Website-Portal

Website portal that links to the various games running the Open RSC framework

Setup

Prerequisites

You will need:

• PHP 8.x
• Composer 2+ (use latest version)
• phpBB3 (if you do not need to work on the Latest News module, this is optional due to a known workaround)

Instructions

• Set up PHP for development.
  • Download and install PHP 8. On Windows, you simply extract the ZIP file to your install directory (usually C:\Program Files, but check PATH). Once this is done, run php -v in a terminal and you should see version 8.x.
  • In your PHP folder, rename php.ini-development to php.ini. This is the php.ini file that the CLI and Composer will be using.
  • Add the following extensions to your php.ini file (this seems to be necessary for the latest version of Composer to work):
    • extension=php_openssl.dll
    • extension=php_fileinfo.dll
  • Uncomment the extension_dir = "ext" line in your php.ini file.
  • Uncomment the extension=pdo_mysql line in your php.ini file.
• In your local MySQL/MariaDB server, create an empty database named laravel. This allows php artisan commands to work later on. If there is a more correct way of getting the laravel database, update this readme.
• In a terminal, cd into the portal directory.
• Run cp .env.example .env. This creates your .env file for the portal app.
• In your portal/.env file, change the DB_HOST to 127.0.0.1 and then run php artisan config:clear in a terminal.
• Run composer install.
• Run php artisan key:generate.
• Run php artisan migrate.
• Run php artisan db:seed.
• Finally, run php artisan serve. The site should now be accessible at http://127.0.0.1:8000.

Making CSS Changes - Do's & Don't's

Do:

• Write mobile-specific CSS first, then handle tablet and/or desktop CSS in media queries.
• Add new .scss files to pages/ for any page you want to style that doesn't have its own dedicated .scss file yet. After adding the new .scss file, make sure to import it in all.scss.
• Use the variables in _variables.scss to your advantage. These can be referenced in any .scss file like this: $tablet-breakpoint.

Don't:

• Use inline styles. It's bad practice.
• Use !important (in most cases). It's bad practice, and there are ways around it by using more specific CSS.

Compiling SASS

To see changes to .scss files on your local site, you need to compile SASS. To do this:

• In a terminal, cd into the portal directory.
• Run npm ci. This only needs to be done once.
• Run npm run dev. This runs Laravel Mix, which compiles front-end files.

Troubleshooting

Error SQLSTATE[42S02]: Base table or view not found: 1146 Table 'board.phpbb_posts' doesn't exist seen when loading local site

You'll need to install phpBB3 towards your local MySQL/MariaDB server, which will create the necessary tables. If that isn't feasible, a workaround is to comment out the $news_feed code in HomeController.php.

Errors regarding cabbage, uranium, or other databases

They probably do not exist in your local MySQL server. Either create empty databases for each or comment out the code in HomeController.php that fetches the online player count (and set the _online variables returned to the view to an empty string '').

Error Could not open input file: artisan when running php artisan commands

Make sure you are cd'd into the portal directory, then try again.