Build a notepad application with PHP, MongoDB, and IBM Bluemix - by Vikram Vaswani

© Copyright IBM Corporation 2015 Trademarks
Build a notepad application with PHP, MongoDB, and IBM
Bluemix
Page 1 of 10
Build a notepad application with PHP, MongoDB, and
IBM Bluemix
Store and search free-form text notes in the cloud on a mobile or
desktop web browser
Vikram Vaswani (vikram@melonfire.com)
Founder and CEO of Melonfire
Melonfire
15 December 2015
This article shows you to use IBM Bluemix® to build and deploy a web-based notepad
application with PHP, MongoDB, and Bootstrap. It uses MongoDB for fast and scalable
document storage, the Slim PHP micro-framework for the application's business logic, and
Bootstrap for a responsive, mobile-friendly user interface.
Users no longer want to confine their content — photos, music, and documents — to a single
desktop or laptop computer. Instead, they want it to be available everywhere, equally accessible
from their mobile devices and their office desktop. To satisfy this need, there's been an explosion
in the number and variety of cloud storage services, each offering storage and sync facilities so
that users have access to their data at any time, from anywhere.
Powerful tools from IBM developerWorks
Get up and running in the cloud with a developerWorks Premium membership. Among
its many perks, you get a 12-month subscription to Bluemix, plus $240 USD in credits for
developing apps with Bluemix services (such as Watson, IoT, and mobile). Check out all the
benefits of a developerWorks Premium membership.
If you're a developer thinking about building such a service, now is a great time to get started.
Cloud infrastructure has become more economical and developer-friendly without any loss of
stability or scalability. Plus, the widespread availability of tools for building native mobile and
mobile web applications means that developing, testing, and deploying new mobile-friendly
applications are much simpler tasks than they used to be.

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In this tutorial, I'll walk you through the process of building a simple notepad application that lets
users store and search free-form text notes in the cloud using a mobile or desktop web browser. I'll
also show you how to deploy and run the application on the IBM Bluemix® cloud platform.
What you'll need
The example notepad application allows users to create and enter an unlimited number of text
notes, and also edit, search, and delete notes. In addition, users can color code notes for easy
categorization or identification.
On the client, I'll use Bootstrap to create a mobile-friendly user interface for the application. On
the server, I'll use Slim, a PHP micro-framework, to manage the application flow and connect and
retrieve data from MongoDB.
To follow the steps in this article, you will need:
• A basic familiarity with Bootstrap, PHP, and MongoDB
• A local PHP development environment with either Apache (with mod_rewrite and .htaccess
file support) or nginx
• A local or remote deployment of MongoDB with a configured database, user, and password;
you can obtain a free or paid deployment of MongoDB by registering for a MongoLab account
• A Bluemix account (register for your free trial account or log in to Bluemix if you already have
an account)
• Composer, the PHP dependency manager
• The CloudFoundry command-line tool
• A text editor or IDE
“ This notepad application uses MongoDB for fast and
scalable document storage, the Slim PHP micro-framework
for business logic, and Bootstrap for a responsive, mobile-
friendly user interface. ”
Get the code on GitHub
Step 1. Create the bare application
1. The first step is to create a bare application containing the Slim PHP micro-framework. You
can download and install it by using Composer, the PHP dependency manager. Use this
Composer configuration file, which should be saved to <$APP_ROOT>/composer.json (<
$APP_ROOT> refers to your project directory):
{
"require": {
"slim/slim": "2.*"
}
}
2. Install Slim using Composer with the following command:
shell> php composer.phar install
3. Next, set up the main control script for the application. This script will load the Slim framework
and initialize the Slim application. It will also contain callbacks for each of the application's

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routes, with each callback defining the code to be executed when the route is matched to
an incoming request. Because the application must support listing, viewing, adding, editing,
deleting, and searching notes, you can define the URL routes /index, /view, /save, and /
delete as shown below. Save this script as <$APP_ROOT>/index.php.
<?php
// use Composer autoloader
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
require 'config.php';
// configure Slim application instance
// initialize application
$app = new SlimSlim(array(
'debug' => true,
'templates.path' => './views'
));
$app->config = $config;
// index page handlers
$app->get('/', function () use ($app) {
$app->redirect($app->urlFor('index'));
});
// handler to list available notes in database
// if query string included
// filter results to match query string
$app->get('/index', function () use ($app) {
// code here
})->name('index');
// handler to display add/edit form
$app->get('/save(/:id)', function ($id = null) use ($app) {
// code here
});
// handler to process form input
// save note content to database
$app->post('/save', function () use ($app) {
// code here
});
// handler to delete specified note
$app->get('/delete/:id', function ($id) use ($app) {
// code here
});
// handler to display specified note
$app->get('/view/:id', function ($id) use ($app) {
// code here
});
// hook to add request URI path as template variable
$app->hook('slim.before.dispatch', function() use ($app) {
$app->view()->appendData(array(
'baseUri' => $app->request()->getRootUri()
));
});
$app->run();
4. Notice the 'slim.before.dispatch' hook, which retrieves the current request URL (including
any sub-directory paths) and makes it available as a template variable named $baseUri. This
maximizes portability, as it allows you to move your application to a different directory path on

