README

A PHP application skeleton for the Quellabs Canvas Framework.

Quick Start

Create a new Canvas application using Composer:

composer create-project quellabs/canvas-skeleton my-app
cd my-app

That's it! The skeleton will automatically:

Set up the complete directory structure
Copy configuration files
Install all dependencies
Configure proper permissions

What's Included

Directory Structure

my-app/
├── src/                   # Application logic
│   ├── Controllers/       # Request controllers
│   └── Aspects/           # Aspect-Oriented Programming aspects
├── config/                # Configuration files
├── public/                # Web server document root
│   ├── index.php          # Application entry point
│   └── .htaccess          # Apache URL rewriting
├── templates/             # Views
├── storage/               # Application storage
└── .env                   # Environment configuration

Pre-configured Features

URL Rewriting: Clean URLs with Apache .htaccess
Environment Configuration: .env file for application settings
Autoloading: PSR-4 autoloading ready for your application classes
Directory Structure: Organized folders for a clean project layout

Getting Started

1. Configure Your Environment

Edit the .env file to match your setup:

APP_NAME="My Canvas App"
APP_URL=http://localhost:8000

DSN=mysql://root:root@localhost:3306/database_name?charset=utf8mb4

2. Start the Development Server

php -S localhost:8000 -t public

Visit http://localhost:8000 to see your application running.

3. Start Building

Create your application logic in the src/ directory and controllers in the src/Controllers/ directory according to the Canvas framework documentation.

Requirements

PHP: 8.2 or higher
Composer: For dependency management
Web Server: Apache (with mod_rewrite), Litespeed or Nginx

Framework Documentation

For detailed documentation about the Canvas framework features:

Canvas Framework Repository
Canvas Documentation (coming soon)

Development

Refer to the Canvas Framework documentation for details on:

Creating controllers
Defining routes
Working with views
Database integration
Testing your application

Optional Canvas Packages

Enhance your Canvas application with these optional packages:

Templating:

composer require quellabs/canvas-smarty

Adds Smarty templating engine support for powerful template rendering.

ORM:

composer require quellabs/objectquel

Provides ObjectQuel ORM for elegant database interactions and object-relational mapping.

Deployment

Apache Configuration

The included .htaccess file handles URL rewriting for Apache. Ensure mod_rewrite is enabled.

Nginx Configuration

For Nginx, add this to your server block:

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}

Production Environment

Update your database DSN for production

Set proper file permissions:

chmod -R 755 storage/
chown -R www-data:www-data storage/

Contributing

This skeleton is maintained by the Canvas team. If you find issues or have suggestions:

Check the Canvas Framework Issues
Submit issues to the Canvas Skeleton Repository

License

The Canvas Application Skeleton is open-sourced software licensed under the MIT license.

Support

Documentation: Canvas Docs
Issues: GitHub Issues
Discussions: GitHub Discussions

quellabs / canvas-skeleton

Maintainers

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