LaraBlog

A simple blogging package powered by Laravel.

The package can be used standalone without writing any code. However, as a Laravel package it comes with all the Laravel goodness allowing more organized customization compared to a traditional CMS systems like WordPress.

LaraBlog is still a new package. For any bugs, or feature requests please contact me at rob@websanova.com

Installing

Include the package.

composer require "websanova/larablog"

Add provider to config/app.

'providers' => [
	Websanova\Larablog\Providers\LarablogServiceProvider::class,
	...
]

Migrate the LaraBlog tables.

php artisan migrate --path=/vendor/websanova/larablog/database/migrations

Navigate to /blog and see the default blog page. With no articles there will just be empty pages and 404 not found pages.

Note: that with a fresh Laravel install the default / path for the welcome page should be removed.

Folders

You will need to have a couple folders setup for the build command to function. The folders will be based on the path set in the config.

By default there will be three.

resources/larablog/pages
resources/larablog/posts
resources/larablog/assets

Assets

The contents of the assets folder, if exists will automatically copy over to the target public directory set in the config.

By default the target directory is named larablog.

Adding & Updating Posts

Out of the box any post or page should be written using markdown format. By default, post and page markdown files should go in the ./blog/posts and ./blog/pages folders respectively.

Once a post or page is written the larablog:build command is used to add the new posts and pages or update existing ones.

> php artisan larablog:build

The main key used for checking existing posts will be the identifier field which by default uses the filename.

The root folder name can also be changed in the config if something other than ./blog is needed. But keep in mind the larablog:build command will always use the posts and pages sub folders.

Note: that the files are in markdown format and that the parser can be changed by overwriting the Websanova\Larablog\Parser\Field\Body parser.

Post & Page Format

The post format should like like the following:

---
title: Larablog Package Released
keywords: larablog, package, laravel, release
description: Larablog package released for Laravel.
date: Jan 1 2016
tags: Larablog, Laravel
permalink: /blog/laravel/larablog-package-released-for-laravel
redirect_from:
  - /some/old/url
  - /some/old/format.html
---

... Body ...

You can set any fields in the top section of the file. Any that DO NOT have a parser will just get tossed into a default meta field. Otherwise if a parser is found it will run. The parsers can manipulate a data object which ultimately get's passed into the create method for the posts table.

Current parsers that ship are:

• Type (page, post and redirect)
• Title
• Body
• Date (published_at date)
• Meta (any field that doesn't have a parser)
• Permalink (slug)
• RedirectFrom
• Tags
• Buttons
• Identifier

Config

The best way to get a sense of the config options is to just publish the config and take a look.

> php artisan larablog:publish --tag=config

Migrations

The migration can be run directly from the packages migrations folder.

> php artisan migrate --path=/vendor/websanova/larablog/database/migrations
> php artisan migrate:rollback

If it needs to be run as part of the regular php artisan migrate use the larablog:publish shortcut.

> php artisan larablog:publish --tag=migrations

Themes

To set a theme set the 'larablog.theme' property in the config. To simplify things ALL views should simply use larablog::theme.master as the main view. Then a view is set as part of the data sent to the view.

return view('larablog::themes.master', [
    'view' => larablog_view('post.show'),
]);

The larablog_view is a shortcut helper to use to avoid having to set the full path with the theme each time. This allows easy swapping of themes by only having to change the config parameter.

So far the currently supported themes are:

• default

Overriding Layouts

In many cases you will want to add some customization to the layout to include some analytics tracking or ads for instance. To allow this the themes include many section blocks that can replace or modify existing layout.

To start, create an overrides file in the views directory.

> /resources/views/vendor/larablog/themes/overrides.blade.php

From there the following section blocks can be used which hopefully are self explanatory.

• meta.opensearch
• meta.title
• meta.keywords
• meta.description
• meta.og
• head.files
• head.styles
• sidebar.series
• sidebar.popular
• component.search
• component.related
• footer-nav.left
• footer-nav.right
• post.list
• post.head
• post.series
• post.body
• post.related
• page.head
• page.body
• layout.view
• layout.end

Customize

For customization the Larablog facade may be used.

'aliases' => [
  'Blog'      => Websanova\Larablog\Facades\LarablogFacade::class,
  ...
]

The facade provides access to the following shortcut functions:

• published() - Paginated list of posts.
• search($q) - Paginated list of posts by search.
• all() - All posts.
• last() - Last post (by published_at date).
• post($slug) - Post or page by slug.
• count() - Post count.
• top($amount) - Top posts (default 10).
• tags() - All tags.
• publishedWhereTag($tag) - Paginated list of posts by tag.

Assets

Publish all files from the package.

> php artisan larablog:publish

Or publish separately.

> php artisan larablog:publish --tag=migrations
> php artisan larablog:publish --tag=views
> php artisan larablog:publish --tag=config
> php artisan larablog:publish --tag=assets

View Meta

Many of the tags for display items on a page can be overwritten in any controller method by simply setting the variable in the data associated with the view.

Current options are:

• img
• keywords
• description
• title
• type
• slug

function index() {
	$content = view('larablog::blog.index', [
		'img' => '/path/to/img',
		...
	]);
}

Appropriate defaults are used already wherever possible so these shouldn't have to be set for the most part.

Headers & Footers

Each theme should also support a header and footer section (and perhaps more standard sections to follow). The idea is that a list of views can be provided and they will be included in that order.

This allows the inclusion of any ads or analytics tracking codes.

Adding Parser

To add a parser, create a class with the name of the key being parsed. So title would look for Websanova\Larablog\Parser\Field\Title. This way additional fields may be added or existing ones overridden.

To Do

Some things that still need to be done.

• Auto build/post hook.
• Related articles matching.
• Comments.
• Backend Admin (with MD editor).

Would also be nice to have some kind of plugin architecture. For instance some kind of SEO plugin. Although not sure how this would work quite yet.