Day 12: The Admin Generator

With the addition we made in day 11 on Jobeet, the frontend application is now fully useable by job seekers and job posters. It's time to talk a bit about the backend application. Today, thanks to the admin generator functionality of symfony, we will develop a complete backend interface for Jobeet in just one hour.

Backend Creation

The very first step is to create the backend application. If your memory serves you well, you should remember how to do it with the generate:app task:

$ php symfony generate:app backend

The backend application is now available at http://jobeet.localhost/backend.php/ for the prod environment, and at http://jobeet.localhost/backend_dev.php/ for the dev environment.

If you try to reload the data fixtures with the propel:data-load task, it won't work as expected. That's because the JobeetJob::save() method needs access to the app.yml configuration file from the frontend application. As we have now two applications, symfony uses the first it finds, which is now the backend one.

But as seen during day 8, the settings can be configured at different levels. By moving the content of the apps/frontend/config/app.yml file to config/app.yml, the settings will be shared among all applications and the problem will be fixed. Do the change now as we will use the model classes quite extensively in the admin generator, and so we will need the variables defined in app.yml in the backend application.

$ php symfony propel:data-load --application=frontend

Backend Modules

For the frontend application, the propel:generate-module task has been used to bootstrap a basic CRUD module based on a model class. For the backend, the propel:generate-admin task will be used as it generates a full working backend interface for a model class:

$ php symfony propel:generate-admin backend JobeetJob --module=job
$ php symfony propel:generate-admin backend JobeetCategory --module=category

These two commands create a job and a category module for the JobeetJob and the JobeetCategory model classes respectively.

The optional --module option overrides the module name generated by default by the task (which would have been otherwise jobeet_job for the JobeetJob class).

Behind the scenes, the task has also created a custom route for each module:

# apps/backend/config/routing.yml
jobeet_job:
  class: sfPropelRouteCollection
  options:
    model:                JobeetJob
    module:               job
    prefix_path:          job
    column:               id
    with_wildcard_routes: true

It should come as no surprise that the route class used by the admin generator|Admin Generator is sfPropelRouteCollection, as the main goal of an admin interface is the management of the life-cycle of model objects.

The route definition also defines some options we have not seen before:

• prefix_path: Defines the prefix path for the generated route (for instance, the edit page will be something like /job/1/edit).
• column: Defines the table column to use in the URL for links that references an object.
• with_wildcard_routes: As the admin interface will have more than the classic CRUD operations, this option allows to define more object and collection actions without editing the route.

$ php symfony help propel:generate-admin

Backend Look and Feel

Right off the bat, you can use the generated modules:

http://jobeet.localhost/backend_dev.php/job
http://jobeet.localhost/backend_dev.php/category

The admin modules have many more features than the simple modules we have generated in previous days. Without writing a single line of PHP, each module provides these great features:

• The list of objects is paginated
• The list is sortable
• The list can be filtered
• Objects can be created, edited, and deleted
• Selected objects can be deleted in a batch
• The form validation is enabled
• Flash messages give immediate feedback to the user
• ... and much much more

The admin generator provides all the features you need to create a backend interface in a simple to configure package.

If you have a look at our two generated modules, you will notice there is no activated webdesign whereas the symfony built-in admin generator feature has a basic graphic interface by default. For now, assets from the sfPropelPlugin are not located under the web/ folder. We need to publish them under the web/ folder thanks to the plugin:publish-assets task:

$ php symfony plugin:publish-assets

To make the user experience a bit better, we need to customize the default backend. We will also add a simple menu to make it easy to navigate between the different modules.

Replace the default layout file content with the code below:

// apps/backend/templates/layout.php
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Jobeet Admin Interface</title>
    <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
    <?php use_stylesheet('admin.css') ?>
    <?php include_javascripts() ?>
    <?php include_stylesheets() ?>
  </head>
  <body>
    <div id="container">
      <div id="header">
        <h1>
          <a href="<?php echo url_for('homepage') ?>">
            <img src="/legacy/images/logo.jpg" alt="Jobeet Job Board" />
          </a>
        </h1>
      </div>
 
      <div id="menu">
        <ul>
          <li>
            <?php echo link_to('Jobs', 'jobeet_job') ?>
          </li>
          <li>
            <?php echo link_to('Categories', 'jobeet_category') ?>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </div>
 
      <div id="content">
        <?php echo $sf_content ?>
      </div>
 
      <div id="footer">
        <img src="/legacy/images/jobeet-mini.png" />
        powered by <a href="/">
        <img src="/legacy/images/symfony.gif" alt="symfony framework" /></a>
      </div>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

This layout uses an admin.css stylesheet. This file must already be present in web/css/ as it was installed with the other stylesheets during day 4.

