The Bakery Everything CakePHP

This tutorial is based on a standard setup.

• A recent stable build of Eclipse PHP Development Tools (3.2.100)
• Standard CakePHP install (in C:\xampp\htdocs\cake) 1.1 or 1.2
• Standard XAMPP install (in C:\xampp)
• Windows XP.

There is a lot more that could be covered. If you can fill the gaps or suggest how it could be improved, that would be great.

Why use eclipse with CakePHP?

Firstly, it is open source with a huge and healthy ecosystem surrounding it. That means (if you believe the hype) that with the right choice of plug-ins, you'll satisfy all your development needs with just one program.

Secondly, it is big and powerful, but very easy to use ... honestly. Software this simple must be a lot of brain ache to create.

Finding and installing Eclipse for PHP

Whilst Eclipse is a generic IDE, there are a few flavours of Eclipse made specifically for PHP development. The one I use is called the PHP Development Tools (PDT) project. It�s homepage is http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/.

According to the PDT site, the �PDT All-in-One" package �includes the complete set of software to start using PDT immediately. This package already has PDT combined with the complete set of prerequisites - you will not need anything else." You can�t argue with that. I downloaded the latest stable build for Windows from http://download.eclipse.org/tools/pdt/downloads/.

Installing eclipse is very easy. There is no install shield or wizard. All you do is unzip it, and put it where you want it. In case you want to be just like me, put it in your program files directory, and add a shortcut to eclipse.exe in �All Programs�. Then launch the program. The first time you run it, the first question you will ask yourself is probably...

What is the workspace?

The workspace is the place where you store your projects (in this case your CakePHP applications). Essentially, it is a directory on your hard drive. People have different things to say about the workspace, things like: �keep all your projects in the same workspace??, and �use your webroot as your workspace??.

Eclipse asks you to set your workspace the first time you run it.

Defining your workspace

There are no fixed rules, but I would advise you to set your workspace to C:\xampp\htdocs\. If when Eclipse first started, you defined a different workspace, you can define another easily like this:

1. Go to File > Switch Workspace > Other
2. In the Workspace field enter "C:\xampp\htdocs\"

What are projects?

Projects are (as you might expect) the applications you are developing. In our case, CakePHP applications - the things that start out life as a copy of your /app folder.

Defining projects

I follow the Cake convention of storing all my CakePHP projects in the Cake root directory (making a copy of /app, renaming it, and changing the constant APP_DIR in /app/webroot/index.php to the name of my directory). You should probably follow this convention as well.

Define each Cake application as a project like this:

1. File > New > PHP Project.
2. In the Project name field, type your Cake applications name.
3. In Project contents, uncheck use default, and add the directory for your project (something like: C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\project_name).

Now you can see the project in the PHP explorer view on the left hand side of the screen . Notice that you can expand files in this view to explore and look at their structure � very cool, but in comparison to what we are about to do, only slightly cool.

Now we'll link this project to the cake core. This means you'll be able to use classes, constants in Eclipse's auto-complete. You'll also have access to your cake core files - a handy reference.

First, define the Cake core as a project:

1. File > New > PHP Project.
2. In the Project name field, type 'Cake', or something similar.
3. In Project contents, uncheck use default, and add (C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\cake).

Then link the Cake core application this to our application:

1. In the PHP explorer window, right click on the application and choose Configure Include Path.
2. From the projects tab, select Add
3. Then tick the Cake checkbox. (make sure you haven�t closed the Cake project otherwise it won�t be available to check).

Now try it out. Open or create a controller for your application and have a look at the Outline view. The class inheritance is all there. Sweeb! And code completion works in the PHP editor (the shortcut is Ctrl+Space). Double sweeb!

Setting up the bake script to work directly from the Eclipse platform

This is a great integration. It works slightly differently depending on what version of Cake you are using.

Cake 1.1

1. From the menu choose Run > External Tools > Open External Tools Dialogue...
2. In the left hand side pane, choose Program and then click on the 'New Launch Configuration' button
3. Name this new configuration something like Bake.
4. In the main tab...
5. In the location text field, enter the path to your php.exe. (Mine is C:\xampp\php\php.exe)
6. In the Working Directory text field, enter the path of the directory containing your bake.php file. (Mine is C:\xampp\htdocs\cake\cake\scripts)
7. In the Arguments text area add bake.php.
8. Apply and close the dialogue

Then go to Run > External tools > Organise favourites > Add.
Check bake and click OK

Cake 1.2

1. Follow the instructions for setting up the CakePHP console on Windows here: http://cakephp.org/screencasts/view/6 and do a little test like Gwoo did to make sure it is working properly. (I had to reset my computer before this worked properly). To be honest, I think you only need to add the php line to the path as we will specify the other path to cake.bat in Eclipse but I�m not sure you might as well.
2. Back in Eclipse, from the menu choose Run > External Tools > Open External Tools Dialogue...
3. In the left hand side pane, choose Program and then click on the 'New Launch Configuration' button
4. Name this new configuration something like Bake.
5. In the main tab...
6. In the location text field, enter �${workspace_loc:/Cake/console/cake.bat}??
7. In the Working Directory text field, enter �${project_loc}?? (the value of ${project_loc} changes depending on what project you are in.
8. In the Arguments text area add �bake??
9. Apply and close the dialogue
10. Then go to Run > External tools > Organise favourites > Add.
11. Check bake and click OK.

Using the bake script

To bake, click on the run external tool button and choose bake. Or selecting bake from the run menu. If you�re using 1.2 make sure you have selected the project you want to bake for, as this effects the ${project_loc} (see above).

Pretty cool hey? Think back to before you set this up. Coding was like writing on a piece of toilet paper with a leaky fountain pen.

