richardhj/contao-workflow

This is how I develop and deploy Contao projects.

Contao Workflow Boileplate

This repository holds a concept of a Contao development and deployment workflow. This workflow is something I figured out for me personally but is open for feedback for sure.

Frontend theme development

As many others, I tried a lot of frontend theme development mehtods. Starting from the internal CSS genenrator, I then tried external CSS files and SASS with Compass.

For now I use a very satisfying frontend workflow. Since then, working with old projects, not using this workflow, feels awful.

The workflow comes with the euf_nutshell. The nutshell itself has a SCSS boilerplate and is built in a modular manner. Meaning: Each component has its own SCSS file, like _events.scss, _navs.scss or _layout.scss.

The documentation can befound at http://nutshell.erdmann-freunde.de/. However, I switched the gulp part to encore.

I ususally start with an empty Contao project by running the following:

git clone git@github.com:terminal42/contao-standard.git && cd contao-standard && composer require --dev erdmannfreunde/euf_nutshell

I use the terminal42 edition, as it comes with the required files for the encore workflow.

Then, I copy the SCSS files of the nutshell kit into the /layout folder. The resulting directory structure looks like this:

|-- CONTAO
  |-- files
  |-- package.json
  |-- layout
    |-- images
    |-- js
    |-- styles
      |-- base
      |-- components
      |-- mixinx
      |-- trumps
      |-- _variables.scss
      |-- app.scss
  |-- README.md

After setting up your Contao (site structure, theme etc.), you can start building your theme with npm run dev keep running.

Add the style sheet to your layout with the following lines:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{asset::layout/css/app.css}}">
<script src="{{asset::layout/js/app.js}}"></script>

Project deployment

I deploy using Deployer. Please make sure to follow the latest instructions from https://github.com/terminal42/deployer-recipes.

trakked.io

I use https://trakked.io to track my projects for uptime and overview of used versions. With an automatated GitLab CI task I will make sure, that the project is always using the latest Contao version.

GitLab CI

The .gitlab.ci.yml hold two tasks:

The save_database_dump task will download a database dump. This task is scheduled (via the GitLab interface) to run once every week.

The composer_update task will update the Contao project via composer update and will re-deploy project once every week within the GitLab Runner.

Now, the versions are up-to-date and the interface of trakked.io will show you so :)

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