How can we use this repo?

Install

composer install

Next you can clone the .env.example file into the .env file. This means that you have to create the same file in the root directory under a different name e.g. .env and copy paste the same credentials like .env.example file.

Laravel has a built-in CLI tool called artisan. Your application must generate a unique base 64 key that Laravel uses behind the scenes to bootstrap this project.

Command:

php artisan key:generate

It will automatically find your .env file and place the base 64 value in the file.

Output inside the file:

APP_KEY=base64:T0huMR5Wx9EoDmjTxniKTofHD/7cOiDeVVD9eTKuCa0=

Additional Note:

As you can see it is necessary to create the .env file in your local to bootstrap the project. But Laravel contains 2 methods to connect to the database server.

• Use of the .env variables (I prefer this one)
• Use of the file located at the config/database.php

Use of the .env variables:

When you create this file with copy paste credentials you can see default; the database variables are written something like this:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql  
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1  
DB_PORT=3306  
DB_DATABASE=test_app  
DB_USERNAME=root  
DB_PASSWORD=

You can edit values according to your own database personal preference. I am using Postgres in this case.

Use of the file located at the config/database.php

Note: When Laravel bootstraps the project it gives priority to the .env file as compared to config/** files. You can see config/database.php file contains an associated array with default database settings like this.

return [
    
    'default' => env('DB_CONNECTION', 'mysql'),
    'connections' => [
        'mysql' => [
            'driver' => 'mysql',
            'url' => env('DATABASE_URL'),
            'host' => env('DB_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
            'port' => env('DB_PORT', '3306'),
            'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'forge'),
            'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'forge'),
            'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', ''),
            'unix_socket' => env('DB_SOCKET', ''),
            'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
            'collation' => 'utf8mb4_unicode_ci',
            'prefix' => '',
            'prefix_indexes' => true,
            'strict' => true,
            'engine' => null,
            'options' => extension_loaded('pdo_mysql') ? array_filter([
                PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA => env('MYSQL_ATTR_SSL_CA'),
            ]) : [],
        ],
    ]
    ]

You can only use these settings if variables from the .env file will be deleted. Otherwise, Laravel gives priority to .env variables.

Delete the variables from the .env:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=test_app
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

Lastly, Update the config/database.php with your database server settings:

'default' => env('DB_CONNECTION', 'pgsql')
'database' => env('DB_DATABASE', 'shop_test'),
'username' => env('DB_USERNAME', 'postgres'),
'password' => env('DB_PASSWORD', 'a')

Database

I am using Postgres and inside .env file my database server credentials are:

DB_CONNECTION=pgsql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1  
DB_PORT=5432
DB_DATABASE=shop_test
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_PASSWORD=a

However, your main server and database server get started.

Migration (Transform into real database tables)

At the last make sure after updating your database settings. Please use artisan CLI to migrate the database tables.

php artisan migrate

Seed & Adminstration credentials for Local & Remote

We can manage products & categories with Admin credentials.

For the local environment:

I created the additional Seeder class named UserSeeder.php for User Model which is located at the database/seeders/UserSeeder.php and ignoring the seeding with Model Factories. So, In local you can seed the User Model with this command.

php artisan db:seed

Behind the scenes it will seed the database with the test account in your database which has following creditenials.

name: admin
email: admin@admin.com
password: password

You can use this account in your local to manage products & categories.

For production Heroku:

The creditials for proudction site admin are:

name: admin
email: admin@admin.com
password: 12345678

Storage

For the local:

If you are using the repo in local environmnet, the database will store the image URL something like this.

http://localhost/storage/photos/nkI0CF8pLjIuRdPbL171ycACGKNrBYAZ4GYeyYdx.jpg

The URL http://localhost is taken from the environment variable (APP_URL) .env file. You can change the value according to your local hostname.

For local environments it is important, all uploaded items will store in the storage/app/public directory. Therefore, we need to use the artisan CLI command and create the storage/app/public directory shortcut (symlink) into public/storage.

Why? because the root public directory is meant to be web-accessible. That's why we're creating a shortcut of our storage/app/public directory into the public/storage directory.

To see uploaded photo in your local:

Please make sure you create the symlink of the following directory storage/app/public to public/storage. The command for this is:

php artisan storage:link

For the production:

Currently, the production version is using AWS S3 for the storage. If you want to use this repo and deploy it to other services like shared hosting or somewhere else. You can configure these 2 lines inside the ProductController.php according to your production environment.

Currently:

$path = $request->file('photo')->store('photos', self::getStorageEnvironment());

Modified:

$path = $request->file('photo')->store('photos', 'public');

Currently:

Product::create([
	'photo' => Storage::disk(self::getStorageEnvironment())->url($path)
]);

Modified:

Product::create([
	'photo' => Storage::disk('public')->url($path)
]);

Template I am using

Download Link

Deployment

Heroku

AWS S3