CRUD Blog App

This is a PHP-based CRUD Blog App that uses PSR-4 autoloading that features pretty URLs, a custom caching system, authentication via delight-im/auth, PHP Mailer for sending email and flexible routing system. The CRUD system would allow admin/authors for creating posts and admins to manage categories. A public viewer can comment on a post.

Theme

This app is styled using Bootstrap 5.3 and I've made minor changes to the colour scheme. You can take a look at the theme files that are kept in public_html directory.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Core Functions
• Installation
• Configuration
• File Structure
• Usage
• Routing
• Caching
• Security
• Additional Notes

Features

• User Authentication: Registration, login, password reset, and email verification using delight‑im/auth.
• Post Management: Create, read, update, and delete posts with support for pretty URLs.
• Category Filtering: Browse posts by category.
• Dynamic Routing: Only allow valid post and category slugs.
• Caching System: File‑based caching that serves static pages for guest visitors and bypasses cache for dynamic content.
• Social Previews: Support for Open Graph and Twitter Cards (configurable in header files).
• Commenting: Comment system that has moderation/flag system

Core Function

The core functionality of this app is to use as a blogging application. All the requirements for the app to function is in the /src directory (The full file structure is given below). A sample /app dir and sample /public_html dir is added if you want to use this app as it is. If you want to have your own theme and system, you can use this app as follows:

<?php
   require_once __DIR__ . '../vendor/autoload.php';
   use App\Database;         //Database connection
   use Delight\Auth\Auth;    //Authentication with delight-im/auth
   use App\Controllers\PostController;       // To perform CRUD on posts
   use App\Controllers\CategoryController;   // To Manage categories
   use App\Controllers\CommentController;    // To Manage Coments

   // Instantiate classes
   $pdo = Database::getConnection();      //Connect to Database
   $auth = new Auth($pdo);                //Instantiate Authentication
   // Instantiate controllers for post, category, comments, etc.,
   $postController = new PostController();
   $categoryController = new CategoryController();
   $commentController = new CommentController();

Then you can access the methods by simply calling the methods as follows:

   $postController->create($userId,$title,$content,);    //To create a new post
   $postController->update($userId,$title,$content,);    //To update a post
   $postController->show($id); //To show a post by post id/slug

   $categoryController->createCategory($name, $slug);   // To create a new category
   $categoryController->updateCategory($id, $name, $slug);   // To update a category

   $commentController->saveComment($postId, $author, $email, $comment);   //To save a comment
   $commentController->getApprovedComments($postId);   //To get all approved comments

Each class is well commented on their uses, so feel free to explore the src directory. If you want a quick set up and just start posting then you can follow the steps below:

Installation

1. Clone the Repository

   git clone https://github.com/fdiengdoh/crud.git
   cd crud

2. Install Composer Dependencies

   Make sure you have Composer installed, then run:

   composer install

3. Set Up the Environment

   • Create a copy of the .env.example file (if provided) as .env in the project root.
   • Edit the .env file to include your database credentials, email settings, and any other configuration:

   # Database Settings
   DB_HOST=localhost
   DB_NAME=db_name
   DB_USER=db_user
   DB_PASS=password
   
   #Email Settings
   SMTP_HOST=smtp.email
   SMTP_USER=smtp.user
   SMTP_PASS=smtp.password
   SMTP_PORT=465
   MAIL_FROM=email@address
   MAIL_FROM_NAME="CRUD Blog App"
   
   # Website specific settings
   BASE_URL=https://yourdomain.com
   LOGIN_URL=https://your-domain.com
   FEATURED_POST=featured-post
   POSTS_PER_PAGE=5
   POPULAR_POST=3
   RECENT_POST=5
   HOME_POST=list,of,blog,for,home,page
   
   # Define Environment ad development or live
   ENVIRONMENT=development

4. Run the Installation Script

   • Navigate to your site in a browser (e.g., https://yourdomain.com/install.php).
   • Fill in the required fields (default admin email, username, password).
   • The installer will create the necessary database tables and a default admin user.
   • Important: Once installation is complete, remove or secure the install.php file.

Configuration

• init.php
  Loads environment variables, starts sessions, initializes the database and authentication systems.

• Cache Configuration
  Cache settings are stored in a configuration file (e.g., cache_config/config.php). Adjust the TTL (time-to-live) as needed.

