Difference between revisions of "6CS028 Workshop - Web Frameworks"
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First install CodeIgniter using this tutorial: | First install CodeIgniter using this tutorial: | ||
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If successfully installed you should see this page: | If successfully installed you should see this page: | ||
Revision as of 16:27, 31 January 2014
Main Page >> Advanced Web Technologies >> Workbook >> Week 02
Consider using a PHP framework for your assessment. Here are some popular ones:
Summary of findings
- CodeIgniter: Possibly the easiest one the learn first (flexible, no command line)
- Yii: A bit more tricky as you need to run a few commands (to create an app, to use scaffolding)
- CakePHP: Quite simple to install (no command line required), but might be a bit more difficult to learn.
- Symfony: WORK IN PROGRESS
Command line
Some of the frameworks expect you to type commands, using the command line. Don't let it put you off, unless you know absolutely NOTHING about Linux commands.
From Windows simply start "Putty", installed in the all the labs, and free to download from home.
When starting Putty simply type "mi-linux.wlv.ac.uk" in the "host name" box, and press "enter". Then log in using your normal details.
Useful commands
To make a whole folder + sub-folders readable and executable by all:
chmod 755 codeigniter/ -R
To remove a whole folder (WARNING - CANNOT BE UNDONE)
rm codeigniter/ -R
CodeIgniter
I tested version 2.1.4:
First install CodeIgniter using this tutorial:
If successfully installed you should see this page:
Note: replace "in9352" with your student number and "codeigniter" with the folder name in which you have installed the framework.
Then work through the first few tutorials:
Nothing too complicated in the tutorial above, however I would recommend that you skip the "Routing" section for now, as it make the format of the URL more confusing. Stick to the standard format for now:
[your-site-url]index.php/controller/method
So far example:
http://mi-linux.wlv.ac.uk/~in9352/codeigniter/index.php/pages/view
Link to external CSS, JS, Images etc
Make sure your base URL is populated in your config.php file, so for example for me:
$config['base_url']='http://mi-linux.wlv.ac.uk/~in9352/codeigniter/';
And then in your view use the URL helper:
<?$this->load->helper('url');?>
<html>
<head>
<title><?php echo $title ?> - CodeIgniter 2 Tutorial</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?=base_url("css/style.css")?>">
</head>
<body>
<h1>CodeIgniter 2 Tutorial</h1>
<p>
<img src="<?=base_url("funnycat.jpg")?>">
</p>
Yii
I tested version 1.1.14:
Note: you may want to download the .zip archive from the downloads section, it's easier to work with on Windows.
You can start here:
Ignore the "Apache and Nginx configurations" step for now and go straight to the "Creating First Yii Application" step.
Create first app
The tutorial tells you to create your first project by running the following command (see above for more on how to run commands):
% YiiRoot/framework/yiic webapp WebRoot/myapp
The above worked for me, but one students tells me he is getting a "permission denied" error, which might mean you are not allowed to run bash commands. Not to worry, the script above also comes as a PHP script, so you can run this instead:
php YiiRoot/framework/yiic.php webapp WebRoot/myapp
Obviously in both cases you need to specify the paths as per your folders.
When browsing to your newly created application you might get the odd error message telling you to make certain folders writable (e.g. myapp/protected/runtime)
Mysql Database
By default Yii is set up to access an SQLite database. If you want to use Mysql you will need to edit the protected/config/main.php file, uncomment the following block and add your usual Mysql connection details:
'db'=>array( 'connectionString' => 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=XXX', 'emulatePrepare' => true, 'username' => 'XXX', 'password' => 'XXX', 'charset' => 'utf8', ),
Gii
Gii is a new tool that allows you to generate code from the database (aka Scaffolding in the lecture slides). You enable it by uncommenting the following block in the protected/config/main.php file.
'gii'=>array(
'class'=>'system.gii.GiiModule',
'password'=>'1234',
// If removed, Gii defaults to localhost only. Edit carefully to taste.
'ipFilters'=>array('134.220.251.99','::1'),
),
Note: you need to specify your own password. Also I've had to put my IP address in the last field, or else the page was telling me I wasn't allowed in! On Windows you can get your IP address by opening a command line window and typing the command "ipconfig".
Other than that this seems to work quite well :) Obviously Gii can only create the php file if you make the folders writable (e.g. to generate a model class, you need to make the protected/models folder writable!)
CakePHP
I tested version 2.4.5
mod_rewrite
Note that because of the way mod_rewrite is set up on the server you need to add a RewriteBase line in the existing .htaccess file, as follow:
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine on RewriteBase /~0123456/cake RewriteRule ^$ app/webroot/ [L] RewriteRule (.*) app/webroot/$1 [L] </IfModule>
IMPORTANT: Replace "0123456" with your student number and "cake" by the folder in which you have uploaded the framework.
Alternatively you could NOT use mod_rewrite, the tutorial above tells you how (see "A Note on mod_rewrite" section)
Cache
If you are getting the following error message:
Warning: _cake_core_ cache was unable to write 'cake_dev_en-gb' to File cache in /studhome/staff/acad/in9352/public_html/cake/lib/Cake/Cache/Cache.php on line 309
You need to make the "app/tmp" folder (and all its sub-folders) writable by all in order to solve this.
Symfony
I tested version 2.4.1:
Note: download the zip version of Symfony Standard.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Zend Framework
IMPORTANT: So far I have not managed to successfully install Zend on mi-linux :(
