Web Application Starter Kit

Important note: With the release of SF4, the Symfony team has decided to retire Silex. This means, it will not support any new SF4 features anymore. So from now on, I suggest using the new SF4 for long-term projects, as I will not be able to add any new (SF4) features to this boilerplate/starter kit. However, I may prepare a similar starter kit for SF4 in the near future, so stay tuned.

A simple web application boilerplate for small or mid scale applications. Included:

• Users system
  • Login
  • Logout
  • Register
  • Reset password
  • Basic profile
  • Settings / edit profile
  • Change password
• Basic user roles system - ability to assign roles for each user
• Administration
  • Users
    • View
    • Edit
    • Switch / impersonate
    • Remove
  • User actions
  • Posts
• Tools
  • Email preview - you are able to view the email templates while working on them (without the need of sending test emails to yourself for every change)
  • Database backup - backup and restore your database schema
• Errors / exceptions tracking - save the exceptions / errors directly to the database and / or send emails when an error happened
• Statistics
• Settings

• PHP > 7.0
• Composer
• Bower
• PHP Coding Standards Fixer (optional)

• Navigate your your web directory: cd /var/www
• Create a new project: composer create-project bobalazek/web-application-starter-kit myapp --no-scripts
• Navigate inside the application cd myapp
• Configure database (and maybe other stuff if you want) - copy/clone app/configs/global-local.example.php into app/configs/global-local.php and set the config there. Alternatively, you can also do the same with .env.example, if you only want to change the basics (database configuration & environment).
• Run the following commands:
  • composer install
  • bin/console orm:schema-tool:update --force (to install the database schema)
  • bower update (to install the front-end dependencies - you will need to install Bower first - if you haven't already)
  • bin/console application:database:hydrate-data (to hydrate some data)
• You are done! Start developing!

• We use the Doctrine database
• Navigate to your project directory: cd /var/www/myapp
• Check the entities: bin/console orm:info (optional)
• Update the schema: bin/console orm:schema-tool:update --force
• Database updated!

• We use Deployer
• Set your configuration inside deployer/config.php and deployer/hosts.php
• Run dep deploy qa (or whatever environment you want)
• The app was deployed to your server!

You should replace the name for your actual application inside the following files:

• README.md
• bower.json
• composer.json
• phpunit.xml
• app/configs/global.php

With the bin/console application:database:hydrate-data command, you will, per default hydrate 2 users (which you can change inside the app/fixtures/users.php file):

• Admin User (with admin permissions)
  • Username: admin or admin@myapp.com
  • Password: test
• Test User (with the default user permissions)
  • Username: test or test@myapp.com
  • Password: test

• bin/console application:environment:prepare - Will create the global-local.php and development-local.php files (if they do not exist)
• bin/console application:database:hydrate-data [-r|--remove-existing-data] - Will hydrate the tables with some basic data, like: 2 users and 6 roles (the --remove-existing-data flag will truncate all tables before re-hydrating them)
• bin/console application:storage:prepare - Will prepare all the storage (var/) folders, like: cache, logs, sessions, etc.
• bin/console application:translations:prepare - Prepares all the untranslated string into a separate (app/locales/{locale}/messages_untranslated.yml) file. Accepts an locale argument (defaults to 'en_US' - usage: bin/console application:translations:prepare --locale de_DE or bin/console application:translations:prepare -l de_DE )

• php-cs-fixer fix . - if you want your code fixed before each commit. You will need to install PHP Coding Standards Fixer
• bin/simple-phpunit - run your PHPUnit tests

In case you want to create a new component / module in this system, do the following (in this case, the posts inside the members area):

• Create a new Controller Provider (like src/Application/ControllerProvider/MembersArea/PostsControllerProvider.php - plural)
  • Bind with the following routes:
    • Overview / list:
      • Route name: members-area.posts
      • Route pattern / url: (blank)
      • Route controller method: PostsController::indexAction
    • New:
      • Route name: members-area.posts.new
      • Route pattern / url: /new
      • Route controller method: PostsController::newAction
    • Detail:
      • Route name: members-area.posts.detail
      • Route pattern / url: /{id}
      • Route controller method: PostsController::detailAction
    • Edit:
      • Route name: members-area.posts.edit
      • Route pattern / url: /{id}/edit
      • Route controller method: PostsController::editAction
    • Remove:
      • Route name: members-area.posts.remove
      • Route pattern / url: /{id}/remove
      • Route controller method: PostsController::removeAction
• Create a new Controller (src/Application/Controller/MembersArea/PostsController.php - plural)
  • With the following methods:
    • PostsController::listAction
    • PostsController::newAction
    • PostsController::detailAction
    • PostsController::editAction
    • PostsController::removeAction
• Mount the routes of the Controller Provider to the routes (app/core/routes.php)
• Create a new Entity (src/Application/Entity/PostEntity.php - singular)
• Create a new Repository (src/Application/Repository/PostRepository.php - singular)
• Create a new Form Type (src/Application/Form/Type/PostType.php - singular)
• Create templates:
  • app/templates/contents/members-area/posts/ (plural)
    • list.html.twig
    • detail.html.twig
    • new.html.twig
    • edit.html.twig
    • remove.html.twig
    • _form.html.twig (just include that inside the edit and new template, so you don't need to write the same form twice - if it's more complex)

• app/
  • configs/ => All basic config stuff (+ validation)
  • core/ => The core files such as providers, routes, middlewares and definitions
  • fixtures/ => Used for hydrating the database
  • locales/ => Used for translations
  • templates/ => All twig templates
• bin/
  • console
• src/
  • Application/
    • Command/
    • Controller/
    • ControllerProvider/
    • Doctrine/ => Some Doctrine fixes for Silex
    • Entity/ => All entities / models
    • Form/
    • Provider/
    • Repository/
    • Tool/
    • Twig/
• web/
  • assets/
    • images/
    • javascripts/
    • uploads/ => Used for uploads
    • vendor/ => Bower dependencies
  • index.php

Web Application Starter Kit is licensed under the MIT license.