Eventually, change the default symfony homepage in routing.yml:

# apps/backend/config/routing.yml
homepage:
  url:   /
  param: { module: job, action: index }

The symfony Cache

If you are curious enough, you have probably already opened the files generated by the task under the apps/backend/modules/ directory. If not, please open them now. Surprise! The templates directories are empty, and the actions.class.php files are quite empty as well:

// apps/backend/modules/job/actions/actions.class.php
require_once dirname(__FILE__).'/../lib/jobGeneratorConfiguration.class.php';
require_once dirname(__FILE__).'/../lib/jobGeneratorHelper.class.php';
 
class jobActions extends autoJobActions
{
}

How can it possibly work? If you have a closer look, you will notice that the jobActions class extends autoJobActions. The autoJobActions class is automatically generated by symfony if it does not exist. It is to be found in the cache/backend/dev/modules/autoJob/ directory, which contains the "real" module:

// cache/backend/dev/modules/autoJob/actions/actions.class.php
class autoJobActions extends sfActions
{
  public function preExecute()
  {
    $this->configuration = new jobGeneratorConfiguration();
 
    if (!$this->getUser()->hasCredential(
      $this->configuration->getCredentials($this->getActionName())
    ))
    {
 
// ...

The way the admin generator works should remind you of some known behavior. In fact, it is quite similar to what we have already learned about the model and form classes. Based on the model schema definition, symfony generates the model and form classes. For the admin generator, the generated module can be configured by editing the config/generator.yml file found in the module:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
generator:
  class: sfPropelGenerator
  param:
    model_class:           JobeetJob
    theme:                 admin
    non_verbose_templates: true
    with_show:             false
    singular:              ~
    plural:                ~
    route_prefix:          jobeet_job
    with_propel_route:     true
 
    config:
      actions: ~
      fields:  ~
      list:    ~
      filter:  ~
      form:    ~
      edit:    ~
      new:     ~

Each time you update the generator.yml file, symfony regenerates the cache. As we will see later, customizing the admin generated modules is easy, fast, and fun.

--

Backend Configuration

An admin module can be customized by editing the config key of the generator.yml file. The configuration is organized in seven sections:

• actions: Default configuration for the actions found on the list and on the forms
• fields: Default configuration for the fields
• list: Configuration for the list
• filter: Configuration for filters
• form: Configuration for new and edit forms
• edit: Specific configuration for the edit page
• new: Specific configuration for the new page

Let's start the customization.

Title Configuration

The list, edit, and new section titles of category module can be customized by defining a title option:

# apps/backend/modules/category/config/generator.yml
config:
  actions: ~
  fields:  ~
  list:
    title: Category Management
  filter:  ~
  form:    ~
  edit:
    title: Editing Category "%%name%%"
  new:
    title: New Category

The title for the edit section contains dynamic values: all strings enclosed between %% are replaced by their corresponding object column values.

The configuration for the job module is quite similar:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  actions: ~
  fields:  ~
  list:
    title: Job Management
  filter:  ~
  form:    ~
  edit:
    title: Editing Job "%%company%% is looking for a %%position%%"
  new:
    title: Job Creation

Fields Configuration

The different views (list, new, and edit) are composed of fields. A field can be a column of the model class, or a virtual column as we will see later on.

The default fields configuration can be customized with the fields section:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  fields:
    is_activated: { label: Activated?, help: Whether the user has activated the job, or not }
    is_public:    { label: Public?, help: Whether the job can also be published on affiliate websites, or not }

The fields section overrides the fields configuration for all views, which means the label for the is_activated field will be changed for the list, edit, and new views.

The admin generator configuration is based on a configuration cascade principle. For instance, if you want to change a label for the list view only, define a fields option under the list section:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    fields:
      is_public:    { label: "Public? (label for the list)" }

Any configuration that is set under the main fields section can be overridden by view-specific configuration. The overriding rules are the following:

• new and edit inherit from form which inherits from fields
• list inherits from fields
• filter inherits from fields

List View Configuration

display

By default, the columns of the list view are all the columns of the model, in the order of the schema file. The display option overrides the default by defining the ordered columns to be displayed:

# apps/backend/modules/category/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    title:   Category Management
    display: [=name, slug]

The = sign before the name column is a convention to convert the string to a link.

Let's do the same for the job module to make it more readable:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    title:   Job Management
    display: [company, position, location, url, is_activated, email]

layout

The list can be displayed with different layouts. By default, the layout is tabular, which means that each column value is in its own table column. But for the job module, it would be better to use the stacked layout, which is the other built-in layout:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    title:   Job Management
    layout:  stacked
    display: [company, position, location, url, is_activated, email]
    params:  |
      %%is_activated%% <small>%%category_id%%</small> - %%company%%
       (<em>%%email%%</em>) is looking for a %%=position%% (%%location%%)

In a stacked layout, each object is represented by a single string, which is defined by the params option.

