Kickstart

Flow makes it easy to start with a new application. The Kickstarter package provides template based scaffolding for generating an initial layout of packages, controllers, models and views.

Note

At the time of this writing these functions are only available through Flow’s command line interface. This might change in the future as a graphical interface to the kickstarter is developed.

Command Line Tool

The script flow resides in the main directory of the Flow distribution. From a shell you should be able to run the script by entering ./flow:

./flow
Flow 3.0.0 ("Development" context)
usage: ./flow <command identifier>

See './flow help' for a list of all available commands.

To get an overview of all available commands, enter ./flow help:

./flow help
Flow 3.0.0 ("Development" context)
usage: ./flow <command identifier>

The following commands are currently available:

PACKAGE "NEOS.FLOW":
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* flow:cache:flush                         Flush all caches
  cache:warmup                             Warm up caches

  configuration:show                       Show the active configuration
                                           settings
  configuration:listtypes                  List registered configuration types
  configuration:validate                   Validate the given configuration
  configuration:generateschema             Generate a schema for the given
                                           configuration or YAML file.

* flow:core:setfilepermissions             Adjust file permissions for CLI and
                                           web server access
* flow:core:migrate                        Migrate source files as needed
* flow:core:shell                          Run the interactive Shell

  database:setcharset                      Convert the database schema to use
                                           the given character set and
                                           collation (defaults to utf8mb4 and
                                           utf8mb4_unicode_ci).

  doctrine:validate                        Validate the class/table mappings
  doctrine:create                          Create the database schema
  doctrine:update                          Update the database schema
  doctrine:entitystatus                    Show the current status of entities
                                           and mappings
  doctrine:dql                             Run arbitrary DQL and display
                                           results
  doctrine:migrationstatus                 Show the current migration status
  doctrine:migrate                         Migrate the database schema
  doctrine:migrationexecute                Execute a single migration
  doctrine:migrationversion                Mark/unmark a migration as migrated
  doctrine:migrationgenerate               Generate a new migration

  help                                     Display help for a command

  package:create                           Create a new package
  package:delete                           Delete an existing package
  package:activate                         Activate an available package
  package:deactivate                       Deactivate a package
  package:list                             List available packages
  package:freeze                           Freeze a package
  package:unfreeze                         Unfreeze a package
  package:refreeze                         Refreeze a package

  resource:publish                         Publish resources
  resource:clean                           Clean up resource registry

  routing:list                             List the known routes

  security:importpublickey                 Import a public key
  security:importprivatekey                Import a private key
  security:showeffectivepolicy             Shows a list of all defined
                                           privilege targets and the effective
                                           permissions for the given groups.
  security:showunprotectedactions          Lists all public controller actions
                                           not covered by the active security
                                           policy
  security:showmethodsforprivilegetarget   Shows the methods represented by the
                                           given security privilege target

  server:run                               Run a standalone development server

  typeconverter:list                       Lists all currently active and
                                           registered type converters


PACKAGE "NEOS.KICKSTARTER":
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  kickstart:package                        Kickstart a new package
  kickstart:actioncontroller               Kickstart a new action controller
  kickstart:commandcontroller              Kickstart a new command controller
  kickstart:model                          Kickstart a new domain model
  kickstart:repository                     Kickstart a new domain repository

* = compile time command

See './flow help <commandidentifier>' for more information about a specific command.

Depending on your Flow version you’ll see more or less the above available commands listed.

Kickstart the package

Let’s create a new package Blog inside the Vendor namespace Acme [1]:

./flow kickstart:package Acme.Blog

The kickstarter will create three files:

Created .../Acme.Blog/Classes/Controller/StandardController.php
Created .../Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Layouts/Default.html
Created .../Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates/Standard/Index.html

and the directory Packages/Application/Acme.Blog/ should now contain the skeleton of the future Blog package:

cd Packages/Application/
find Acme.Blog

Acme.Blog
Acme.Blog/Classes
Acme.Blog/Classes/Controller
Acme.Blog/Classes/Controller/StandardController.php
Acme.Blog/composer.json
Acme.Blog/Configuration
Acme.Blog/Documentation
Acme.Blog/Meta
Acme.Blog/Resources
Acme.Blog/Resources/Private
Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Layouts
Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Layouts/Default.html
Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates
Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates/Standard
Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates/Standard/Index.html
Acme.Blog/Tests
Acme.Blog/Tests/Functional
Acme.Blog/Tests/Unit

Switch to your web browser and check at http://dev.tutorial.local/acme.blog if the generated controller produces some output:

A freshly created Fluid template

Tip

If you get an error at this point, like a “404 Not Found” this could be caused by outdated cache entries. Because Flow should be running in Development context at this point, it is supposed to detect changes to code and resource files, but this seems to sometimes fail… Before you go crazy looking for an error on your side, try reloading the page and if that doesn’t work you can clear the cache manually by executing the ./flow flow:cache:flush --force command.

Kickstart Controllers

If you look at the drawing of our overall model you’ll notice that you need controllers for the most important domain model, being Post. For the PostController we know that we’ll need some standard actions, so let’s have them created as well:

./flow kickstart:actioncontroller --generate-actions --generate-related Acme.Blog Post

resulting in:

Created .../Acme.Blog/Classes/Domain/Model/Post.php
Created .../Acme.Blog/Tests/Unit/Domain/Model/PostTest.php
Created .../Acme.Blog/Classes/Domain/Repository/PostRepository.php
Created .../Acme.Blog/Classes/Controller/PostController.php
Omitted .../Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Layouts/Default.html
Created .../Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates/Post/Index.html
Created .../Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates/Post/New.html
Created .../Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates/Post/Edit.html
Created .../Acme.Blog/Resources/Private/Templates/Post/Show.html
As new models were generated, don't forget to update the database schema with the respective doctrine:* commands.

Tip

To see a full description of the kickstart commands and its options, you can display more details with ./flow help kickstart::actioncontroller.

Once complete (in the Controller chapter), this new controller will be accessible via http://dev.tutorial.local/acme.blog/post

Please delete the file StandardController.php and its corresponding template directory as you won’t need them for our sample application [2].

Kickstart Models and Repositories

The kickstarter can also generate models and repositories, as you have seen above when using the --generate-related option while kickstarting the PostController. Of course that can also be done specifically with the kickstart:model command.

Before we do this, you should have a look at the next section on models and repositories.

[1]

A “vendor namespace” is used to avoid conflicts with other packages. It is common to use the name of the company/organization as namespace. See Part III - Package Management for some more information on package keys.

[2]

If you know you won’t be using the StandardController, you can create a completely empty package with the package:create command.