MuscaKit CMS

MuscaKit is an Open Source MVC framework and Content Management System. It was created in 2012 in an interactive agancy in Barcelona and was intended for rapid development of small to medium-size websites and any kind of internet application.

On-line demo

Demo application is avaliable here.
Administration panel is here.
Login using username: demo and password: demo

Server Requirements

• PHP >= 5.3
• Apache with mod_rewrite enabled (or equivalent)
• MySQL database

3 steps instalation

1. Download files from github
2. Create a MySQL database and import SQL file that you will find in downloaded files in protected/muscakit.sql
3. Set up access to the database in two configuration files: protected/config.php and admin/protected/config.php

Done! Now open a web browser and go to a directory where index.php is located and you should see a "Hello world" page.

Administration panel

You can access administration panel at URL your_app_url/admin using username: demo and password: demo
To change username and password click "Hello demo" link in the top right corner in administration panel.

Application structure

There are 2 basic ways how you can structure your application: Standard MVC Structure and Modularized Structure

Standard MVC Structure

In Standard MVC Structure files are organized in three basic folders, one folder for each of MVC layer. We have a folder with Controllers, a folder with Models and a folder with Templates:

protected
----Controllers
--------IndexController.php
--------NewsController.php
----Models
--------ProductModel.php
--------NewsModel.php
----templates
--------layout.tpl
--------home.tpl
--------contact.tpl

This approach is preferable for smaller applications, when there are only a few controllers. However, it is not scalable. When you start adding additional functionality to the app this kind of file structure becomes inconvinient to maintain. Once you have more than 10 controllers it becomes more difficult to find a specific file. In that case it is better to use Modularized Structure

Modularized Structure

In Modularized Structure ¹ the Modules folder will contain modules - the actual parts of your application. You can think of modules as mini applications. Each module has it’s own folder that contain it’s controllers, models and templates. If the module has multiple templates, files can be further distributed into Controllers, Models and templates subfolders.

protected
----Modules
--------Home
------------HomeController.php
------------home.tpl
--------News
------------Controllers
----------------NewsController.php
------------Models
----------------NewsModel.php
----------------TagsModel.php
------------templates
----------------list.tpl
----------------details.tpl

Standard MVC and Modularized Structure can coexist and you can use both at the same time.

Front Controller

All page requests are processed by the Front Controller file index.php that is located in the root folder.

Routing

MuscaKit offers automatic routing. This means that the router is trying to find a controller and action matching the given URL.
Following routes are possible:

http://domain.com 							>> \Controllers\IndexController->index()
http://domain.com/product 					>> \Controllers\ProductController->index()
http://domain.com/product/all		 		>> \Controllers\ProductController->all()
http://domain.com/product/details/123 		>> \Controllers\ProductController->details(123)
http://domain.com/shop/product/details/123	>> \Modules\Shop\ProductController->details(123)

Default controller name is IndexController and default action name is index(). If controller name or action name consist of multiple words they can be separated in URL by character - or _ or glued:

http://domain.com/myproducts/showlatest	>> \Controllers\MyProductsController->showLatest()
http://domain.com/my-products/show-latest	>> \Controllers\MyProductsController->showLatest()
http://domain.com/my_products/show_latest	>> \Controllers\MyProductsController->showLatest()

Controllers

Controllers are located in protected/Controllers folder and are autoloaded by Composer. Controller class name should finish with word Controller, eg.: ProductController.
The class should extend \MuscaKit\Controller class.
Public controllers' methods can be called by the router we will refer to them as actions.

Models

Models are located in protected/Models folder and are autoloaded by Composer.

Templates

Templates are located in protected/templates folder.
Smarty Template Engine is used for writing templates.
Smarty object can be accessed inside a controller by template property:

$this->template->assign('param', $param);
$this->template->display('home.tpl');

Template inheritance

A template can extend layout file, for example:

home.tpl

{extends file="layout.tpl"}
{block name=content}
    Hello World!
{/block}

layout.tpl

<html>
<head>
	{block name=css}{/block}
</head>
<body>
	{block name=content}{/block}
	{block name=javascript}{/block}
</body>
</html>

Internationalization

Translation of web application includes:

• translation of static texts and images (in templates, controllers)
• translation of database tables content (eg. posts, products etc)
• translation of URLs

Internationalization also provides the posibility to switch languages.

Languages

Languages available in the application are configured in /protected/config/config.php file.

Translation of static content

Translation of dynamic content

Translation of URLs

Coding standards

Any naming standard is better than no standard. What is important is to be consistent.

PHP

PSR-0

• Valid namespace format: \<Vendor Name>\(<Namespace>\)*<Class Name>

PSR-1

• Class names MUST be declared in StudlyCaps
• Method names MUST be declared in camelCase
• Class constants MUST be declared in all upper case with underscore separators

PSR-2

• Code MUST use 4 spaces for indenting, not tabs
• Opening braces for control structures (if, for, etc.) must go on the same line and closing braces must go on the next line after the body

MySQL

• Table name (plural): my_products
• Field name: first_name
• many-to-many relation table name: order_has_product
• primary key column name: id

MongoDB

• Collection name: my_products (plural)
• Field name: first_name

JavaScript

• Class name: MyClassName
• JSON: { ‘this_is_a_key’: ‘value’ }

CSS

• Class name: my-class-name (like in Bootstrap)
• In classes names avoid using general names like .item or .visible (from Bootstrap), because it may case conflicts between various parts of the page. Be specific. Create unique selectors by including parents (.carousel .item) or by using prefixes (.carousel-item)

References

1: AngularJS Best Practices: Directory Structure by Adnan Kukic