PicoMVC is a minimalistic PHP framework intended for PHP programmers who want to write clean code without being forced to adjust their brains to a big framework which restricts them.
PicoMVC only consists of a templating engine. The engine is completely object oriented and renders a surrounding template as well as nested template snippets.
- *.php all controllers you want to write. Take index.php as a reference.
- view.php the template engine
- db.php the database engine
- conf.php.dist the default config (copy to conf.php in deployment)
- js/ for your javascript
- css/ for your style sheets
- img/ for your images
- view/ your template snippets
- view/layout.phtml the layout of all pages
Create a file api.php that requires db.php, create a class that extends DB, overwrite the function protected performUpdates(&$current_version) (complete guide at db.php) and add all public API functions you want to add to the business logic. Refer to $this->sql as the mysqli object.
You basically write controllers as php files that require 'view.php', do some logic and then instanciate a View object, fill in the fields and call render(). Set View->template to a script in view/ and implement all rendering routines there while the logic stays in the controllers.
Telling the view to render users/edit means it will render the file view/users/edit.phtml. Insert your HTML code into that file and access the $this object from PHP in order to access the fields set by the controller. Render inner views by calling $this->render('viewname') or creating a new View object and calling render(). The second version is better since it encapsulates data e.g. for loops.
If you want to use database support, create a new file, require 'db.php', create a class that inherits from DB and override performUpdates(). Then, whenever you need the database, create an instance of your new class. Use MyClass::getInstance(). Put all database related functions into your class.
Just clone the git repository into a folder and start adding the API, controllers and views.
git clone https://github.com/carli2/picomvc-skeleton
Star and watch this repository if you like the idea of a lightweight clean framework for small and big projects.