DEV Community: Muhamad Rizki

How to run any Laravel project (It's very easy)

Muhamad Rizki — Sun, 21 Jul 2024 23:49:41 +0000

You may be confused about how to run a Laravel project taken from outside sources such as Github, because in a Laravel project that is made directly on the local we only have to type in the command terminal

php artisan serve

and the Laravel project can run properly and can be displayed on the screen.

Let's see the difference between local and external Laravel projects, here I will use external sources such as Github.
As you can see, there are some files and folders missing in the Laravel project part taken from Github.

Why this happens is because Laravel by default has a special file called .gitignore, this file will exclude the files and folders listed in it so that they will not be uploaded to Github or other external sources that have Git support.
This is necessary for security reasons and also to minimize the size of the project so as not to overload the cloud storage with unnecessary files.

So how to run it if some files and folders are missing? I'll show you how.

Make sure your PHP version fulfills the minimum specifications of the Laravel project.

First of all, your php version must fulfill the minimum specifications of the Laravel project, for example if the Laravel version is 10 you need at least PHP version 8.1+ to run it.

You can check the minimum php specifications in Laravel via the following link laravel.com/docs/master/releases#support-policy

If your PHP version does not fulfill the minimum specifications and you do not know how to update or change the PHP version, you can read my previous post on How to switch or update PHP version in Laragon

Install the necessary packages for the Laravel project

composer install

The command is to install the packages needed in the Laravel project, you can see in the first picture in the local section there is a folder called vendor, that folder will be installed if you run the command above.

Create and configure the .env file

Because the .env file doesn't exist then you have to create it again, you can copy the file called .env.example to create the .env file quickly, just run the following command on the terminal

cp .env.example .env

the system will automatically copy the .env.example file and change the file name to .env.

Configure the application key in the .env file

In the .env file that you just created earlier does not have an application key, you must set the application key by running the following command

php artisan key:generate

this will automatically regenerate the application key in your .env file.

Run some additional commands (optional)

If you are using a database in your Laravel project, then run the following command

php artisan migrate

Make sure you have configured the database in the .env file.

If the Laravel project has a file upload feature then don't forget to run the following command

php artisan storage:link

Closing

That's how to run any Laravel project, if you run it locally then you can directly type the php artisan serve command to run it.

Note: if you run on a server then you have to change the root folder to public and don't have to run the php artisan serve command anymore.

Hopefully this post is useful for you and don't forget to share it with others. good luck...

How to switch or update PHP version in Laragon

Muhamad Rizki — Fri, 31 May 2024 12:44:48 +0000

Laragon is a portable, isolated, fast & powerful universal development environment for PHP, Node.js, Python, Java, Go, Ruby. It is fast, lightweight, easy-to-use and easy-to-extend.

Unlike other development environments, in Laragon you can change the version of the programming language and database used in Laragon, which is what makes Laragon easy to use and extend.

However, Laragon no longer receives updates since it was last updated on September 16, 2022. And if you want to find out how to update the programming language or database used, it will be a little difficult because Laragon itself doesn't have any documentation about it.

How to switch or update PHP version

First of all, make sure you have Laragon installed on your Windows, you can download Laragon via this link laragon.org/download

Download PHP version for Windows

Search for the PHP version you want to install on Windows, you can find it via this link windows.php.net/download.
Choose according to the Windows architecture you are using (X64 or X86) and decide whether you want thread safety or non-thread safety, I recommend choosing thread safety.

Download the latest version of Apache

If you choose to update the PHP version to a higher version, don't forget to also update the version of Apache, I recommend downloading the latest version, you can download the latest version of Apache via this link apachelounge.com/download

Extract your PHP and Apache to Laragon

If you have successfully downloaded your desired version of PHP and Apache, you can extract it into Laragon

Extract PHP into laragon > bin > php folder

Extract Apache into laragon > bin > apache folder

Edit the system environment variables

After you have successfully extracted it, don't forget to edit your system environment variables, you can type env in Windows search to open the menu.

In the system variables section, go to the path menu in the system environment variable and add the paths of PHP and Apache that you downloaded earlier.

Note: move it to the top of the PHP version you want to use, like in the picture where I want to use version 8.3 so I put it at the top.

Once done you can press the Ok button until the system environment variable menu closes, and you can check if the versions of your PHP and Apache have changed using the terminal.

Good, you have successfully changed it, don't forget to also set the PHP and Apache versions that you are using in Laragon.

You can exit Laragon to restart it after you have finished setting the versions of PHP and Apache. Good luck...

How to install Imagick PHP extension in Windows (Updated)

Muhamad Rizki — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 07:23:01 +0000

In this article, I will show you step-by-step how to install ImageMagick PHP extension in Windows. Make sure you follow the steps carefully so that you can successfully install it.

About ImageMagick

Based on imagemagick.org, ImageMagick is a free, open-source software suite, used for editing and manipulating digital images. It can be used to create, edit, compose, or convert bitmap images, and supports a wide range of file formats, including JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and PDF.

How to install

Step 1
Before you install Imagick, you must first check the PHP version, PHP architecture, and whether your PHP is Thread Safety or not.

You can check this by creating a PHP program that runs the phpinfo() function.

See the image below:
You can see that the PHP version I'm using is version 8.1.10, the architecture is x64, and the thread safety is enabled.

Step 2
After that, you have to download the Imagick package, you can download it from this link Imagick For Windows, select the DLL option for Windows.
Choose a version that is stable and matches your PHP version. In this case, my PHP version is 8.1+.

Step 3
Extract and copy the file with the name php_imagick.dll that is in the php_imagick folder that you have downloaded in the second step.

Step 4
Paste the php_imagick.dll file in the ext folder where your PHP folder is located.
In this case, I'm using Laragon.

Step 5
Copy all the files with .dll format (except php_imagick.dll) in the php_imagick folder that you have downloaded in the second step.

Step 6
Paste all the .dll files you copied into your PHP folder.

Step 7
Change the contents of the file named php.ini in the PHP folder by adding extension=imagick and save it.
In some cases, you have to type it like this extension=php_imagick.dll, it depends if the other listed extensions include the .dll format or not.

Step 8
Restart your apache and check whether the imagick extension is installed or not using the phpinfo() function.

If successfully installed then you will find an extension with the name imagick when you run the phpinfo() function.

See the image below:
Notes: If you use Laragon, you must check the imagick extension first. The method is by right-clicking on Laragon, select PHP then go to the extensions menu and search for imagick.

Closing

These are the step-by-step how to install ImageMagick PHP extension in Windows. Hopefully the article is useful for you and don't forget to leave a comment on the article.