Using the Framework: Basics
MVC Approach
CodeCoupler use CodeIgniter as base. All those people who knows CodeIgniter should read this page carefully. It explains the most important differences. The other ones have to learn how the underlying framework works. CodeIgniter is a web application framework using the Model-View-Controller approach, which allows separation between logic and presentation. Here a little "Hello World" example:
To "write" a page you need at least a controller and a view. Create at first a file named test.php in the folder application/controllers/ with the following code:
<?php
class Test extends CI_Controller {
public function index()
{
$this->load->view('test');
}
}Then create a file named test.php in the folder application/views/ with the following code:
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
Now open the url "http://<yourdomain>/test". You will see your first webpage created with this framework. If you look into the sourcecode you will see one of the relevant differendes between CodeCoupler and CodeIgniter: You do not have to write a complete html-structure, CodeCoupler will do it for you.
For further assistance on how the underlying framework CodeIgniter works, read the very clear and thorough documentation here: http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user_guide
Master Template with Components Concept
In contrast to the basic CodeIgniter framework, every output of a controller will be surrounded by a master-template. The basic layout of the master template looks like this:
<!DOCTYPE ... />
<html ... >
<head>
<charset ... />
<title> ... </title>
</head>
<body>
[YOUR CONTROLLER OUTPUT]
</body>
</html>
But the Master Template do much more:
- Enabling JavaScript and CSS libraries using a component concept.
- Autoloading scripts and styles
- Injecting snippets from everywhere in your code into every place in the template.
Read the full documentation of the master-template library here: Libraries: Master
Asset Management
You can place assets like images, stylesheets or javascripts into a subfolder assets within your application or into the folder assets at the top of your web folder. If you have multiple application folders, the assets at the top of your web folder will be available to all your applications. Every application can override assets from the top of your web folder by creating an asset with the same name.
You have to store your different asset types in subfolders of the folder assets. Every asset type will be processed differently:
- css
Put here your css files. They will automatically parsed as SCSS and compressed in a production environment. More info about SCSS: http://sass-lang.com/documentation/file.SASS_REFERENCE.html#css_extensions
- img
Put here your gif, png or jpg-images. Images will be automaticaly downsized for small devices, like mobile-phones. Retina displays will be detected and the bigger image will be used if there is one, thus they show a sharp image.
- js
Put here your javascript files. For now there will no special processing be done.
- etc
Put here everything else, like pdf or flash files. For now there will no special processing be done.
Read more about the built-in Asset Managemenet here: Controllers: Asset Management
Extended Form Handling
The whole usage of form-elements is packaged in a new form-class which encloses the existing form-validation-class and form-helper of CodeIgniter. The goal was to avoid some always recurring coding. Here some examples of what that means:
- To insert a text-field, it is not enough to write “form_input($data)”. You have to remember the validation of the field, set the value to the previous posted, set the correct class if an error occurred and so on.
- A radio-button group or a group of checkboxes you have to think much more about the whole roundtrip and validation.
- If you want to add more than one form onto one page, you have to think about the separation of the submitted data and assign to the correct form processing code.
Using the form-class you will not need doing all this. Here is a simple example of a view including a form. You do not have to do anything more in the controller than loading this view. A validation of the form will be done for you automatically based on configuration file for this form:
<?=form_start('example_form')?>
<?=form_label('name')?>:<br /><?=form_field('name')?> <br /><br />
<?=form_label('amount')?>:<br /><?=form_field('amount')?> <br /><br />
<br />
<?=form_submit()?>
<?=form_end()?>
<br />
<?=form_errors()?>
<?=form_confirmation()?>Read the full documentation of the form-handling library here: Libraries: Form
Multilanguage Routing
- tbd -
Default Enabled Components
- tbd -