CodeIgniter Boilerplate

A PHP Project Starter/Boilerplate with Coderigniter 3 and Twitter Bootstrap 3.

Introduction

This repository is developed upon the following tools:

• CodeIgniter (v3.0.2) - PHP framework
• CodeIgniter HMVC Extensions - modular structure by wiredesignz
• Bootstrap (v3.3.5) - popular frontend framework
• Grocery CRUD (v1.5.2) - feature-rich library to build CRUD tables
• Image CRUD (v0.6) - CRUD library for image management
• AdminLTE (v2.3.0) - bootstrap theme for Admin Panel

Server Requirements (Preferred)

• PHP 5.5+ (mainly for password_hash() and password_verify() functions as used in this project); and also the usage of shortcut syntax in this project needs 5.4+ and above.
• Apache 2.2+ with rewrite mod enabled
• MySQL 5.5+

Features

This repository contains setup for rapid development: * Multi-tenant (e.g. Frontend Website, Admin Panel, API) website in single application * Modular design by CodeIgniter HMVC extension * Custom config files (sites.php, locale.php) for easy configuration of website behavior * Admin Panel with AdminLTE v2 theme, and Grocery CRUD integration * Admin Panel includes usage of Sortable library * API Site to handle RESTful endpoints, with shortcut functions to grab parameters and display results * User authentication for Frontend Website (Sign Up, Login, Forgot Password, etc.) * User authentication for Admin Panel (Login, Change Password, etc.) * Preset layouts and templates * Preset asset pipeline (e.g. minify scripts, image optimization) via Gulp (reference from gulp-starter 2.0 branch) * Preset data structure for Blogging (with pagination) and Cover Photos (carousel), which can be managed from Admin Panel * Form Builder library to help with form rendering with Bootstrap theme, form validation, etc. * Breadcrumb and Pagination handling fit with Bootstrap theme * Custom 404 pages for Frontend Website and Admin Panel * Multilingual support * Email config setup * Functions to be called from CLI (e.g. daily cron job, database backup) * ... more coming!

Folder Structure

Explanation on the folder structure which supports HMVC (only showing the highlighted folders and files).

application/                    --- Main CodeIgniter source files
    config/
        production/             --- Configuration when ENVIRONMENT is set as "production"
        autoload.php            --- By default, some files are loaded for this repo
        database.php            --- Need to verify to ensure connection with MySQL database
        email.php               --- Created to centralize email configuration (preset: using Mandrill service)
        form_validation.php     --- Created to centralize validation forms for all forms, include ReCAPTCHA settings
        routes.php              --- Changed default controller from Welcome to Home
        site.php                --- Core configuration file for Frontend Website; same format also applied to Admin module
    controllers/                --- Controllers for Frontend Website; extends from MY_Controller (except Cli)
        Cli.php                 --- Utility function that can only be called from command line
        Home.php                --- Default controller for Frontend Website        
        Language.php            --- Controller to handle language switching
    core/                       --- Extending CodeIgniter core classes; can also be used within modules
        MY_Controller.php       --- Important class which contains shared logic of all controllers
        MY_Form_validation.php  --- Contains additional rule for validation
        MY_Loader.php           --- Required for HMVC extension
        MY_Model.php            --- Contains shared function for model classes (can consider to replace by https://github.com/jamierumbelow/codeigniter-base-model)
        MY_Router.php           --- Required for HMVC extension
    helpers/                    --- Contains custom helper functions being used throughout this repo
    language/                   --- Preset language files
    libraries/                  --- Custom libraries (e.g. Data Importer, Form Builder)
    models/                     --- Sample model extending from MY_Model
    modules/                    --- Each module can be accessed by http://{base_url}/{module_name}/{module_controller}/, etc.
        admin/                  --- Module for Admin Panel
            config/             --- Configuration for Admin Panel (overriding application/config/)
            controllers/        --- Controllers for Admin Panel; also extends from MY_Controller
            helpers/            --- Helper classes, e.g. to generate AdminLTE widgets
            libraries/          --- Libraries from Grocery CRUD and Image CRUB
            models/             --- Models only being used in Admin panel
            views/              --- Views for Admin Panel; can reuse Frontend views, or override by using same path/filename
        api/                    --- Another module specific for API endpoints
    third_party/
        MX/                     --- Required for HMVC extension
    views/                      --- Views for Frontend Website, can also be used by modules unless overrided
assets/
    css/                        --- Custom CSS files append to each site
    dist/                       --- Minified scripts, stylesheets and optimized images via Gulp tasks
    fonts/                      --- Font files copied via Gulp tasks
    grocery_crud/               --- Asset files from Grocery CRUD library
    image_crud/                 --- Asset files from Image CRUD library
    images/                     --- Source image files before optimization
    js/                         --- Custom CSS files append to each site
    uploads/                    --- Default directory of upload files, where permission should set as writable
gulpfile.js/                    --- Task runner following gulp-starter 2.0 practice
screenshots/                    --- Screenshot images for preview
sql/                            --- MySQL files
    latest.sql                  --- Latest version of all preset data
system/                         --- CodeIgniter core files (unchanged as clean CI3 installation)
.htaccess                       --- URL rewrite for Apache web server (require mod enabled)

Asset Customization (e.g. additional js/css files)

A gulp file (gulpfile.js) is prepared for asset pipeline. To make use of it, you need to pre-install the following tools before building the template:

• node.js: which includes a package manager (npm) for node modules
• bower: package manager for bower components (to handle third-party assets)

  npm install -g bower
  

• gulp: task runner for lots of purposes, e.g. compile, combine and minify scripts

Afterwards, change directory from your terminal to where you cloned the repository.

1. Update bower.json then call bower to download third-party packages:

   bower install

2. Update package.json then install gulp packages:

   npm install

3. Update gulpfile.js (which is written in CoffeeScript), then use gulp command to start preset tasks:

   gulp

4. After all you will find the post-processed files under the "assets/dist" folder, means you have successfully configured it :)

Get Started

• Git clone this repository to a LAMP / WAMP server

  git clone https://github.com/jiji262/codeigniter_boilerplate.git
  

• Install dependency software with npm

  npm install
  

• Install frontend packages with bower

  bower install
  

• Build resources with gulp

  gulp build
  

• Setup Database

1) create a MySQL database (e.g. named "cibootstrap"), then import data from sql/cibootstrap.sql

2) Update database config file (e.g. under applications/backend/config)

• Done.

That's it. After that, we can visit this project like:

Frontend: http://localhost/codeigniter_boilerplate/

Backend: http://localhost/codeigniter_boilerplate/admin/ (login as admin/admin)

Screenshots

Frontend - Home:

Admin Panel - Home: