EXC | DEV | Documentation | Version 1.0
In web-development we usually talk about the front-end as the aspects of the application that your user sees and interacts with. The front-end runs in your browser and is build on top of HTML, JS and CSS.
Since in EXC an application is a single page javascript application (SPA), a lot of the logic and workflow of your application lives in your front-end. Just a clarification: Truth be said EXC allows you to do more traditional multipage applications, what makes it a SPA is how you decide to serve your content.
The front-end framework is build to handle your UI, the user interactions and navigation. Its meant to make the whole process of building a modern web-application quite simple.
The back-end is the facilitator of your front-end, is the grunt doing anything needed, but mainly is our place where we keep the sensitive logic secure.
This guide will cover a basic setup for EXC using APACHE, but by no means is the only way to deploy EXC. People with a bit more knowledge on APACHE and NGINX will have no problem on setting up other settings, in particular to deploy EXC so it can be shared with many applications in the same hosting. We also limit this guide to things that can be done in your average web hosting.
For the purpose of this guide we assume that you already have a traditional APACHE/PHP environment ready. If you have a Mac you already have pretty much everything you need to start developing and testing your application right on your laptop, else you can google one of the many guides to set up a traditional PHP environment like LAMP.
Getting your app to work on your deployment server and your web hosting server (production) is pretty much the same, unless indicated otherwise a step on this guide applies to both setups.
Like when hosting a traditional web-page, your app is serve by APACHE or NGINX. Your basic app is just another folder in your DOCUMENT-ROOT. This folder holds your front-end and back-end code and other resources like css, etc.
We will install the framework inside you app folder.
Download the
The back-end framework uses an .htaccess file to add a some rewrite rules.
Create a file named
Now we need to install the front-end framework. Download the
Inside
Overview
A common application in EXC is made up of two parts a front-end and a back-end.In web-development we usually talk about the front-end as the aspects of the application that your user sees and interacts with. The front-end runs in your browser and is build on top of HTML, JS and CSS.
Since in EXC an application is a single page javascript application (SPA), a lot of the logic and workflow of your application lives in your front-end. Just a clarification: Truth be said EXC allows you to do more traditional multipage applications, what makes it a SPA is how you decide to serve your content.
The front-end framework is build to handle your UI, the user interactions and navigation. Its meant to make the whole process of building a modern web-application quite simple.
The back-end is the facilitator of your front-end, is the grunt doing anything needed, but mainly is our place where we keep the sensitive logic secure.
Setting up the environment
An EXC app can be deployed in different ways but the easiest is to serve your applications using APACHE or NGINX.This guide will cover a basic setup for EXC using APACHE, but by no means is the only way to deploy EXC. People with a bit more knowledge on APACHE and NGINX will have no problem on setting up other settings, in particular to deploy EXC so it can be shared with many applications in the same hosting. We also limit this guide to things that can be done in your average web hosting.
For the purpose of this guide we assume that you already have a traditional APACHE/PHP environment ready. If you have a Mac you already have pretty much everything you need to start developing and testing your application right on your laptop, else you can google one of the many guides to set up a traditional PHP environment like LAMP.
Getting your app to work on your deployment server and your web hosting server (production) is pretty much the same, unless indicated otherwise a step on this guide applies to both setups.
Like when hosting a traditional web-page, your app is serve by APACHE or NGINX. Your basic app is just another folder in your DOCUMENT-ROOT. This folder holds your front-end and back-end code and other resources like css, etc.
Installing the EXC framework
The framework comes in two parts the front-end and the back-end, the relevant code for each of part is inside a folder calledexc. Installing the framework is basically copying the code to your server.We will install the framework inside you app folder.
Download the
exc_server code from our git-hub repository. Copy the exc folder to your app folder.The back-end framework uses an .htaccess file to add a some rewrite rules.
Create a file named
.htaccess in your app folder with the following contents:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^((?:[^\/]*/)*)(c\/)([A-Za-z0-9-_]+\.[A-Za-z0-9-_]+|[A-Za-z0-9-_]+)$ exc/loader.php [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^((?:[^\/]*/)*)(a\/)([A-Za-z0-9-_\.]+\.js)$ $1/assets/js/$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^((?:[^\/]*/)*)(a\/)([A-Za-z0-9-_\.]+\.css)$ $1/assets/css/$3 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^((?:[^\/]*/)*)(a\/)((?:[^\/]*\/)*)([A-Za-z0-9-_\.]+\.[a-z]{2,3})$ $1/assets/$3$4 [L,QSA]
RewriteRule ^((?:[^\/]*/)*)(a\/)([A-Za-z0-9-_\.]+\.[a-z]{2,3})$ $1/assets/$3 [L,QSA]
Setting up your .htaccess is cover with more details here. For now lets just limit our selves to know that we use a rewrite rule to check for a special URL pointing to a controller to launch load.php script to handle the request.Now we need to install the front-end framework. Download the
exc_core code from our git-hub repository. Copy the contents of the exc folder to your app folder.Well thats pretty much minimum required to get EXC running. Next is working in your app.Later when you work with your UI is important to remember that depending on what template you are using you need to ensure that url and paths making a reference to the exc code (eg: javascript or css files) use a relative path from your app folder. For example "./js/exc.js".
Setting your app scaffolding
The first file you need in your folder is anapp.php file. The app.php tells EXC about your app.Inside
app.php we use the $options array to configure our app.<?php $options['uid'] = "ACMEEMP"; //our app identifier, every app needs an identifier... //add some controllers controllers $options['controllers']=[ "record" => "./controller.record.php", "findEmployeeController" => "./controller.findEmployee.php", ]; ?>To learn everything about configuring your app read the documentation on how to configure your app.
