What is MICI? MICI stands for Manifest Interactive CodeIgniter.
MICI takes the already awesome CodeIgniter framework and integrates in a few big pieces that make it just that much more awesome!
All the configuration to get up and running is already created for you. Just update some basic information and get up and running in no time.
In fact, MICI will automatically install itself on a server once you have everything setup.
This also means that as you build out your project, it will also automatically install itself with all your customizations.
One issue we have with almost all frameworks out there is that it is near impossible to use them across multiple servers and developers. Usually you end up with some config file that gets hacked to bits with conditional logic checking to see which machine it is on so it can use correct information for that specific server. This also leads to usernames and passwords getting shared across all the development team.
MICI changes that by taking all of the variables in the CodeIgniter /application/config/ files and porting them into a single INI file.
This INI gets stored locally in a non public location where it gets loaded into CodeIgniter.
This means everyone on the development team can share the exact same code and just setup Apache to know where to look for that specific servers INI file.
No passwords are shared and no hacking of the config code is required.
SIMPLE & EASY!
MICI is already setup to run seamlessly with Doctrine 1.2. The library is already installed and you do not need to worry about getting it setup on your server.
The best part of MICI is that is has a custom system admin GUI where you can automatically generate your models based on the YML files you generate from an amazing program called ORM Designer http://www.orm-designer.com/
ORM Designer works on PC's & Macs ( using Wine ) and makes building your custom models and managing their relationships a breeze.
Use our CMS to manage your application. You can optionally expand the CMS with your own code using existing templates to easily see what is needed.
The default framework comes with the following directories.
This is the frameworks documentation. PDF files are handy for searching without requiring internet connection. The HTML folder contains web links to the online documentation. You can delete this folder without any issues.
This contains the files needed to setup the framework using the instructions provided below. You can delete this folder without any issues.
This is the core of the framework where all code should be written. This folder cannot be deleted.
This folder is used for any content that will be uploaded through the framework by external users. This folder cannot be deleted.
This is where all CSS, Images and Javascript files should be contained. There should be a folder for each device you want to support. This folder cannot be deleted.
This is the main CodeIgniter application. No changes should be made to this directory unless it is a direct upgrade to CodeIgniter itself. This folder cannot be deleted.
This should be the only web accessible folder of the bunch. This folder cannot be deleted.
Before you get started, please note that, in an attempt to make things easier, all template files have TMP_* variables that you can easily do a find and replace with so you may want to have open all the files in the _install directory to replace the same values in all open documents.
Here are the variables that were created, and what they are for:
TMP_DOCROOT: Absolute path to document root of server ( not MICI )
TMP_FOLDER: Absolute path to temp directory where MICI files are stored
TMP_IPADDRESS: Your development machines IP Address ( for remote access )
TMP_PROJECT: Folder name used for MICI installation ( no spaces )
TMP_WEBSITE: Domain name used for local Development ( no http://www. )
Create a directory for this project in the root of your web server. For the sake of this tutorial we will assume you are developing locally, and you have created a folder named "mici" and copied the MICI framework files into this folder. So you would be accessing this framework via:
http://localhost/mici/web/
But not just yet! You still have some setup to complete ;)
To make things easier on yourself, you may wish to use this name as the project name you will use later for all custom folders you will need to setup.
Now you will need to setup the directories where some files will get stored. Pick a folder that is not going to be accessible via the web server. You can use an existing folder that is already apart of apache, just not one that is in the document root.
There are three folders that you will need to create manually. These folders are already setup in the install/template/ folder. Once you copy them over, make sure you set their permissions so they can have files written to them.
Once you have these folders created you will need to create a new folder in each with the same name you used in your web root when you added MICI. That would be "mici" for this writeup.
The purpose of this is so you can have more than one installation of MICI without creating any issues with others installations.
You will also need to set write permissions to to following folders:
/application/doctrine/dev_local/fixtures
/application/doctrine/dev_local/migrations
/application/doctrine/dev_local/models
/application/doctrine/dev_local/schemas
Now you will need to add the apache configuration code. To do this just drop the website-framework.conf file found in the _install folder into your apache conf extra folder. This file contains all the code you will need to both access the server as a virtual host as well as remotely from mobile devices. Update your httpd.conf file to include the new file.
You can do this by adding a single line as shown below ( updated with the correct path and name you used for this file ):
Include "conf/extra/website-framework.conf"
There are two Environmental Variables that you will need to take notice of.
FRAMEWORK_APPLICATION_ENV
This should be either: development, staging or production. If you are running this locally, more than likely it should be set to development. If this is not defined, it will default to production.
