PHBeam Engine

PHBeam is simple and fast PHP micro-framework. It has no any admin panel. All data and config stored by PHP or JSON files.

It is good for building sites with dozens of pages and even with small product catalogs or galleries.

Requirements

You need a web server with PHP >= 5.4. No database required.

Installation

PHBeam can be installed in one of the following ways:

1. Using Composer (Recommended):

Ensure Composer is installed.
Run this command in the directory where you want to create your new PHBeam project:
```
composer create-project nikomtis/phbeam myproject
```
This method will automatically download PHBeam and install all necessary dependencies.

2. Cloning the Git Repository:

Clone the repository using:

git clone https://github.com/nikomtis/phbeam.git myproject

After cloning, navigate to the project directory (cd myproject) and run composer install to install dependencies.

3. Manual Installation:

Download the latest version as a zip file from PHBeam Releases.
Extract it to your desired location and manually install dependencies if necessary.

Post-Installation Configuration:

For all installation methods, configure your web server to use public/index.php as the entry point. This typically involves setting the DocumentRoot or equivalent directive in your web server's configuration.

Setting up your project

To create a website with PHBeam Engine you should follow these steps:

Add menus and menu items (routes)
Fill PHP files with HTML code and meta tags for each page
Define page layouts if you have different content structure on different pages
Create modules with equal or similar content that appears on many pages

Let's review all these steps one by one.

Adding routes (menu items)

Any webpage can be displayed for users only if it presents in one of the menu files.

menus/ directory stores menu files with website routes. We have one menu named main out of the box. Let's look into the file main.php:

<?php

return [
    '' => [
        'file' => 'home',
        'name' => 'Home',
        'layout' => '',
        'body_class' => '',
    ],
];

There is only one menu item, or route.

Each key on the first level of the array is the page URL. Array element having empty URL matches website home page. Leading slashes are skipped by router.

Each menu item contains 4 fields:

file (required) is name of the file (without extension) in content/ directory that contains HTML code for this page; if that file is in subdirectory (e.g. content/subdirectory/page.php), field must filled like that: 'file' => 'subdirectory/page'
name (optional) is menu item display name; you can use it to render navigation menu
layout (optional) is layout name that should be used by page; if field does not present or it is empty, page will use default_layout value from config.php
body_class (optional) is CSS class that will be applied to <body> HTML tag; if field does not present or it is empty, page will use default_body_class value from config.php

Feel free to add your own fields that can be used, for example, for special navigation menu styling or scripts.

If you want to add a new menu item for some page, menu file will look like:

<?php

return [
    '' => [
        'file' => 'home',
        'name' => 'Home',
        'layout' => '',
        'body_class' => '',
    ],
    'about' => [ // Page will be available on example.com/about
        'file' => 'about', // Page file with HTML code is "content/about.php"
        'name' => 'About us', // We want this name in navigation menu
    ]
];

In "Creating modules" section we will see how to render navigation menu.

Registering new menu

If your website have only one navigation menu (Home, About, Contacts and so on), you have to add menu items to main menu file. But you may need to have more than one nav, e.g. secondary menu in the sidebar. Then create new menu file secondary.php in menus/ directory and register it in config.php:

...
'menus' => [
    'main',
    'secondary', // Separate menu for sidebar
],
...

Filling site with content

content/ directory stores files that presents webpages content.

Each page may have up to 3 files. Look to example for page named "home" (menu file stores page names):

home.php will contain HTML code for this page
home_meta.php will store title, description and keywords that will be inserted in <head> HTML tag
home_modules.php will control which modules will be rendered in every specified position

So to add a new page you should create at least one file with name that you spicified in menu.

Also there is a special page named "404". It will render if there is no menu item for requested route. You can operate with it's files too.

Defining page layouts

layouts/ directory stores page layouts. Layouts are wrappers for your pages content.

There is layout.php file that contains primary markup for your website. This is right place for adding fonts, stylesheets and scripts. You can use phb_insert_css() and phb_insert_js() functions to add local CSS and JS files. If you want to add stylesheet from public/css/main.css file, just do something like this:

<head>
    ...
    <?php phb_insert_css('main'); ?>
    ...
</head>

and it will be rendered as:

<head>
    ...
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/main.css?v=1531560805">
    ...
</head>

In the code above you can see "v" URL parameter. It is timestamp when file was last modified. It helps to clear browser cache when you update your stylesheet.

phb_insert_js() works similar. This code:

<?php phb_insert_js('main'); ?>

will be rendered as:

<script src="/js/main.js?v=1531560805"></script>

Custom layouts

You can add different layouts that will be used by different pages.

There is bare.php layout out of the box that renders webpage content directly and does not affect to page view; it used by all pages by default (default layout can be changed in config.php file, see default_layout option). But you can add one more layout for wrap some pages with for example div with container class to limit content width. Just create file container.php (you may choose any name) with code:

<div class="container">
    <?php echo $GLOBALS['article']; ?>
</div>

and then specify container layout (without extension) for any page in menu file.

Layout for 404 page can be specified in config.php - error_page_layout is what you need.

Creating modules

modules/ directory stores files that can be included in any place of your website.

Let's look how to add a navbar module.

