The document discusses the development of LaSalleCMS, a content management system created by the presenter using Laravel. It started as a blog application that the presenter enjoyed working on and expanded into a CMS. The presenter migrated their existing sites to use LaSalleCMS instead of other platforms like WordPress and Joomla. LaSalleCMS is still missing features but provided a learning experience for the presenter in Laravel development.

1. October 28, 2014 LaravelTO Presentation: LaSalleCMS 1

2. Presenting LaSalleCMS
● Popular first Laravel app is a blog
● To learn Laravel I developed a blog
● Enjoyed it so much I decided to keep
developing it for my own sites, and as a basis
for client work
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3. LaSalleCMS
● Called it LaSalleCMS
● Although dubbing it a “content management
system” is overstating things
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4. My Sites Switched to Blog App
● SouthLaSalle.com
– flagship site, was WordPress
● LaSalleMart.com
– ecommerce site, was Joomla
● LaSalleCMS.com
– new, originally to be Joomla Distro site
● LaSalleCAST.com
– new, podcasting app: NOV 2014
● SouthLaSalleMedia
– still WordPress, but will be based on LaSalleCAST
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5. Coming From Joomla
● 2007 to Apr 2014 Joomla freelance consultant
● Exec of Joomla User Group Toronto
● Virtuemart 1.x expert
● Created 3 rounds of LaSalleMart technology for
Joomla
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6. JUGT
● “J” and “Abivia”
deeply involved
with Joomla
Project
● Doug doing an
excellent job
leading JUGT
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8. Serious Version Mgmt Baggage
● Joomla changed Series 3 “LTS” versioning
policy in April 2014
● Described on my sites
● Upshot: increase risk of LaSalleMart 3.0
becoming prematurely obsolete, well before
any ROI achieved
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9. Quick About
● Live in Richmond Hill
● UofT BComm grad
● Have wonderful wife, three school-aged
children
● IT contractor in downtown towers before
freelancing
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10. Teach Thyself
● Laracasts
● Laravel Testing Decoded book
● Impressive amount/quality of online stuff
● Learn by doing
● Scope of learning so huge that felt like I was
back in class
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11. LaSalleCMS Tour
● A pedagogical exercise that became real
software
● Missing a zillion features
● Front-end and back-end
● User management for one user
● Enjoy putting user params in a text file with no
admin GUI
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12. LaSalleCMS Tour
● Contact form is a separate package
● No testing (sorry Adam) as I decided I needed
to understand Laravel first – I was right.
● Refactored to use Command Bus – eye opener!
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13. Folder Structure
● http://daylerees.com/breaking-the-mold
● /app/ for application infrastructure
● /src/ for app and psr-0
● /src/routes/ for all route files
● /src/plumbing/ for user-specified startup stuff
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14. lasallecms.php config
● app/config/lasallecms.php
● ever growing custom config params
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15. Domain specific sub-folders
● Well, maybe not really fit in with what a
“domain” really is... but as a practical matter...
● Each “thing” has its major “stuff” in its own sub-folders
● Eg: src/lasallecms/categories
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16. Add-on Packages
● https://github.com/bbloom/lasallecms/blob/master/composer.● Guzzle, commander, presenter, generators
(barely used), intervention (images, works
great!), sanitizer, feed, twitter, my contact pkg
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17. Repositories
● https://github.com/bbloom/lasallecms/tree/master/src/● src/lasallecms/repositories
● Interface & eloquent implementation for each
● Models very clean, repositories very busy
● Learned: code that does the heavy lifting has to
go somewhere, and is sometimes real world
irritatingly messy. I put the mess in the
repository files
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18. Base and Abstract Classes
● Learned that “base” and “abstract” classes are
important
● So important that regardless of current need I
always set up either a “base” or “abstract” class
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19. Views
● https://github.com/bbloom/lasallecms/tree/master/src/● View namespacing in plumbing/view_paths.php
● src/Lasallecms/views/admin & site
● Lasallecms.php config determines what
subfolder to use in ../site/user-specified
● using Blade, but intrigued by Twig
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20. Namespacing #1 PITA
● Spent more time on namespacing problems then
anything else
● composer update vs composer update --dev
● composer dump-autoload vs
composer dump-autoload -o
● Packages: secret handshake seems to be...
composer install --dev
composer update --dev
composer dump-autoload
composer dump-autoload -o
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21. Gave Up Trying to Pkg Blog App
● Set up app for eventual conversion to a
workbench package
● Successfully create content package as a
warm-up
● Blog app too huge
● Too many twists and turns
● Learned: workbench for modest add-ons
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22. Builds and Composer
● I prefer headers in my PHP, especially caveat
paragraph
● I need two GitHub repos: one for Packagist, and the
other for my actual coding
● So I can do search-replace with Phing for build
versions, etc.
● Need to do trial runs of this
● Paid packages? (Thought I'd sneak this into this
presentation)
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23. Thank You!
● Thank you to Chris
● Thank you to LaravelTO sponsors
● Thank you for being a great audience!
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24. Bob Bloom
● http://SouthLaSalle.com
● info@SouthLaSalle.com
● @bobbloom
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25. https://packagist.org/packages/
bbloom/contact
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27. Sites
● https://github.com/bbloom/lasallecms
● https://packagist.org/packages/bbloom/contact
● http://SouthLaSalle.com
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