FRAMEWORK_CONFIG_INI
This is the backbone of the entire framework. Make sure you set this correctly to the absolute path to where this file can be located. You will find a sample framework.ini file in the _install folder. Copy this ini file somewhere that is not publicly accessible on your server. You can rename it to whatever you want. Just make sure that your also use that same name in the apache path.
You will also need to replace all the TMP_* variables as discussed earlier in this document._
Once you get everything in place, restart apache.
Now that apache is setup, it's time to configure that framework itself. To do this all you need to do is open the framework.ini file you copied in the previous step. There are only a few variables that you need to update to get everything up and running. If you wish to learn more about what these variables do, just look in the /application/config/ folder. The name of the PHP file is the exact same as the section in the framework.ini file. i.e. [config] = config.php
The variables you need to pay special attention to are:
[config]
base_url ( full URL to your installation ending with a / )
log_threshold ( 0 = none, 4 = verbose )
log_path ( absolute path to log directory )
cache_path ( absolute path to cache directory )
sess_cookie_name ( unique if you have more than one MICI app )
csrf_token_name ( unique if you have more than one MICI app )
csrf_cookie_name ( unique if you have more than one MICI app )
[database]
hostname
username
password
database
memcache_port
unix_socket ( leave this blank unless you need to set it )
[auth]
website_name ( name of the web site )
webmaster_email ( YOUR email address )
autologin_cookie_name ( unique if you have more than one MICI app )
ipinfodb_apikey ( http://www.ipinfodb.com/register.php )
[floodblocker]
logs_path ( absolute path to log directory )
[paths]
media_url ( full URL to the media directory )
media_abs_path ( absolute path to media directory )
assets_url ( full URL to the assets directory )
assets_abs_path ( absolute path to assets directory )
You will also need to replace all the TMP_* variables as discussed earlier in this document._
The remote_framework.ini file is, for the most part, identical to the framework.ini with the exception that it is used for accessing your development server remotely. So there are a few URL's you will need to alter to point to the specific local IP address that is hosting your application. This will allow you to connect to your development machine from external devices ( like and iPad, iPhone or Android Device ). This remote INI file contains unique path and cookie info so you can be assured your links will not break and try to redirect to something like "localhost" or "mici.loc" which your remote device will not understand.
Please note that if you are using http://localhost/ this will use the remote_framework.ini file and all links in Codeigniter will use your IP Address instead of localhost._
Once you have finished setting everything up, you can easily install the core database, tables and default fixtures by pointing your browser to:
http://localhost/mici/web/system/check
You will need to adjust the above URL, or course, to where you actually placed your installation of this framework. This System Check will also tell you if there were any problem preventing a successful install and suggest actions to take to correct your installation.
There are a few optional tools enabled for you to develop easily that are not already built into either Doctrine of CodeIgniter (CI).
To use the custom code profiler to profile both CI and Doctrine, use the following code in your CI Controller:
$this->output->enable_profiler(TRUE);
FirePHP is also installed and enabled by default if your FRAMEWORK_APPLICATION_ENV is set to development. To use it in your controllers, use any of the following:
NOTE: You can pass things like integers, strings or arrays.
$this->firephp->log($var); $this->firephp->warn($var);
$this->firephp->error($var); $this->firephp->debug($var);
There is also a built in API with full REST support. Your API Controller can be located here:
/application/controllers/ApiController.php
To test the GET method of this API you can use the default enabled API Key and point your browser to:
http://localhost/mici/web/api/index/apikey/00038A21-814F-1A94-A593-FECBB8BAF7F2
If everything is working you should correctly get the notice:
Invalid GET Request. Refer to API Documentation.
This is because the API controller triggered the index method in ApiController.php and there was nothing to do, so it showed an error. Read the ApiController.php for more details on how to write your own controller to integrate with your existing models.
The API Keys are stored in the apikey table in your database. By
default, the first key is enabled and assigned to our company. You can
write your own code so assign API keys to other users however you wish.
This framework uses http://www.ipinfodb.com to pull accurate Geo Location information. You will need to register with their API service in order to gain access to their services. You can do that here:
http://www.ipinfodb.com/register.php Once you get an API Key from them, update your framework.ini files ipinfodb_apikey variable. You do not need to do this, but your you will lose capturing this information in the database if it is not setup.
After you have completed the installation, you can access the system section by going to:
http://localhost/mici/web/system/
To login use the default administrator login info:
username: admin
password: password
The system section is more for the systems admin to review and manage the inner workings of the application. There are six main sections in the system admin area:
The dashboard is available at:
http://localhost/mici/web/system/
and provides quick access to the other sections of the site. This page is also handy as if there are any PHP errors, there will be a red badge on the Error Logs icon indicating the number of errors.
