Modular PHP dev using CodeIgniter Bonfire

Fairfield County PHP Meetup

About Jeff Fox (@jfox015)

• Senior Level Web Developer

• Veteran of two browser wars and the dot-com bubble

• Fully self taught

• Studied Art and Music Production

• Baseball enthusiast (ney fanatic)

Meetup Overview

• MVC, CodeIgniter and HMVC in 5 mins.

• Intro to Bonfire (more than 5 minutes)

• Anatomy of a Bonfire Module

• Practical Example

• Q&A

Modular Development

Taking HUGE monolithic applications

and breaking them into manageable pieces

Modular Development

"How the heck do we do that?"

Model, View, Controller

Controllershandle requests

Modelsrepresent data

Viewspresent information to the user

CodeIgniterCodeIgniter

• Popular Open Source PHP Framework

• Simple MVC Based Architecture

• Tons of tools and libraries to utilize in site development workflow

• Flexible View system

• Known for performance and documentation

CodeIgniterCodeIgniter

• Originally built and released by Ellis Labs, the Expression Engine people

• "Reactor" is the community driven build and release initiative

• Core team of developers oversee active development and releases

• One of the "big three" PHP Frameworks

CodeIgniterCodeIgniter

Application Flowchart

Hierarchical Model, View, Controller

HMVC Triadscall on and use other MVC triads to accomplish goals of the application

CodeIgniter Bonfire

CodeIgniterBonfire Basics

• Open Source library built on top of CodeIgniter

• HMVC design using Modular Extensions

• Pre-built Administrative Dashboard

• Rich user authentication workflow

• Variety of site admin tools and utilities

CodeIgniterBonfire Basics

• Dashboard utilizes "contexts" for building admin tools

• Database migrations manage upgrades and fallbacks

• Custom Model class with built in SQL helper functionality

• Several classes of abstract controllers

CodeIgniterBonfire Basics

• Includes a system of roles to assign to users

• Robust permissions allows for precise control over site privileges and user access

• Standard system for storing and accessing site settings

• Includes a Module Builder wizard to generate fully compatible new modules

CodeIgniterFunctional Highlights

• Contexts provide a loosely coupled way to build Admin tools

• Naming conventions prevent hard coding menus

• Each module can have its own admin tools and still stay loosely coupled

CodeIgniterFunctional HighlightsThemes and Templates

• UI Based on the Twitter Bootstrap libraryBonfire uses a theme and template system for views

• Numerous helper functions are available to send data to view classes, select themes, manually set views, set messaging and render the content

CodeIgniterFunctional HighlightsThemes and Templates – ExamplesTemplate::set('current_url', current_url());

Template::set_message('The comments selected were successfully deleted.', 'success');

Template::set_view('comments/index');

Template::render();

CodeIgniterFunctional HighlightsMigrations• Implements the CodeIgninter

Migrations class

• Adds ability for modules to use migrations

• Auto loading of new migrations on app startup (configuable via settings)

• Can use DBforge or Codeigniter Database Class and SQL

CodeIgniterFunctional Highlights

public function up()

{

$this->dbforge->add_column('comments_threads', array('module' => array('type' => 'VARCHAR','constraint' => 255,'default'

=> ''));

}

public function down()

{

$this->dbforge->drop_column("comments_threads","module");

}

CodeIgniterFunctional HighlightsAssets Lib

• Allows you to add JavaScript, images and CSS automatically in the head and/or footer of the site

Assets::add_js($this->load->view('thread_view_js',array('thread_id'=>$thread_id), true),'inline');

CodeIgniterFunctional HighlightsModular Everything

• All core Dashboard features are modules• Users• Activities• Migrations• Permissions• Roles• Settings• Sysinfo

• Translate Tool• Module Builder• Logos• Emailer• UI• Updater• Database

CodeIgniterFunctional Highlights

Easy Install

Two step installLike Wordpress

CodeIgniterBonfire Team

Lonnie EzellProject Founder

Sean Downey

Shawn Crigger

Nuno CostaBen EvansIcehawgand many more on Github.com

Anatomy of a Bonfire Module

CodeIgniterGeneral Structure

• All third party and custom modules are stored in the "modules" folder in the bonfire directory.

• Core modules live in the "core_modules" folder in the application directory.

CodeIgniterGeneral Structure• Bonfire Modules are like little stand-alone

CodeIgniter apps

• Modules follow the context naming convention system to allow access to their controllers throughout the site

• Can be 100% standalone or work with other modules

• Optimally can be dropped into other apps

CodeIgniterNaming Conventions

Controllers• Public accessible,

add controller with a name that matches the modules folder name

• Admin Dashboard (Also called the Springboard) Controllers, add a controller that matches the context name

CodeIgniterNaming Conventions

Auto-Resolving Views

• For public views, and index.php to the modules "Views" folder

• Admin views, add a folder for the matching context in the "Views" folder with an index.php file in it.

CodeIgniterNaming Conventions

Manually Resolving Views

• In the controller, before calling Template::render(), add a line to set the view using Template::set_view('view');

• Any view from any loaded module can be used simply by specifying the module path and view name

CodeIgniterConfig

• config.php contains a simple array that identifies the module to the application and contain it's meta information

• Config folder may contain other files used to store information about the app

• Custom routes.php files can be used to add additional levels of URL->controller routing

CodeIgniterControllers

• Contains all controllers used by the modules

• Should extend one of the four main Bonfire controller types:o Base_Controllero Front_Controllero Authenticated_Controllero Admin_Controller

CodeIgniterViews

• Adding an index.php file to the views folder makes it publically accessible

• Adding folders named for supported admin contexts with index.php files makes them accessible from admin menus

• No limit to number of view files there can be, how they're organized outside context rules or how they're called

CodeIgniterMisc

• Models follow general CI model rules. Should extend BF_Model to gain Bonfire helper functionality.

• Migrations are used to install DB support and handle changes

• Language files support translations

• Can add helpers, libraries and assets as well

Practical Example

Q & A

Resources

CodeIgniterResources

• Bonfire Learning Centerhttp://www. http://cibonfire.com/docs/guides/

• Github Repositoryhttps://github.com/ci-bonfire/Bonfire

CodeIgniterResources

• Tutorials on MVC, HMVC, CodeIgniterat http://net.tutsplus.com/

See MVC for Noobs, CodeIgniter from Scratch, HMVC: an Introduction and Application

• OOWP For Developers Tutorialshttp://www.aeoliandigital.com/archives/category/oowp

CodeIgniterResources

Example Modules:

• News: https://github.com/jfox015/Bonfire-News

• Comments:https://github.com/jfox015/Bonfire-Comments