yii2 schema builder

GUI built on top of Gii, migration tool, and other extensions to quickly prototype and generate working apps

tunecino
18
5
PHP

Schema Builder

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GUI built on top of Gii, migration tool, and other extensions to quickly prototype and generate working apps.

schema-builder-cover

How it works

It is about two main things:

  • A user interface like a workbench tool to quickly prototype application schema (entities,attributes,relations,…)
  • A list of console commands dynamically generated based on the prototype and executed in terminal. Those commands should do stuff like cleaning DB, create and execute migrations, use Gii to generate models, CRUDs, …

‼️ IMPORTANT ‼️

This extension is meant to be used with new creations only. If Gii UI has the decency to ask before overriding stuff, this extension won’t. Its default Gii console commands are labeled by --interactive=0 and --overwrite=1 flags. So it will literally destroy your DATABASE plus any existing code found on its way.

Installation

In case you are starting new build based in the official advanced template to either create WEB or REST app then you may check tunecino/yii2-app-builder which is a fork of the advanced template to which I have added and configured this extension.

Otherwise, you can add this extension to your template of choice through composer by either running

php composer.phar require --prefer-dist tunecino/yii2-schema-builder "*"

or by adding

"tunecino/yii2-schema-builder": "*"

to the require-dev section of your composer.json file.

Usage

Once the extension is installed, add it to both web.php and console.php configuration files:

/* preferably to add under 'dev' environment */

if (YII_ENV_DEV) {
   
    $config['bootstrap'][] = 'builder';
    $config['modules']['builder'] = [
        'class' => 'tunecino\builder\Module',
        /**
	  * Optional Attributes
	  *
	  * 'allowedIPs' => ...
	  * 'yiiScript' => ...
	  * 'dataPath' => ...
	  * 'previewUrlCallback' => ...
	  * 'commands' => ...
	  */
    ]; 
}

You can then access it through the following URL:

http://localhost/path/to/index.php?r=builder

or http://localhost/path/to/index.php/builder depending on your app routing configurations. Also note that it is not required to name the module builder you can use schema-builder or any other name you like.

Once there, create your first schema (ex: admin, v1), set all its related configurations at once (form inputs are organized within different tabs) then click on the created schema to get into its view page and start adding entities (ex: user, book). To each entity you need to add attributes and define relationships if there is any (no need to declare any id or xxx_id columns as those will be auto generated). Once your schema is complete go back to its view page and hit that GENERATE button.

Optional Attributes

allowedIPs: The list of IP adresses allowed to access the builder tool. default to ['127.0.0.1', '::1'].

yiiScript: The path that points to ./yii script. default to @app/yii.

dataPath: Path to store GUI related data and settings. default to 'runtime/schema-builder/data'.

previewUrlCallback: If the preview link doesn’t correctly point to your resources, this is where you declare your own function to generate the correct link. see default implementation here.

commands: This is the array holding the list of commands to be dynamically generated. A command can be represented within a simple string, a callable function or a generator:

$commands = [
    // a string example representing the command to be executed
    'yii migrate/up --interactive=0',

    // a callable example returning a command or a list of commands to be executed
    function($schema) {
	// implement your logic here then
	// return either a string or an array of strings
    }

    // a custom generator (where you can also set default form values)
    [
        'class' => 'tunecino\builder\generators\model\Generator',
        'defaultAttributes' => [
            'ns' => 'api\modules\v1\models',
            'queryNs' => 'api\modules\v1\models',
        ],
    ],
];

Custom generators are required when you need to collect user inputs for settings. A generator should have a form.php file (like gii generators) that will be auto rendered in a separate tab with the schema create/update form. Related inputs will be saved within GUI data.

Default value of $commands is the following:

$commands = [
    ['class' => 'tunecino\builder\generators\migration\Generator'],
    ['class' => 'tunecino\builder\generators\module\Generator'],
    ['class' => 'tunecino\builder\generators\model\Generator'],
    ['class' => 'tunecino\builder\generators\crud\Generator']
];

Copy any of those classes from the extension and adapt it to your needs when you need to create a custom generator.

Keep in mind when building your own logic that both callable functions as generators have access to the $schema instance being selected. From that instance you can access to all the GUI ActiveRecord classes which are Attribute, Entity and Relationship. Please refer to tunecino\builder\models folder and see the code for more details.

Other example, an advanced example list of commands could also be seen here which are the related commands for generating working REST resources in the app template I linked before.

Built With

TODO

  • Entity primary and foreign keys may need to be improved. Maybe auto adding id and xxx_id attributes but giving option to edit or rename.
  • Code need more care: documentation.
  • Add command for a console app or map it to existing extension (if there are any) that uses Faker to fill DB with some dump data.
  • Add diagram generator to preview a selected schema (probably using skanaar/nomnoml or equivalent)
  • See if rebuild from scratch on each GENERATE could be avoided (probably introducing a new list of commands to use bizley/yii2-migration as alternative).

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details.