Modules Development

Modules are what make your CodeIgniter Skeleton application function. If you are not familiar with this term or how it works, please make sure to google it. I highly recommend googling how to create modules for CodeIgniter v3.x and only read the rest of this page if you are ready, because this is how to create modules for CodeIgniter Skeleton.

Creating Modules

Modules have two localtions: application\modules or content\modules. The location only matters if you want your modules to include assets, such as CSS files, JS files, images or other, in this case it is better to put them in the content\modules folder.

Modules can have their own config files, controllers, models, libraries or drivers, views and assets (if public).

Modules must come with manifest.json (or at least the distribution file manifest.json.dist) in which you provide infos about the module that's only used to be displayed on the admin panel. If manifest files are missing, modules aren't even considered nor loaded.

Here is an example of the manifest.json file of a module called DinaPress, which turns your CodeIgniter Skeleton application into a fully functional Content Management System:

{
    "name": "DinaPress",
    "description": "Turns your CodeIgniter Skeleton into a Content Management System",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "license": "MIT",
    "license_uri": "http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT",
    "author": "Kader Bouyakoub",
    "author_uri": "https://github.com/bkader",
    "author_email": "bkader@mail.com",
    "admin_menu": "DinaPress",
    "menu_order": 0,
    "enabled": true,

    "routes": {
        "(post|category|archive|author)/(.*)": "dinapress/$1/$2"
    },

    "submenu": {
        "categories": "categories",
        "posts": "Posts",
        "comments": "Comments",
        "settings": "lang:settings"
    },

    "translations": {
        "categories": {
            "french": "Catégories",
            "arabic": "التصنيفات"
        },
        "posts": {
            "french": "Articles",
            "arabic": "المقالات"
        },
        "comments": {
            "french": "Commentaires",
            "arabic": "التعليقات"
        }
    }
}

Allow me to explain some main keys here since the rest is pretty straightforward:

• enabled: if this is provided and set to true your module will be automatically enabled upon its first installation only, otherwise, it will be normally enabled/disabled like other components.
• routes: you have two options to provide routing. The first one is what you see on the manifest.json file and the second option is the regular way, which is using the config\routes.php file inside your module's folder.

More about modules will be added here soon!