Registration is selectively enabled for the IP address 192.168.1.123

Updating the dashboard menu

The dashboard menu can be edited by changing the $menu array in app/Dashboard.php.

The each item in the array is itself an array, containing either a menu item or a dropdown of menu items.

Dropdowns should contain the following keys:

• title: The text that appears on the dropdown item
• submenu: This is an array of menu items.

Menu items should contain the following keys:

• title: The text that appears on the menu item
• type: The dashboard type (this can be view for a viewable table or edit for an editable list)
• model: The lowercase name of the database model

Adding a new model to the dashboard

Create a model that extends the DashboardModel class and override variables that don't fit the defaults.

DashboardModel variables

• $dashboard_type: The dashboard type (this can be view for a viewable table or edit for an editable list)
• $dashboard_heading: This sets the heading that appears on the dashboard page; not setting this will use the model name
• $export: This enables a button that allows the table to be exported as a spreadsheet

Edit variables

These are variables that only function when the $dashboard_type variable is set to edit.

• $create: A boolean determining whether to enable a button that allows new records to be created
• $delete: A boolean determining whether to enable a button that allows records to be deleted
• $filter: A boolean determining whether to enable an input field that allows records to be searched
• $dashboard_help_text: An html string that will add a help box to the top of the edit-item page
• $dashboard_display: An array to configure what column data to show on each item in the edit-list
• $dashboard_reorder: A boolean determining whether to render drag handles to reorder the items in the list
• $dashboard_sort_column: A string containing the column used to sort the list (this should be an integer when $dashboard_reorder is true)
• $dashboard_sort_direction: When $dashboard_reorder is false this determines the sort direction (this can be desc for descending or asc ascending)
• $dashboard_button: An array containing the following items in this order:
  • The title
  • Confirmation text asking the user to confirm
  • A "success" message to display when the response is success
  • A "failure" message to display when the response is not success
  • The URL to send the POST request to with the respective id in the request variable

Configuring the columns

All DashboardModel models require a $dashboard_columns array that declares which columns to show and how to treat them.

All models use the following attributes:

• name: The name of the model
• title: (optional) The title that should be associated with the model; when unset this becomes the model name with its first letter capitalized

Models with their $dashboard_type set to edit also use:

• type: The column type which can be any of the following:
  • text: Text input field for text data
  • mkd: Markdown editor for text data containing markdown
  • date: Date and time selection tool for date/time data
  • select: Text input via option select with possible options in an options array
  • hidden: Fields that will contain values to pass to the update function but won't appear on the page (this must be used for the sort column)
  • image: Fields that contain image uploads
  • file: Fields that contains file uploads
  • display: Displayed information that can't be edited
  • user: This should point to a foreign key that references the id on the users table; setting this will bind items to the user that created them
• name: (required by file and image) Used along with the record id to determine the filename
• delete: (optional for file and image) Enables a delete button for the upload when set to true
• ext: (required by file) Configures the file extension of the upload

An example of the $dashboard_columns array in a model with its $dashboard_type set to view:

    public static $dashboard_columns = [
        [ 'title' => 'Date', 'name' => 'created_at' ],
        [ 'name' => 'email' ],
        [ 'name' => 'name' ]
    ];

An example of the $dashboard_columns array in a model with its $dashboard_type set to edit:

    public static $dashboard_columns = [
        [ 'name' => 'user_id', 'type' => 'user' ],
        [ 'name' => 'created_at', 'title' => 'Date', 'type' => 'display' ],
        [ 'name' => 'title',  'type' => 'text' ],
        [ 'name' => 'body',  'type' => 'mkd' ],
        [ 'name' => 'tags', 'type' => 'text' ],
        [ 'name' => 'header-image', 'title' => 'Header Image', 'type' => 'image', 'delete' => true ]
    ];