Set Up a Yii Development Environment and Create a Basic Project
Course Title: Mastering Yii Framework: Building Scalable Web Applications
Section Title: Introduction to Yii and Development Environment
Topic: Set up a Yii development environment and create a basic Yii project with routes and views.(Lab topic)
Objective: By the end of this lab, you will have a complete setup of a Yii development environment and a basic Yii project with routes and views.
Step 1: Set up a Yii development environment
In the previous topics, we covered the overview of the Yii framework and its ecosystem, setting up a Yii development environment using Composer, PHP, and the Yii installer, understanding the MVC architecture, and exploring Yii's directory structure and configuration files. Now, let's dive into setting up a Yii development environment.
Required Tools and Software:
- PHP 7.4 or higher
- Composer (PHP package manager)
- Yii installer
- A code editor or IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
Installing Yii using Composer:
You can install Yii using Composer by running the following command in your terminal:
composer create-project --prefer-dist yiisoft/yii2-app-basic myapp
This command will create a new Yii project called myapp in the current directory.
Running the Yii Application:
To run the Yii application, navigate to the project directory and run the following command:
php yii serve
This command will start the Yii built-in web server.
Step 2: Create a basic Yii project with routes and views
Now that we have a Yii development environment set up, let's create a basic Yii project with routes and views.
Creating a New Controller:
Create a new file called SiteController.php in the controllers directory:
// myapp/controllers/SiteController.php
namespace app\controllers;
use yii\web\Controller;
class SiteController extends Controller
{
public function actionIndex()
{
return $this->render('index');
}
}
Creating a New View:
Create a new file called index.php in the views/site directory:
<!-- myapp/views/site/index.php -->
<h1>Welcome to my Yii application!</h1>
Defining Routes:
Open the config/web.php file and add the following route:
// myapp/config/web.php
return [
// ...
'components' => [
// ...
],
'rules' => [
'site/index' => 'site/index',
],
];
This route will point to the actionIndex() method in the SiteController class.
Testing the Application:
Open a web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080/site/index. You should see the "Welcome to my Yii application!" message.
Conclusion:
In this lab, we set up a Yii development environment and created a basic Yii project with routes and views. We created a new controller, view, and route, and tested the application using the Yii built-in web server.
Key Takeaways:
- Set up a Yii development environment using Composer, PHP, and the Yii installer.
- Create a new Yii project using the Yii installer.
- Create a new controller and view.
- Define routes using the
config/web.phpfile. - Test the application using the Yii built-in web server.
Practical Exercise:
Try creating a new controller, view, and route for a "about" page. You can use the same steps as above.
External Resources:
Leave a comment or ask for help: If you have any questions or need help with this lab, please leave a comment below.
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