The user management section is available at:
http://localhost/mici/web/system/users/
and is, as it sounds, where you will manage your users for your application.
There are three subsections inside the database management section. The first is a place to view the database schema. This is an image that can be panned and zoomed that is an exported PNG from ORM Designer.
The next sections is where the meat of your work will come into play. Local Migration Manager is broken down into five main tabs that are in the order that they will be most likely used. You will want to view the following page for more information about how to use these sections:
http://localhost/mici/web/system/database/migration#help
The last subsection allows you to update the database. This is done by using the migrations that are created from the migration tab in the local migration manager subsection.
From time to time you may generate some errors while working on some code. This section will capture all PHP errors and log them for easy viewing. You can configured the level of what gets logged by altering the log_threshold variable in the framework.ini file.
0 = Disables logging, Error logging TURNED OFF
1 = Error Messages (including PHP errors)
2 = Debug Messages
3 = Informational Messages
4 = All Messages
For a live site you'll usually only enable Errors (1) to be logged otherwise your log files will fill up very fast.
Here you can manage the Cache for the site. Check the boxes of the active Cache Types you want to Flush then select "Flush Cache" from the drop down list. Once you're ready, click the "Apply to selected" to flush the selected Cache Types.
This System Check will tell you if there are any problems preventing a successful install and suggest actions to take to correct your installation. If everything is configured correctly the system check will also see if it can go ahead and perform a clean install of the system if it detects it is not already installed. This section will more than likely be the first area of the site you access once you have finished setting up your system as outlined in INSTALLING THE FRAMEWORK FOR LOCAL DEVELOPMENT.
After you have completed the installation, you can access the admin section by going to:
http://localhost/mici/web/admin/
To login use the default administrator login info:
username: admin
password: password
In order to work with the:
/application/doctrine/orm_designer/Doctrine.ormdesigner
ORM Designer file you will need to install ORM Designer located at:
http://www.orm-designer.com/download-orm-designer
Once you have this program installed, you can manage the ORM file with the manual available on the ORM Designer Website located here:
http://www.orm-designer.com/tag/doctrine
When creating new modules, you will want to check how the other modules were setup first and duplicate the paths to the YML and XML files so the system will work properly for you.
First, if you are going to be using ORM Designer you will want to read the README file in:
/application/doctrine/orm_designer/config/
You can use our Doctrine Taggable behavior on any entities you create in your object creation.
In your Doctrine YML code the model would look like this:
Model:
actAs:
Timestampable:
Taggable:
tableName: model
connection: default
columns:
...
In your Doctrine PHP code the model would look like this:
abstract class BaseModel extends Doctrine_Record
{
public function setTableDefinition()
{
// typical model code goes here
}
public function setUp()
{
// typical model code goes here, but add
$taggable0 = new Taggable();
$this->actAs($taggable0);
}
}
Once that is setup you can start using the new behavior. Then you can do stuff like this in your CodeIgniter Models:
$model = new Model();
$model->foo = 'bar';
$model->setTags(array('tags','are','cool'));
$model->save();
To fetch tags is a bit more complicated. In your CodeIgniter Models __construct() method you will need a variable set like this:
$this->_tags = NULL;
Then you will need a functions like this in that model:
public function my_tags($format=NULL)
{
return ($format == 'json') ? json_encode($this->_tags) : $this->tags;
}
Then anytime you want to get a specific ID from a CodeIgniter Model, you can fetch its tags pretty easily in your model's code that fetches the ID with something like this:
public function get($id=NULL)
{
// get single id from model
if ($id)
{
try
{
$model = Doctrine_Core::getTable('Model')->findOneById($id);
$model->_tags = $model->getTagNames();
return $model;
}
catch (Doctrine_Connection_Exception $e)
{
log_message('error', $e->getMessage());
return array(
'error' => $e->getMessage(),
'code' => $e->getCode()
);
}
}
// fetch all from model
else
{
try
{
return Doctrine_Query::create()
->from('Model t')
->orderBy('t.name ASC')
->execute(array(), Doctrine_Core::HYDRATE_ARRAY);
}
catch (Doctrine_Connection_Exception $e)
{
log_message('error', $e->getMessage());
return array(
'error' => $e->getMessage(),
'code' => $e->getCode()
);
}
}
}
Now in your CodeIgniter Controllers you can use your models pretty easily.
$this->load->model('codeigniter/my_model');
$this->load->model('codeigniter/tag_model');
// first get the record
$data['model'] = $this->my_model->get($id);
$data['all_tags'] = $this->tag_model->get_all_tags('json');
$data['existing_tags'] = $this->my_model->my_tags('json');