Tutorial: An example Rhubarb project

Like any programmer you're itching to get started so let's work on a real example and we'll learn about the basics of Rhubarb along the way.

Before you start

In order to run this project you will need docker and docker-compose. This is just one way of running things like a webserver (apache) and a database (MySQL) without worrying about local versions, OS compatibility, firewalls etc.

Starting a project

You can also manually create and edit a composer file if you wish but it's simpler to use composer to initialise the project with the Rhubarb library.

composer create-project rhubarbphp/bootstrap-webapp blog

The bootstrap-webapp project is a bootstrap project which will get us started. Also as you might have spotted we're going to create a blog application. We'll build an engine to display blog articles and an admin to control it.

Once composer has finished you should have the following files and folders:

vendor/rhubarbphp/rhubarb/

The rhubarb library. The vendor folder is where composer installs libraries.

src/

The location for your application's class files

src/Layouts/DefaultLayout.php

A very simple layout to get us started.

tests/

The location for your application's unit tests.

docker/

Supporting files for the docker container build

composer.json

Composers configuration file where you can require additional libraries

Starting the application

Simply start the project with:

docker-compose up

To populate with some test data:

./custard.sh stem:seed-data

Once docker has done it's work, you can visit the site by going to http://localhost:8080/

If you're used to using docker you will know that switching between projects that are all addressed by localhost can be a problem so we recommend using the xip.io DNS service to keep URL history and browser cache separate for a happier life. Visit http://blog.127.0.0.1.xip.io:8080/ and you will end up at the same place.

Breaking the ice - hello world

Building a blog