Westtoer

Web framework for Westtoer to retrieve and serve data from the datahub.

View project onGitHub

Westtoer

Web framework for Westtoer to retrieve, filter and serve data from the datahub.

Features

  • Data fetcher: Retrieves and caches data from the datahub.
  • Dashboard: Control panel for users with screen(s) to customize their screens.
  • REST service: Data source for the screen(s). Formats data from cache/data fetcher for screen(s) based on settings from dashboard. Compatible with FlatTurtle

Developed and tested on

  • Apache
  • PHP 5.3.x with APC (caching)
  • MySQL and MariaDB

Installation

Prerequisites

This project uses Laravel 4 as base framework. All dependencies are defined in composer.json can be installed using composer. Install composer and run the composer install command in this project dir to fetch all libraries.

  1. Install composer, see http://getcomposer.org/ for more information.
  2. Download the contents of this repo or clone it.
  3. In the project folder run composer with the parameter install, this will read the composer.json from the current directory and install all required libraries in the subdirectory vendor.
    composer install

Configuration

Laravel supports multiple environments for configuration. The base configuration files can be found in app/config.

Single configuration (one environment)

If you just want to configure this framework for one (production) server, just edit the files in app/config.

/app/config/database.php

Adjust the connections array with the database server details.

example
    'connections' => array(

        'mysql' => array(
            'driver'    => 'mysql',
            'host'      => 'localhost',
            'database'  => 'database_name',
            'username'  => 'database_username',
            'password'  => 'user_password',
            'charset'   => 'utf8',
            'collation' => 'utf8_unicode_ci',
            'prefix'    => 'prefix_',
        )

    ),

/app/config/cache.php

Adjust the driver value to select the desired caching method.

Note file does not support caching in sections and cannot be used.

example
'driver' => 'apc',

/app/config/hub.php

Add details for the datahub to fetch the data from.

  • base_url : uri of the datahub
  • resource : resource file
  • user : username to connect to the datahub
  • password: password to connect to the datahub
  • interval: amount of days in future that should be fetched.
  • lat_min: min latitude of geo area to retrieve items from.
  • lat_max: max latitude of geo area to retrieve items from.
  • lon_min: min longitude of geo area to retrieve items from.
  • lon_max: max longitude of geo area to retrieve items from.
  • limit: standard limit of items (triplets) to be fetched.
  • cache_ttl: time to live for cached data fetched from the datahub.
example
return array(
    'base_url' => 'https://datahub.westtoer.be/',
    'resource' => 'query/events.json',
    'user' => 'username',
    'password' => 'password',
    'interval' => 30,
    'lat_min' => 50,
    'lat_max' => 54,
    'lon_min' => 2,
    'lon_max' => 4,
    'limit' => 500,
    'cache_ttl' => 60*60
);

/app/config/weather.php

Cache time and api key can be set here. Retrieve api key from Weather Underground

  • api_key: api key for access to Weather Underground.
  • cache_ttl: time to live for cached data fetched from the weather api.
example
return array(
    'api_key' => 'api_key',
    'cache_ttl' => 60*60
);

Multiple environments

If you want to use multiple environments (for example: a development environment and a production environment with separate caching and databases). Copy the files to a new subdirectory in the /app/config folder and configure them there, for example in /app/config/development and in /app/config/production.

Then configure the detection of the development environment in bootstrap/start.php.

$env = $app->detectEnvironment(array(
    'development' => array('*.dev', 'localhost'),
    'production' => array('dashboard.westtoer.be'),

));

Database migration

To create the necessary tables for this framework, artisan can be used.

In the project root, run:

php artisan migrate:refresh

If you are using multiple environments, add the corresponding environment with the --env switch

php artisan --env=development migrate:refresh

Database seeding

To add demo information to the database, run artisan with the db:seed option

php artisan db:seed

or with multiple environments, use the --env switch

php artisan --env=development db:seed