First we need to create navbar.php file in modules/ directory:

<ul class="nav">
    <?php foreach ($GLOBALS['menu_main'] as $alias => $menu_item): ?>
        <a href="/<?php echo $alias; ?>" class="nav-link<?php if ($alias === $GLOBALS['path']) echo ' active'; ?>">
            <?php echo $menu_item['name']; ?>
        </a>
    <?php endforeach;?>
</ul>

What we are using in this file:

$GLOBALS['menu_main'] is associative array of main menu items from menus/main.php file
$alias is page URL for building link (don't forget about leading / to define URL root)
$GLOBALS['path'] is current page URL
$menu_item['name'] is page name; you have access to all menu item's fields that present in menu file

Now you can just insert <?php phb_insert_module('navbar'); ?> in any place of the page file (or even in other module) to render navbar.

But it will be more comfortable to use module positions.

Using module positions

Let's upgrade our layouts/container.php custom layout (Bootstrap CSS classes are used):

<div class="container">
    <?php if (phb_get_position_modules('sidebar')): ?>
        <div class="row">
            <div class="col-sm-3">
                <aside>
                    <?php phb_insert_position('sidebar'); ?>
                </aside>
            </div>
            <div class="col-sm-9">
                <main>
                    <?php echo $GLOBALS['article']; ?>
                </main>
            </div>
        </div>
    <?php else: ?>
        <main>
            <?php echo $GLOBALS['article']; ?>
        </main>
    <?php endif;?>
</div>

We can use phb_get_position_modules('sidebar') function to check if is there any modules in sidebar position for current page and prevent rendering empty sidebar.

Insert <?php phb_insert_position('sidebar'); ?> to specify where modules should appear.

Then configure pages to use container layout by editing menu file or by setting default_layout option in config.php file.

And define this module for sidebar position in content/home_modules.php:

<?php

return [
    'sidebar' => [
        'navbar'
    ]
];

Passing data to modules

You may need to render similar but not equal modules on different pages, for example page title with background image. Let's see how to do this.

Create modules/fancy_title.php file:

<div class="fancy-title" style="background-image: url(<?php echo $params['image']; ?>)">
    <div class="fancy-title-text">
        <?php echo $params['text']; ?>
    </div>
</div>

And add it to content/home_modules.php:

<?php

return [
    'sidebar' => [
        'navbar',
        'fancy_title' => [
            'text' => 'Home', // $params['text'] in the module file
            'image' => '/img/home.jpg' // $params['image']
        ]
    ]
];

Also if you do not want to use position, you can pass params to module with second parameter:

<?php phb_insert_module('fancy_title', ['text' => 'Home', 'image' => '/img/home.jpg']); ?>

Changing modules classes prefix

When using position to render a module, it will be wrapped in div with prefixed CSS class. For example, if your module file is navbar.php, CSS class will be module_navbar.

You can change classes prefix in config.php by editing modules_classes_prefix option.

Allowing URL params

PHBeam router strictly checks URL matching with aliases in menu files. If there will be only one excess character, you will see 404 error page. All URL params will be blocked.

But if you want to allow opening website pages with URL parameters, add needed params to config.php. For example, to allow URLs like example.com/about?yclid=123123 (such URLs are used by Yandex.Direct) do this:

<?php

return [
    'allowed_url_params' => [
        'yclid',
    ],
    ...
];

Working with resources

In PHBeam you can store custom data arrays: small product catalogs, photo galleries, news feeds and more. You can use PHP or JSON files for that.

PHP resources

Let's add resource for two products.

Create resources/catalog_iphones.php resource file:

<?php

return [
    'iphone_x_256_silver' => [
        'name' => 'iPhone X 256GB Silver',
        'image' => '/img/catalog/iphones/iphone_x_256_silver.png',
        'memory' => '256',
        'display' => '5,8',
    ],
    'iphone_8_64_gold' => [
        'name' => 'iPhone 8 64GB Gold',
        'image' => '/img/catalog/iphones/iphone_8_64_gold.png',
        'memory' => '64',
        'display' => '4,7',
    ],
];

Then create modules/catalog.php module:

<div class="catalog">
    <?php foreach (phb_get_data_from_php("resources/catalog_{$params['category']}") as $key => $product): ?>
        <div class="product">
            <div class="product-image">
                <img src="<?php echo $product['image']; ?>" alt="<?php echo $product['name']; ?>">
            </div>
            <div class="product-name">
                <?php echo $product['name']; ?>
            </div>
            <div class="product-memory">
                <?php echo $product['memory']; ?>GB
            </div>
            <div class="product-display">
                <?php echo $product['display']; ?>"
            </div>
        </div>
    <?php endforeach; ?>
</div>

And insert <?php phb_insert_module('catalog', ['category' => 'iphones']); ?> in the right place on your page.

phb_get_data_from_php() function returns array with data from specified PHP file. We can walk by array and render some HTML code for each array element.

JSON resources

You can use JSON resources as well. In this case your resource file resources/catalog_iphones.json will be like:

{
  "iphone_x_256_silver": {
    "name": "iPhone X 256GB Silver",
    "image": "/img/catalog/iphones/iphone_x_256_silver.png",
    "memory": "256",
    "display": "5,8"
  },
  "iphone_8_64_gold": {
    "name": "iPhone 8 64GB Gold",
    "image": "/img/catalog/iphones/iphone_8_64_gold.png",
    "memory": "64",
    "display": "4,7"
  }
}

Instead of phb_get_data_from_php() function you will need to use phb_get_data_from_json().

License

MIT Licensed.