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the web server without needing to rewrite the URL paths in your views. You can see this in
action in the various templates in the source code repository.
5. You will also need to construct a base user interface that can be used for the various views
rendered by the app. Here's an example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
<title>Cloud Notepad</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/
bootstrap.min.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap-
theme.min.css">



</head>
<body>
<div class="panel panel-default">
<div class="panel-heading clearfix">
<h4 class="pull-left">Notes</h4>
</div>
</div>


<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
With all the pieces in place, you can now start building out the application itself.
Step 2. Add notes
Essentially, a note consists of three properties: a 'title', a 'body', and a 'color'. These values
will be provided by the user. Each note will also include two additional properties: a unique 'id',
which identifies the note in the MongoDB collection, and an 'updated' property, which stores the
time that the note was last modified.
It's easy enough to build a form to match these properties. Here's what it looks like:

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<form method="post" action="<?php echo $this->data['baseUri']; ?>/save">
<input name="id" type="hidden" value="<?php echo $this->data['note']['_id']; ?>" />
<div class="form-group">
<label for="title">Title</label>
<input type="title" class="form-control" id="title" name="title" placeholder="Title" value="<?php
echo htmlspecialchars($this->data['note']['title']); ?>">
</div>
<label for="color">Color</label>
<input type="color" class="form-control" id="color" name="color" placeholder="Color" value="<?php
echo$this->data['note']['color']; ?>">
</div>
<label for="body">Content</label>
<textarea name="body" id="body" class="form-control" rows="3"><?php echo htmlspecialchars($this-
>data['note']['body']); ?></textarea>
</div>
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-default">Save</button>
</div>
</form>
Notice that the form uses the new HTML5 'color' input type, which automatically produces a
color palette or color slider, allowing the user to select from a range of colors for each note. The
selected color is returned as a hexadecimal value.
To reduce duplication, it makes sense to reuse this form for editing existing notes. That's why the
form includes a hidden 'id' field, which will remain empty for new notes. The system can use the
presence or absence of this identifier to determine whether to create a new note in the database or
to update an existing one.
Here's the code fragment that initializes the database connection, using information sourced from
the <$APP_ROOT>/config.php file:
<?php
// attach configuration to application
$app->config = $config;
// extract database name from URI
// initialize PHP Mongo client
$dbn = substr(parse_url($app->config['db_uri'], PHP_URL_PATH), 1);
$mongo = new MongoClient($app->config['db_uri'], array("connectTimeoutMS" => 30000));
$db = $mongo->selectDb($dbn);
Once the form is submitted to the /save endpoint, the form processor must first validate and
sanitize the POST input, and then save it to the database. Here's what the callback function for
that process looks like:

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<?php
// handler to process form input
// save note content to database
$app->post('/save', function () use ($app, $db) {
$collection = $db->notes;
$id = trim(strip_tags($app->request->post('id')));
$note = new stdClass;
$note->title = trim(strip_tags($app->request->post('title')));
$note->body = trim(strip_tags($app->request->post('body')));
$note->color = trim(strip_tags($app->request->post('color')));
$note->updated = time();
if (!empty($id)) {
$note->_id = new MongoId($id);
}
$collection->save($note);
The code above sanitizes the POST input and sets the value of the 'updated' property to the
current time. Depending on whether the POST input contains an identifier, it either creates a new
MongoDB document for the note or uses the identifier to update an existing document with the
revised content.
Here's an example of what adding a new note looks like:
Step 3. List and search notes
Being able to add and update notes is just part of the picture; you also need to be able to list and
search for notes. Listing them is trivial: Simply update the callback for the /index route to retrieve
all the documents in the collection using the MongoDB client's find() method and hand them to
the view, sorted with the most recently updated first.