File Structure

project-root/
├── app/
│   ├── admin/
│   │   ├── admin-categories.php      # Admin categories management
│   │   ├── admin-flag-comment.php    # Admin flag comments
│   │   ├── admin-panel.php           # Admin panel for various functions
│   │   ├── footer-auth.php           # Authenticated pages footer
│   │   ├── header-auth.php           # Authenticated pages header
│   │   ├── upload-image.php          # Upload images functionality
│   │   └── view-logs.php             # Admin view error logs for live environment
│   ├── include/
│   │   ├── footer.php                # Common footer for public pages
│   │   ├── header.php                # Common header for public pages
│   │   ├── nav.php                   # Common navigation for public pages
│   │   └── sidebar.php               # Common sidebar for public pages
│   ├── users/
│   │   ├── ajax_handler.php          # Ajax handler file
│   │   ├── edit-profile.php          # User edit profile
│   │   ├── forgot-password.php       # User forgot password function
│   │   ├── increment-view.php        # Increment views of a page
│   │   ├── login.php                 # Login function
│   │   ├── my-posts.php              # List users post
│   │   ├── post-create.php           # Create a new post
│   │   ├── post-delete.php           # Delete post
│   │   ├── post-edit.php             # Edit existing post
│   │   ├── profile.php               # View User's Profile
│   │   ├── register.php              # Register a new user
│   │   ├── reset-password.php        # Reset password of an existing user
│   │   └── verify.php                # Email based verification for new user
│   ├── 404.php                       # Public 404 Error page
│   ├── category.php                  # Public list of categories
│   ├── home.php                      # Public Home page
│   ├── report-comment.php            # Public report comments
│   └── single-post.php               # Public show a single post
├── cache_config/
│   └── config.php                    # Cache configuration file
├── logs/
│   └── error.log                     # Error logs for live environment
├── public_html/                      # Publicly accesible files
│   ├── assets/
│   │   ├── image/
│   │   │   ├── default-feature.jpg   # Default feature image in jpg
│   │   │   └── default-feature.webp  # Default feature image in webp
│   │   └── profile/
│   │       └── profile.png           # Default profile image
│   ├── css/
│   │   ├── carousel.css              # Carousel css
│   │   ├── carousel.min.css
│   │   ├── style.css                 # public pages style css
│   │   └── style.min.css
│   ├── uploads/                      # Uploaded images dir
│   ├── js/                           # vendor js
│   ├── blog-theme.html               # sample blog-theme in bootstrap 5
│   ├── category-theme.html           # sample category theme in bootstrap 5
│   ├── favicon.ico                   # sample favicon
│   ├── .htaccess                     # Sample .htaccess for routing
│   ├── index.php                     # index.ph file for routing pretty url
│   ├── install.php                   # install file for use at the start
│   └── theme.html                    # public home page theme
├── src/
│   ├── Controllers/                  # Various controller class
│   │   ├── AuthController.php
│   │   ├── CategoryController.php
│   │   ├── CommentController.php
│   │   ├── MediaController.php
│   │   ├── PostController.php
│   │   └── ProfileController.php
│   ├── Helpers/                      # Helper Class
│   │   ├── AuthHelper.php
│   │   └── Link.php
│   ├── Utils/
│   │   └── Cache.php                 # Cache class
│   ├── AuthConstants.php             # Role constants (ROLE_ADMIN, ROLE_AUTHOR, ROLE_SUBSCRIBER)
│   ├── Database.php                  # Database connection handler
│   ├── Mailer.php                    # Email-sending class using PHPMailer
│   └── ProfileManager.php            # Profile manager class
├── vendor/                           # Composer packages
├── composer.json                     # Composer dependencies configuration
├── composer.lock
├── .env                              # Environment configuration file
├── init.php                          # Global initialization file
└── MySQL.sql                         # Modified MySQL file from delight-im for installation

Usage

• Front-End Routing:
  The front controller in public/index.php handles all requests. It:

  • Checks for cached pages and serves them for GET requests (for guest users).
  • Uses allowed post and category slugs (retrieved from the database) to determine if the URL is valid.
  • Redirects invalid URLs to a 404 page.
  • Normalizes category URLs to include page numbers (e.g., /search/label/blog/1).

• Admin and User Pages:
  Authentication is handled by delight‑im/auth. Users can log in, manage posts, update profiles, etc.

• Caching:
  Pages are cached as static HTML files based on the full request URI (e.g., /search/label/blog/1).
  Admin can clear all cache if needed, or you can just use ?refresh=1 to force a refresh if needed.

Routing

The router uses a routeFile variable to determine which page to include based on the URL path. For example:

• / loads home.php
• /profile/username loads users/profile.php
• /search/label/blog/1 loads category.php (with page number normalized)
• Otherwise, the system assumes the URL is a post slug and loads single-post.php
• Invalid URLs redirect to /404.html

Caching

• Cache Key Generation:
  The cache key is based on the normalized request URI. For category pages, the page number is appended (e.g., /search/label/blog/1).

• Clearing Cache:
  You can clear specific pages or all cache using the methods in App\Utils\Cache.

Security

• Authentication:
  delight‑im/auth is used for secure login and session management.
• HTTPS Enforcement:
  .htaccess that enforces HTTPS.
• CSP and Other Headers:
  Additional security headers are set to protect against clickjacking and content sniffing pre-build in delight-im/auth.
• Cache Bypass for Authenticated Users:
  Only guest visitors receive cached pages, ensuring authenticated users always see dynamic content.

Additional Notes

• Development vs. Production:
  Make sure to update error reporting and caching settings in your .env file for production.
• Further Improvements:
  Future improvements might include autosave, social meta tags, and more.