Main points of this lesson

Install Laravel installer on your computer with this command 

composer global require "laravel/installer"

Then, create new Laravel project every time with this command:

laravel new project

It will create a folder called "project" in your current folder and install Laravel there.

You will have .env file to manage all your configuration, probably most important settings there are:

• DB_DATABASE
• DB_USERNAME
• DB_PASSWORD
• APP_URL

There's also a file called .env.example, read about the differences and how to use them in this article.

To create Login and Register routes and links, use this command:

php artisan make:auth

Laravel comes with two database migrations out-of-the-box: for tables users and password_resets.

If you want your URLs to be accessed only by logged in users, use Route::group() structure and add Middleware 'auth' to it.

In routes/web.php file, you can specify Route URL and attach it to a specific method of specific Controller:

Route::get('invoices/create', 'InvoicesController@create');

Specify route name with this structure: 

Route::get('invoices/create', 'InvoicesController@create')->name('invoices.create');

Then you can use it everywhere in Blade files with command route('invoices.create').

It is useful if you decide to change the URLs sometime in the future - you would have to change only routes/web.php file, and all the links in Blade files will remain working without changing.

To create a controller, use this Artisan command:

php artisan make:controller InvoicesController

Blade files parent-child structure is based on these commands:

• Create your "parent" Blade file which will be the same for all pages, will contain static header/footer and basic structure.
• In that "parent" Blade file, specify dynamic areas with command @yield, like @yield('content')
• In every "child" Blade file, specify its parent by using @extends command, like @extends('layouts.app')
• Notice: If you want to reference Blade files within subfolders of resources/views, use dot symbol in the name, like resources/views/layouts/app.blade.php is called as @extends('layouts.app')
• Also, in every "child" Blade file put the contents of dynamic areas with @section command, like @section('content') and at the end of section call @stop or @endsection

Code for download

Here's Link to Google Drive

How to use: download, unarchive, change credentials in .env file, launch php artisan migrate, and you should be good to go.

Links to read more

• Laravel installation process
• Laravel Homestead
• Environment configuration and .env files
• Authentication Quickstart and make:auth command
• Database Migrations (we will come back to this topic in much more detail later in the course)
• Laravel Routing: General
• Laravel Routing: Named Routes
• Laravel Routing: Route Groups and Middleware
• Laravel Controllers
• Laravel Blade Templates: General
• Laravel Blade Templates: Structure and Inheritance
• MVC Pattern and PHP: not directly about Laravel, but for those who want to understand/remember the code Model-View-Controller structure