Laravel is one of the most used frameworks today, and since its release in 2011, it has seen exponential growth that keeps on increasing every day. The stats say that there are around 1.300.000 websites that are Laravel users. Justifiably so, Laravel focuses on users and provides an excellent environment in which users can count on the framework’s simplicity, clarity, and functionality. Therefore, many popular web projects are created with laravel, including Fortune 500 companies. Here is how you should set the outline of your Laravel project.
Plan in details
Of course, you must start your web project with planning – which is phase one in all projects generally. When it comes to your laravel project, you need to think about the ideas you or your client have and lay them out so you can see which ones will need further elaboration. You will need your laravel team of developers by yo ur side, so if you haven’t assembled your laravel team, now would be a good time to look for and hire laravel developer who would perfectly blend in with your project.
Then, you need to map out the ideas with the team and put a checkmark on all of the following:
- Describe the client’s wish for a web project/app
- Name the features needed to be included
- Name the functionalities the web app/project should have
- Name the tools you are going to need
- Set the deadlines for each phase of the development process
Download All Necessary Files
You need a system of files that support laravel. Here is what you need:
- PHP 5.3.x
- The FileInfo Library
- Mcrypt library
- Laravel framework
- Twitter Bootstrap
- jQuery
Since Laravel is an open-source framework, you can use the public folder where you can access all public files and use content like CSS, img, and js.
Create the First Laravel Model
Now, when you are ready to work in laravel, you should go ahead and create your first Laravel Model. Keep in mind that Laravel uses the MVC architectural pattern to organize the app, and it does it in three parts:
- The Model encapsulating the data access layer
- The View encapsulating the representation layer
- Controller encapsulating the code to control the app and communicate with the other two layers.
Setup Routing
The next step is to map all requests to specific functions. This is performed by the Routes. They instruct the application where the URLs will go. By default, Laravel won’t route to the controllers as the PHP frameworks do. Also, with the Routes, you can do much more in laravel. For example, you can create routes based on HTTP Verbs, route an URL with a wildcard value, or create auth filters that will appear before all routes.
Handle Controllers in Laravel
You can access the controllers in Laravel in the folder application/controllers. With it, you can use the Home controller that will accept requests sent to the root of the Laravel application. Also, you can create controllers on your own by simply creating a file inside the same folder. Then, test it out in your browser to see whether it works.
Laravel View
How can you generate views for an application with Laravel? There are two ways: PHP-based Views that use PHP as a templating language and Blade-based Views that use Laravel’s built-in templating engine, named Blade. With the second one, you can use customized tags and functions and make a better separation of presentation logic and application code.
Manage Assets
When it comes to loading CSS and JS files, laravel uses its Assets management functionality. This manager also supports asset dependencies that direct Laravel to load the dependency first and then load the asset.
Debug Mode
Another important aspect of Laravel is the Debug Mode which is an option that determines how much info about an error is displayed to the user. By default, this mode is set to respect the value of the APP_DEBUG environment variable, which you can find stored in your .env file.
It is important to note that the value should be set to “false” in your production environment because if it is set to “true,” you will put sensitive configuration values of the app’s users at risk.
Conclusion
Starting a project in Laravel is simple and straightforward. However, you need the right expert team by your side to ensure that everything goes as planned. The phases from planning to launching a web app in Laravel are numerous, but they are all connected. Following the basic steps from the first few phases is crucial to the s