Setting up Eclipse to recognise .thtml or .ctp files

Depending on which version of Cake you are using you will want to set up Eclipse to recognise that the .thtml (1.1) or .ctp(1.2) files used in your views are actually PHP files. This will give you syntax colouring and (limited) code completion.

1. Window > Preferences > General > Content types...
2. Under content types expand the tree to text > PHP content type
3. In file associations, click add...
4. Add *.thtml (1.1) or *.ctp(1.2)

Then go in the same preferences dialogue box...

1. From the tree, choose Editors > File Associations
2. Add the file type *.thtml (1.1) or *.ctp(1.2).
3. In Associated Editors:, select the PHP Editor and click Default.

Adding support for Subversion using Subclipse

This tutorial assumes you already have a repository. I think it is worth having one - versioning makes development a lot easier. For a comprehensive introduction to SVN (and if you haven't had one, you do need one) I recommend you read the online SVN book at http://svnbook.org or http://svnbook.red-bean.com/, download SVN from http://subversion.tigris.org/, and tortoise SVN from http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/.

To install the Subclipse plugin:

1. Help > Software updates > find and install > Search for new features to install
2. Click on new remote site. In the name field, enter "Subclipse". In the URL enter "http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.2.x". Click OK (note, version 1.2 of subclipse is for Eclipse 3.2 and above. For other versions see the subclipse installation page below)
3. Back in the install box, Subclipse should be checked. (If it isn't, check it.)
4. Click on finish
5. In the next screen, expand the Eclipse tree and select the Subclipse plugin and click next, agree to the license and click finish.
6. Once they've downloaded, you'll need to click on Install again, to verify that you are installing an "unsigned feature".
7. Then it's probably worth restarting, as it advises.
8. Note: Installation instructions also available here: http://subclipse.tigris.org/install.html)

Adding a repository

Before you use a repository (that you have made using SVN or tortoise SVN), you need to define it in Eclipse:

1. Switch to the SVN Repository Exploring perspective. (Window > Open perspective > Other... > SVN repository exploring.
2. In the SVN repository view, right click and choose New >Repository location
3. Type in the location of your repository in the style of a URL. (it might look something like this file:///C:/svn/mycakeapp)
4. That's it. Your repository should now be visible in the SVN repository view.

What you do next depends on if you have used SVN before, if you have your projects set up in SVN already or not, and how you have your SVN repository set up. I won't go into all the details but to start you off.

To add a project to SVN

1. Right click on the prject and choose Team > Share project...
2. Choose SVN as your repository type
3. Then choose where you want to add this project, etc.

To check out an already existing project from SVN:

1. Choose File > New > Project... Checkout Projects from SVN
2. Select the folder you want to check out, etc.

If you've used SVN before, that should be enough. If you haven't, you might have to play around with it a bit to really understand it.

Accessing your database

I'm not sure of the advantages of administering your cake databases from within Eclipse, indeed, one of the principles of Cake is to minimise direct access to the database. The only SQL tasks you do regularly are creating and altering tables - pretty simple.

And when it comes to MySQL, the eclipse database plugins are as comprehensive or as easy to use as phpMyAdmin and and they don't integrate with other aspects of Eclipse in any way that is useful to Cake (though I would like to be corrected on these points). I started trying the data tools platform, then moved to Quantum DB, then went back to just using phpMyAdmin.

If you want to keep all development inside Eclipse, phpMyAdmin looks pretty cool running on the Eclipse internal browser ;-)

If you want to set up a database plug in, you could choose QuantumDB and follow the instructions below.

Install the QuantumDB plugin

1. Help > Software updates > find and install > Search for new features to install
2. Click on new remote site. In the name field, enter "QuantumDB". In the URL enter "http://quantum.sourceforge.net/update-site"
3. Back in the install box, QuantumDB should be checked. (If it isn't, check it.)
4. Click on finish
5. In the next box, select the entire QuantumDB tree and click next
6. Agree to the license and click next, then finish, then Install all

Configure connection to MySQL database

1. Help > Software updates > find and install > Search for new features to install
2. Click on new remote site. In the name field, enter "QuantumDB". In the URL enter "http://quantum.sourceforge.net/update-site"
3. Back in the install box, QuantumDB should be checked. (If it isn't, check it.)
4. Click on finish
5. In the next box, select the entire QuantumDB tree and click next
6. Agree to the license and click next, then finish, then Install all

Configure access to your database with QuantumDB

Once it has installed, you need to download the latest MySQL JDBC (Java DataBase Connectivity) driver. The best place to find this is on the MySQL website here http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/j/.

1. Unzip the connector and put the mysql-connector-java-x.x.x-bin.jar file in a suitable folder. Like "C:\Program Files\Eclipse\plugins"
2. Now, in the QuantumDB perspective, right click in the database bookmarks view and select New Bookmark
3. Then choose Add Driver > Add External jar and navigate to the connector (we put it in "C:\Program Files\Eclipse\plugins").
4. Back in the New JDBC Driver page, click Browse and select the "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" class name. The type should change to MySQL. Change to MySQL if it isn't and click finish.
5. Then choose the new driver and click next. Then fill in your database login details, click next and choose a suitable name for the bookmark

Now your bookmark is visible in the Database Bookmarks view, and you can run queries using the Quantum SQL Queries View.

What else

I hope to add FTP/ANT support once I've figured out a nice config. Anyone want to help?

I hope that is a good jumping off point for using CakePHP with Eclipse. It is only one of many ways you could set it up. If you know of a better config, or have any other suggestions/additions/corrections, please add them.

Thanks to everyone who has unknowingly helped me in writing this document through their blogs, google group postings, IRC chats and telepathic communications.