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<?php
$app->get('/index', function () use ($app, $db) {
$notes = $collection->find()->sort(array('updated' => -1));
$app->render('index.tpl.php', array('notes' => $notes));
})->name('index');
Here's an example of what the output looks like:
If you have a large number of notes, listing them all isn't very practical. Ideally, you also want a
way to search note content for one or more keywords, so that you can quickly find the information
you're looking for.
1. The first step is to update the listing template with an additional search field, as shown below:
<div class="panel panel-default">
<form method="get" action="<?php echo $this->data['baseUri']; ?>/index">
<div class="input-group">
<input type="text" name="q" class="form-control" placeholder="Search for...">
<span class="input-group-btn">
<button type="submit" class="btn btn-default">Go!</button>
</span>
</div>
</form>
</div>
2. When a user enters a search term into the field, it's necessary to modify the generic "find
all documents" handler and retrieve only those documents where the 'title' or 'body'
properties contain a match to the search term. Here's the revised code:
<?php
// if query string included
// filter results to match query string
$app->get('/index', function () use ($app, $db) {
$q = trim(strip_tags($app->request->get('q')));
$where = array();
if (!empty($q)) {
$where = array(
'$or' =>

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array(
array(
'title' => array('$regex' => new MongoRegex("/$q/i"))),
array(
'body' => array('$regex' => new MongoRegex("/$q/i")))
)
);
}
$notes = $collection->find($where)->sort(array('updated' => -1));
$app->render('index.tpl.php', array('notes' => $notes));
})->name('index');
As the code above illustrates, when requests to the /index route include a query string, the
handler will generate an additional condition that returns only notes containing the search
term (expressed as a PHP MongoRegex object) in their title or body. This additional condition
is expressed in the $where variable, which is passed to the find() method as an additional
argument. The resulting data is transferred to the view and presented as before.
Here's an example of it in action:
Step 4. View and delete notes
You'll notice, from the previous image, that each note in the list includes a View button. This button
is hyperlinked to the /view route and includes the document ID for the corresponding note as a
request parameter. The /view callback handler merely needs to retrieve the specified note from
the database using the MongoDB client's findOne() method and display it, as shown in the code
below:
<?php
// handler to display specified note
$app->get('/view/:id', function ($id) use ($app, $db) {
$note = $collection->findOne(array('_id' => new MongoId($id)));
$app->render('view.tpl.php', array('note' => $note));
});
Here's an example of what the output looks like:

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Similarly, the /delete handler receives a document ID as a request parameter and uses the
MongoDB client's remove() method to delete the corresponding note from the database.
<?php
// handler to delete specified note
$app->get('/delete/:id', function ($id) use ($app, $db) {
$collection->remove(array('_id' => new MongoId($id)));
});
Step 5. Deploy to Bluemix
1. At this point, the application is complete and can be deployed to Bluemix. First, update
the application configuration file and modify the database credentials so that they point to
your remote MongoDB database deployment. Then, create the application manifest file,
remembering to use a unique host and application name by appending a random string to it
(such as your initials).
---
applications:
- name: notes-[initials]
memory: 256M
instances: 1
host: notes-[initials]
buildpack: https://github.com/cloudfoundry/php-buildpack.git
stack: cflinuxfs2
2. The Cloud Foundry PHP buildpack doesn't include the PHP MongoDB extension by default,
so you must configure the buildpack to enable this extension during deployment. Create a <
$APP_ROOT>/.bp-config/options.json file with the following content:
{
"WEB_SERVER": "httpd",
"PHP_EXTENSIONS": ["bz2", "zlib", "curl", "mcrypt", "mongo"]
}
3. You can now go ahead and push the application to Bluemix.
shell> cf api https://api.ng.bluemix.net
shell> cf login
shell> cf push
4. You can start using the application by browsing to the host specified in the application
manifest (for example, http://notes-<initials>.mybluemix.net). If you see a blank page or other
errors, see "Debugging PHP Errors on IBM Bluemix" to find out where things are going wrong.

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Conclusion
It's never been easier to build desktop or mobile web applications backed by cloud infrastructure
and storage. By combining the Bluemix PaaS infrastructure with MongoDB, PHP, the Slim
framework, and Bootstrap, you have a complete set of tools to create, deploy, and scale your own
cloud-based applications quickly and efficiently.
RELATED TOPIC: More tutorials by Vikram Vaswani
RELATED TOPIC: Bluemix fundamentals (tutorial series)
RELATED TOPIC: Getting started with Bluemix (online course)
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2015
(www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml)
Trademarks
(www.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/trademarks/)

Build a notepad application with PHP, MongoDB, and IBM Bluemix - by Vikram Vaswani

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