ABOUT

This is a simple CRUD app to to keep track of your ideas.

TTD

Basic CRUD functionality not fully implemented yet.

INSTALL

(Not tested yet.)

(Main branch is called 'main'.)

• cd to your dev directory (e.g. cd ~/dev)

• sudo apt-get install git

  • Install git command line client

• Clone this repo (choose one)

  • git clone git@github.com:shmooth/ideatracker.git
    • create and install your .ssh keys at/in github.com if necessary OR
  • git clone https://github.com/shmooth/ideatracker.git
    • this option may no longer be available b/c of new 2FA github policy

• Copy .env.example file to .env

• Update .env file

    DB_CONNECTION=mysql
    DB_HOST=localhost
    DB_PORT=3306
    DB_DATABASE=ideatracker
    DB_USERNAME=ideatracker
    DB_PASSWORD=password
    ...
    # email will now print to [projecthome]/storage/logs/laravel.log, incl recovery emails
    MAIL_MAILER=log # change from 'smtp' 
  

• Install PHP

• Install Node

• Install MariaDB

  • Create database 'ideatracker'
  • Create user 'ideatracker' with password 'password' (change to suit)

• composer update

• npm install

• artisan migrate

  • this creates the appropriate tables in the db

Run

• npm run hot
  • makes sure most of your changes are reflected in auto-reloaded web page/app
• artisan serve --host=localhost
  • runs your local dev server

View

Go to

`http://localhost:8000/login`

Register a new user here so you can log in:

`http://localhost:8000/register`

Verification link will show up in log file at [apphome]/storages/logs/laravel.log. Copy and paste it into browser.

Misc

To seed the database with example data (as in the screenshot):

> artisan db:seed

To get a list of HTTP routes, API and web:

> artisan route:list

It can be helpful to set the path to artisan so that you can execute it from anywhere in your directory structure:

> alias artisan='/home/psmithsf/dev/ideatracker/artisan'

Store this in your ~/.bashrc if you like.

Roll back everything in the db to empty:

> artisan migrate:reset

Note, this will kill your login, too. You'll have to re-register.

Gotchas / Lessons Learned

• If you're using jQuery with Vue3, and you don't have a jQuery-Vue plugin of some type installed, you might have to do some funky stuff. Below, I show how to pass 'this' to the jQuery .on() click event handler, so that we can use it and the other this, which is a different one/context (obviously?), within the callback. We use them both.

    211    // listen for the onClick event on all table rows (tr)
    212    $( "#myTable tbody" ).on( "click", "tr", {thisArg: this}, function(event) {
    213        //console.log(this);                // produces '<tr class="even">...</tr>'
    214        //console.log(event.data.thisArg);  // produces 'Proxy {route: ƒ…}'; aka the Vue component
    215        let data = myDataTable.row(this).data();
    216        event.data.thisArg.modal_title=data.codename;
    217        event.data.thisArg.idea.codename=data.codename;
    218        event.data.thisArg.idea.tagline=data.tagline;
    219        event.data.thisArg.idea.updated_at=data.updated_at;
    220        event.data.thisArg.showModal=true;
    221    });
  

• The datatables component's render() function within the ColumnDefs will fail for all rows/data if it fails for any rows/data. So, look out for null/missing datetimes, which was my case. Need a way to more-gracefully handle 'Invalid date' errors -- like log the problem row, then return a date that makes sense for the contenxt -- either epoch time, current datetime, or future time. Also, possibly allow for quick repair.

• If you want your web app/SPA (Single-Page App) to consume your API, one strategy with Laravel is to do what I did -- replace the 'api' middleware from the 'api' routes group (Lines 42-43 in app/Providers/RouteServiceProvider.php below) with the 'web' middleware.

  What this does, effectively, is to give your API routes the same security posture as your web routes -- which gives you the advantage of being able to keep your API routes separated functionally and semantically (in your api.php file) from your web routes (in your web.php file). This allows you to have a consistent way of knowing the contexts of these requests -- for instance, knowing when to return JSON vs. html/templates/components. What you lose for this extreme simplicity is rate limiting, a functionality built into the api middleware.

  The other option is to set up tokens/keys/JWTs/OAuth/etc using Laravel Sanctum or other tools. Also see: Laravel Middleware Groups. Some options could allow the relative simplicity of web route-oriented authentication/authorization, with API-centric capabilities like rate limiting -- which you may want depending on if you charge for access to your API, to prevent DDOS attacks/security, etc.

  NOTE: API Keys, alone, are often -- or generally -- no longer considered secure, or secure enough.

  36     public function boot()
  37     {
  38         $this->configureRateLimiting();
  39 
  40         $this->routes(function () {
  41             Route::prefix('api')
  42                 //->middleware('api') // removed
  43                 ->middleware('web') // added
  44                 ->namespace($this->namespace)
  45                 ->group(base_path('routes/api.php'));
  46 
  47             Route::middleware('web')
  48                 ->namespace($this->namespace)
  49                 ->group(base_path('routes/web.php'));
  50         });
  51     }