packettide / bree by bryannielsen

#Bree

Bree provides an interface to associate fieldtypes with existing Eloquent model attributes.

This project is still in an early stage and breaking changes may be made.

##Installation

With Laravel 4 and Composer

1. Add "packettide/bree": "1.x" to your 'require' block in composer.json
2. Run composer update
3. Add 'Packettide\Bree\BreeServiceProvider', to the $providers array in app/config/app.php
4. Then publish all Bree assets - php artisan bree:assets

##Basic Usage

In this section we'll cover the fundamentals of how to interact with Bree. Bree functions by wrapping an existing Eloquent model and attaching field definitions to model attributes.

Defining Bree fields within routes/controllers

$book = new Bree('Book', array(
			'title'  => array('type' => 'Text')
		));

Defining Bree fields within Eloquent Models

In app/models/Book.php

<?php

class Book extends Eloquent {

	public $breeFields = array(
		'title' => array('type' => 'Text')
	);

Note that you can define a base field mapping in your model and override fields in a route if desired.

Display a new model

$book = new Bree('Book');
echo $book; //this will output fields for all defined attributes

Display an existing model

$book = new Bree('Book');
$book->find(1);
echo $book;

Displaying a Bree field

If you don't wish to display all Bree fields from a model or would like to control the order you can use the model attributes in your views like so:

// Route
$book = new Bree('Book');
return View::make('books.create', array('book' => $book));

// View
{{ $book->title }} // this will output the label if available, followed by the field
{{ $book->title->field() }} // outputs the field only
{{ $book->title->label() }} // outputs the label only

Updating/Saving data

$input = Input::except('_token');
$book = new Bree('Book');

foreach($input as $key => $value)
{
	$book->$key = $value;
}

$book->save();

Field Definitions

Here is an example of what a field definition looks like:

array('comments' => array('type' => 'Relate', 'label' => 'Book Comments', 'related' => 'Comment', 'title' => 'title'))

• The key of this array (comments) is the name of the Eloquent attribute or relation that this field should be associated with.
• Type: This is the name of the field type
• Label: This is an optional attribute used to generate a corresponding HTML label for the field

Core Field Types

The following field types are available by default:

• Cell - Allows inline modification of a related Bree model
• Date - HTML5 date input
• File - A single file upload field
• Relate - Easily bind related models to each other
• Text - Simple text input
• Textarea - Simple textarea input
• Time - HTML5 time input

Using Other Fields

Adding another field package to your project typically involves adding the dependency to your composer.json file and registering the service provider with your application. Here are a few field packages which have more detailed instructions on their project pages:

• Colorpicker
• Wysiwyg

Scaffolding with Bree

While Bree is a simple layer to add over an existing Eloquent model you may find it tedious to setup the mapping of fields to attributes and model relations etc… We have another package called Sire, which helps alleviate this problem while also providing a simple way to scaffold an application with Bootstrap 3.

Extending Bree

Bree is built to be a flexible and extensible base allowing for the creation of field types as they are required by a project. To learn more about creating your own field package start here.

License

Bree is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license