Kimino Config

Sounds weird. What is it?

It's a Laravel 5 package to quickly enable database setting and getting of administrator or application level settings; settings that might be tinkered with during the lifetime of an application.

What is it good for?

It's good for implementation preparedness around project specification that you sense - or know - will change in future. Also good for trialling different algorithms. Also good for experimenting with implementation or design specification that can't quite be decided by everyone. Also good for rulepacks.

So what's new in v0.0.5?

• Documentation
• Improved vanilla view
• Added Foundation view
• Commented and cleaned up the code
• Views, config and publics are publishable with vendor:publish (together or individually)

What does it come with?

• Migration for the settings table (you need to run this!)
• Optional Artisan command to seed some example settings
• Controller, routing and view to see and update settings on an HTML form
• Above form view is publishable into your project
• Publishable config file
• vanilla or Foundation HTML view (Foundation assets need to be published)
• Artisan command to view all / certain settings
• Artisan command to update a setting

How do I install this thing?

1. composer require danielrhodeswarp/kimino-config in your Laravel 5 project's home folder. (Or you can add danielrhodeswarp/kimino-config to your project's composer.json file - and then run composer install - if you know what you are doing.)
2. In the 'providers' bit of your project's config/app.php file add Danielrhodeswarp\KiminoConfig\KiminoConfigServiceProvider::class.
3. php artisan migrate --path=vendor/danielrhodeswarp/kimino-config/src/database/migrations to run the migration to create the kimino_configs table.
4. (If you want to override package config it's php artisan vendor:publish --tag=config. If you want to edit the views it's php artisan vendor:publish --tag=views. If you want to override the config to use the Foundation view it's php artisan vendor:publish --tag=public. Or of course publish everything with php artisan vendor:publish. Note that Kimino Config will work, using defaults, without publishing anything.)

How do I give it a quick check?

After installation, your-project.url/kimino-config will now show the only view that Kimino Config has - a page to view all the settings in the database and to update any of their values if necessary.

You won't have any settings yet. As a test you can add some dummy settings with php artisan kimino:seed-examples.

php artisan kimino:get-config will dump out all of the settings, something like:

Setting	Value	Valid values
other_leg	arbitrary-value
other_news	no	yes,no
something_auth_method	digest	basic,digest
something_trial_months	6

php artisan kimino:get-config other_news will dump out the specified setting, like:

Setting	Value	Valid values
other_news	no	yes,no

php artisan kimino:set-config other_leg will prompt for - and set if valid - a new value for the specified setting.

What do these settings look like in the database?

Settings have four fields in the database (and also an auto-incrementing id field):

Field	Can be null?	Description
setting	no	Name of setting. Words separated by underscores and must contain at least one underscore. Like something_or_other. Settings are grouped on the HTML form by prefix which is the word before the first underscore.
value	no	Value of setting. Will be empty string, any string or - if valid_values is not empty - one of the strings in valid_values
valid_values	yes	If empty, then the setting is free text. If set to a comma-separated (no spaces) list of words, then the setting value can only be one of those words (and this will be enforced when updating values with the HTML form or the Artisan command).
user_hint	yes	A human friendly explanation of the setting for whosoever might be tinkering with it on the HTML form

How do I add my own settings?

To add a basic free text setting you simply need to add a new database entry containing the setting name with relevant prefix in setting and the current or default value for the setting in setting. I would always recommend adding a nice, descriptive hint in user_hint at setting creation time too!

To add a setting with a restricted set of values, for example "queue emails: yes or no" or "heading font: courier, verdana or times", follow the same steps as above but also put the value restrictions in valid_values like yes,no or courier,verdana,times (respectively).

Note that, by design, there is no programmatic way to add a new setting. You can of course use a Laravel seed (created with, say, php artisan make:seeder SeedMyKiminos) something like:

<?php

//this is YourProject/database/seeds/SeedMyKiminos.php

use Illuminate\Database\Seeder;

use Danielrhodeswarp\KiminoConfig\KiminoConfig;

class SeedMyKiminos extends Seeder
{
    /**
     * Run the database seeds.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function run()
    {
        //some settings that we want
        $settings = [
            'sitebot_hometown' => [
                'value' => 'Parts Unknown',
                'valid_values' => null,
                'user_hint' => 'Where should we say that Sitebot comes from?'
            ],
            'sitebot_temperament' => [
                'value' => 'cranky',
                'valid_values' => 'cranky,irritable,curmudgeonly,peevish,churlish',
                'user_hint' => 'What sort of mood is Sitebot in?'
            ],
            //etc
        ];
        
        //loop through and add to DB (via Eloquent)
        foreach ($settings as $name => $setting) {
            $config = new KiminoConfig();
            
            $config->setting = $name;
            $config->value = $setting['value'];
            $config->valid_values = $setting['valid_values'];
            $config->user_hint = $setting['user_hint'];
            
            $config->save();
        }
    }
}

This seed can be run with php artisan db:seed --class=SeedMyKiminos which will add the settings to the database.

How do I use this in my project?

Here's a simple example:

<?php

//this is a controller, model, command etc in your project

use Danielrhodeswarp\KiminoConfig\KiminoConfig;

.
.
.

if(KiminoConfig::getSetting('other_news') == 'yes')
{
    showOtherNews();
}

else
{
    Log::debug('Other news not shown');
}

Note that KiminoConfig::getSetting('some-setting') will return NULL if some-setting does not exist in the database (hence setting values themselves can't be NULL). So, here is a more robust example:

<?php

//this is a controller, model, command etc in your project

use Danielrhodeswarp\KiminoConfig\KiminoConfig;

.
.
.

$settingValue = KiminoConfig::getSetting('very_important_setting');

if(is_null($settingValue))
{
    abort(500, 'Bad things have happened');
}

veryImportantThing($settingValue);

Here's a cute way to handle settings that have some valid_values set:

<?php

//this is a controller, model, command etc in your project

use Danielrhodeswarp\KiminoConfig\KiminoConfig;

.
.
.

class SomeClassInYourProject
{
    //configure auth method based on saved setting
	public function handleSomethingAuthMethod()
	{
		$authMethod = KiminoConfig::getSetting('something_auth_method');
		
		//call appropriate method based on setting value
        $this->{"setSomethingAuthMethod_{$authMethod}"}();
    }
    
    //set auth method to BASIC
    private function setSomethingAuthMethod_basic()
	{
		fancyThingToSetBasicAuth();
	}
	
    //set auth method to DIGEST
	private function setSomethingAuthMethod_digest()
	{
		CoolStuffToSetDigestAuth();
	}
}

You can of course use a smelly old switch / case instead.

Sounds great so far. Any gotchas to keep in mind?

• Kimino Config purposefully does not interact with Laravel's config/ folder or dotenv stuff. I see those settings as more infrastructural / servery / DevOpsish.

• Can't add a setting automatically via form or console.

What's next on your TODO list?

• Implement config for setting name separator
• Implement config for include_prefix_on_html_form_view
• Check if actually working in Laravel 5.0 and 5.1 (5.2 definitely OK)
• Check for BaseController of main including app (for security gates etc)
• Should probably make the migration publishable as well
• /vendor folder (and composer require?) for bundled Foundation stuff
• View for Twitter Bootstrap
• Session message after submitting form
• Document the KiminoConfig::withPrefix('prefix') local scope
• P'raps document some general examples of getting and looping through KiminoConfigs in a Laravel stylee

What's bugging you?

• Namespacing issues around a db:seed in a Composer package for Laravel...
• Seemingly can't introduce $variables in the return "<?php ... ?>" bit of Blade::directive()

Why is everything in this readme a question?

Why not? :D