Terry Matula - Laravel Application Development Cookbook

Terry Matula is a web developer and Laravel advocate based in Austin, TX.

He's been a passionate computer enthusiast since he first played Oregon Trail on an Apple //e. He started programming in BASIC at a young age, making simple Scott Adams-like games on a Commodore Vic-20. Since then, he's worked as a developer using Flash/ActionScript, ASP.NET, PHP, and numerous PHP frameworks, with Laravel being his favorite by far.

He blogs web development tips and tricks at his website http://terrymatula.com

I'd like to thank Taylor Otwell for creating such a wonderful framework, and everyone in the Laravel community for being the most helpful and supportive group of people I've seen in the web development community. I'd also like to thank my beautiful wife Michelle for her continued encouragement and support, even when I was working 18 hour days to finish this book. Finally, I'd like to thank my son Evan, for keeping me grounded and being a shining light in my life.

Jason Lewis is a web developer and designer hailing from The Land Down Under (Australia). He's been using web technologies to develop websites for the past 7 years and is currently a huge Laravel evangelist. During the day, Jason is a professional firefighter, while at night he works hard on code and helps others learn to code. He's always willing to help and loves to write articles that guide others.

Elan Marikit is a software engineer with experience in many technologies, including PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, Linux, FreeBSD, and others. Elan has considerable experience in developing complex web-driven applications using an MVC-based framework such as CodeIgniter and Laravel. He is a Zend Certified Engineer for PHP 5.3 and is currently working in a Singapore-based startup company that builds scalable online travel portals with a focus in Southeast Asia.

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Preface

Laravel has become one of the fastest growing PHP frameworks ever. With its expressive syntax and excellent documentation, it's easy to get a fully functioning web application up-and-running in very little time. Additionally, the use of modern PHP features makes Version 4 of Laravel very easy to customize to our own needs and also makes it easy for us to create a highly complex site if need be. It's a perfect blend of the simple and advanced.

This book covers merely a fraction of all that Laravel is capable of. Think of it more as a starting point, with code examples to get things working. Then customize them, add to them, or combine them to create your own applications. The possibilities are endless.

One of the best things about Laravel is the community. If you're ever stuck on a problem and doing a Google search isn't helping, there are always people willing to help out. You can find helpful community members on IRC (#laravel on Freenode) or the forums (http://forums.laravel.io) or you can contact the many Laravel users on Twitter.

Happy Laravel-ing!

What this book covers

, Setting Up and Installing Laravel , covers various ways to get Laravel up-and-running.

, Using Forms and Gathering Input , shows many ways to use forms in Laravel. It covers using Laravel's form class as well as some basic validation.

, Authenticating Your Application , demonstrates how to authenticate users. We'll see how to use OAuth, OpenId, and various social networks for authentication.

, Storing and Using Data , covers all things data, including how to use data sources other than a MySQL database.

, Using Controllers and Routes for URLs and APIs , introduces various routing methods in Laravel and how to make a basic API.

, Displaying Your Views , demonstrates how views work in Laravel. We'll also incorporate the Twig templating system and Twitter Bootstrap.

, Creating and Using Composer Packages , explains how to use packages in our app as well as how to create our own package.

, Using Ajax and jQuery , provides different examples of how to use jQuery in Laravel and how to make asynchronous requests.

, Using Security and Sessions Effectively