Laravel Full Course Notes

Introduction

• Instructor: Victor
• Objective: Build an Instagram clone using Laravel from scratch.
• Focus on coding with no breaks, extensive learning.

What is Laravel?

• Fastest growing open-source PHP framework.
• Number one framework on GitHub.
• Easy for newcomers, powerful for enterprise projects.
• Strong community support.

Installing Laravel

1. Prerequisites:
   • General knowledge of PHP.
   • Composer installed (PHP dependency manager).
   • Node.js installed (includes NPM).
2. Install Laravel:
   • Use the Laravel installer: composer global require laravel/installer.
3. Create a new Laravel project:
   • Run command: laravel new FreeCodeGram.
4. Open project in IDE (PHPStorm).

Laravel Project Structure

• Composer.json file holds project assets.
• Artisan command line tool for application management.

Artisan Commands

• Run php artisan to see available commands.
• Common commands: php artisan serve, php artisan make:auth for authentication.

Basic Authentication Setup

• Use php artisan make:auth for user authentication setup.
• Users can register, log in, log out, and manage profiles.

Laravel Views and Blade Syntax

• Blade templating engine for rendering views.
• Use resources/views to manage view files.
• Blade syntax allows embedding PHP logic in views.

Creating Views

1. Create a directory for each main feature (e.g., profiles, posts).
2. Use Blade directives (e.g., @extends, @yield).
3. Use {{ }} for variable output and @auth, @guest for conditional content.

Image Handling

• Use the Intervention Image library for image resizing and manipulation.
• Install with: composer require intervention/image.
• Use in project with use Intervention\Image\Image.

User Profiles

• Each user has a profile.
• Profile creation upon user registration.
• Store profile images in a public directory accessible by the application.

Caching

• Use Laravel's caching features to optimize performance.
• Use cache()->remember() to cache counts for followers, posts, etc.

Sending Emails

• Use Laravel's Mailable feature to send emails (e.g., welcome email upon registration).
• Configure mail settings in .env file.
• Use Mail::to()->send(new WelcomeMail()) to send emails.

Policies

• Use policies for authorization on user actions (e.g., updating profiles).
• Create a policy with php artisan make:policy ProfilePolicy.
• Implement authorization checks using the authorize() method.

Following Functionality

• Implement many-to-many relationships for user follows.
• Create a pivot table for profile_user.
• Use belongsToMany in the User and Profile models.

Pagination

• Use paginate() method in queries to limit results per page.
• Render pagination links using {{ $posts->links() }} in Blade views.

Telescope

• Laravel Telescope for monitoring application requests, queries, and logs.
• Install with composer require laravel/telescope and run php artisan telescope:install.

Final Thoughts

• Build a full-featured Instagram clone with user authentication, profile management, image uploads, and following functionality.
• Explore Laravel documentation and Laravel community resources for continued learning.