Latest Posts

I stopped working on the Osm Admin project, for financial reasons. Did it hurt? A lot. Was it necessary? Unfortunately, yes. This post is a short retrospection on this matter.

Recently, I implemented mass-editing in Osm Admin. It allows you to view and edit multiple objects in a single operation.

This article describes mass-editing of products in a typical e-commerce application.

In the user interface, you can narrow displayed data using grid column filters, or filters displayed in the sidebar. To enable that, apply #[Filter\*] attributes to class properties.

Applied filters appear in the URL query parameters, for example, .../edit?id=5+16+19, and on the page.

You can apply filters not only to a grid page, but also to a form page - to mass edit all matching objects, or to an action URL (edit, delete, or custom) - to perform the action on all matching objects.

In the same way, you can apply filters to the API URLs in order to retrieve or modify matching objects in a script.

Today, I finished implementing an object creation form.

It works according to the specs on Interfaces and Forms. Currently, it only supports string and integer input fields; later, there will be a lot more.

Let's review how it works.

In Osm Admin, a form is an integral part of the class user interface. It's a very specific kind of HTML form.

In this article, I'll review what's in a class form, and how it's reflected from the application code.

Yesterday, I described a user interface pattern for managing data of a certain data class using a grid/form pair. Let's call this grid/form pair class interface in the admin area.

In this article, I'll examine what moving parts are inside a class interface.

So far, I've been concerned about how application data is modeled, stored and handled internally.

Yet, the final objective a user interface for viewing and editing it visually.

Let's dream a bit about how it might look like.

Yay, indexing works!

It's changed quite a bit, so let's review how it works from the very beginning.

I'm still working on indexing, and it seems to get one more refactoring. But more on that later.

Meanwhile, let's review Osm Admin modules, their responsibilities and dependencies.

After you got a project up and running, let's have a look what's inside. Every directory has its purpose. Learn where to put your creative efforts!

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.

In Osm Framework, an application is a set of modules that you run as a whole. There are several applications defined in the project, each having its own PHP class. Mostly, deal with the main one, Osm\App\App. Beside the class name, every application also has a name, the main one is named Osm_App.

Access the current application object, and the main parts of Osm Framework, via the global $osm_app object and its properties. Add your own long-living objects there. Run an application using its HTTP or console entry point, or using Apps::run().

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.

Modular software development is a well-known practice of dividing your application into several modules, each doing one thing, and doing it well. It increases readability and simplifies maintenance, as application concerns are fully separated from one another, easier to reason about, and to debug.

Modular development also encourages reuse. It's like a puzzle. Using one set of modules, you'll get an e-commerce application, using another set of modules - you'll get a blog application.

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.

Using dynamic traits, customize anything. Inject your code in the beginning, in the end, or instead of any standard method. Even more, add new properties and methods to the existing standard classes.

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.

Computed properties are one of Osm Framework pillars. They help to execute code only once, and only if it's actually needed. Computed properties control object serialization and caching. They provide meaningful insights into class interdependencies. Finally, computed properties are easy to test.

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.

Osm Framework uses Monolog library for logging. Use standard loggers defined in the $osm_app->logs object, or add your own. Control logging in the settings.{app_name}.php and .env.{app_name} files.

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.

After pushing changes to GitHub, osm.software website is updated without any additional manual action. On push, GitHub executes the deployment script on the production server. Most changes are done to content only, and in this case, the deployment script only updates the search index. Otherwise, with the website being on maintenance, it additionally updates Composer and Node dependencies, builds JS and CSS assets, and runs the database migrations.

Today, osm.software reached an important milestone - 100% Lighthouse score.

This article explains how to manage and assign blog categories.

Readers of osm.software blog can search the blog for a specific phrase, and narrow down listed articles using multi-select layered navigation. Let's see how it works under the hood.

Full-text search and layered navigation is a common feature for e-commerce applications. It's also used in this blog. Actually, it makes browsing any non-trivial data better. Under the hood, search and layered navigation interact with ElasticSearch, or other search engine, and this article describes how.

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.

This article explains how to write and publish blog posts.

Osm Framework is an open-source, insanely fast, unprecedentedly extensible, and fun to work with PHP 8 framework for creating modern Web applications. It's built on top of tried and tested Symfony and Laravel components.

Note. This post is moved to Osm Framework documentation.