"Virtual" columns

With this configuration, the %%category_id%% segment will be replaced by the category primary key. But it would be more meaningful to display the name of the category.

Whenever you use the %% notation, the variable does not need to correspond to an actual column in the database schema. The admin generator only need to find a related getter in the model class.

To display the category name, we can define a getCategoryName() method in the JobeetJob model class and replace %%category_id%% by %%category_name%%.

But the JobeetJob class already has a getJobeetCategory() method that returns the related category object. And if you use %%jobeet_category%%, it works as the JobeetCategory class has a magic __toString() method that converts the object to a string.

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
%%is_activated%% <small>%%jobeet_category%%</small> - %%company%%
 (<em>%%email%%</em>) is looking for a %%=position%% (%%location%%)

sort

As an administrator, you will be probably more interested in seeing the latest posted jobs. You can configure the default sort column by adding a sort option:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    sort: [expires_at, desc]

max_per_page

By default, the list is paginated and each page contains 20 items. This can be changed with the max_per_page option:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    max_per_page: 10

batch_actions

On a list, an action can be run on several objects. These batch actions are not needed for the category module, so, let's remove them:

# apps/backend/modules/category/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    batch_actions: {}

The batch_actions option defines the list of batch actions. The empty array allows the removal of the feature.

By default, each module has a delete batch action defined by the framework, but for the job module, let's pretend we need a way to extend the validity of some selected jobs for another 30 days:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    batch_actions:
      _delete:    ~
      extend:     ~

All actions beginning with a _ are built-in actions provided by the framework. If you refresh your browser and select the extend batch actions, symfony will throw an exception telling you to create an executeBatchExtend() method:

// apps/backend/modules/job/actions/actions.class.php
class jobActions extends autoJobActions
{
  public function executeBatchExtend(sfWebRequest $request)
  {
    $ids = $request->getParameter('ids');
 
    $jobs = JobeetJobPeer::retrieveByPks($ids);
 
    foreach ($jobs as $job)
    {
      $job->extend(true);
    }
 
    $this->getUser()->setFlash('notice', 'The selected jobs have been extended successfully.');
 
    $this->redirect('jobeet_job');
  }
}

The selected primary keys are stored in the ids request parameter. For each selected job, the JobeetJob::extend() method is called with an extra argument to bypass the expiration check.

Update the extend() method to take this new argument into account:

// lib/model/JobeetJob.php
class JobeetJob extends BaseJobeetJob
{
  public function extend($force = false)
  {
    if (!$force && !$this->expiresSoon())
    {
      return false;
    }
 
    $this->setExpiresAt(time() + 86400 * sfConfig::get('app_active_days'));
    $this->save();
 
    return true;
  }
 
  // ...
}

After all jobs have been extended, the user is redirected to the job module homepage.

object_actions

In the list, there is an additional column for actions you can run on a single object. For the category module, let's remove them as we have a link on the category name to edit it, and we don't really need to be able to delete one directly from the list:

# apps/backend/modules/category/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    object_actions: {}

For the job module, let's keep the existing actions and add a new extend action similar to the one we have added as a batch action:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    object_actions:
      extend:     ~
      _edit:      ~
      _delete:    ~

As for batch actions, the _delete and _edit actions are the ones defined by the framework. We need to define the listExtend() action to make the extend link work:

// apps/backend/modules/job/actions/actions.class.php
class jobActions extends autoJobActions
{
  public function executeListExtend(sfWebRequest $request)
  {
    $job = $this->getRoute()->getObject();
    $job->extend(true);
 
    $this->getUser()->setFlash('notice', 'The selected jobs have been extended successfully.');
 
    $this->redirect('jobeet_job');
  }
 
  // ...
}

actions

We have already seen how to link an action to a list of objects or a single object. The actions option defines actions that take no object at all, like the creation of a new object. Let's remove the default new action and add a new action that deletes all jobs that have not been activated by the poster for more than 60 days:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    actions:
      deleteNeverActivated: { label: Delete never activated jobs }

Until now, all actions we have defined had ~, which means that symfony automatically configures the action. Each action can be customized by defining an array of parameters. The label option overrides the default label generated by symfony.

By default, the action executed when you click on the link is the name of the action prefixed with list.

Create the listDeleteNeverActivated action in the job module:

// apps/backend/modules/job/actions/actions.class.php
class jobActions extends autoJobActions
{
  public function executeListDeleteNeverActivated(sfWebRequest $request)
  {
    $nb = JobeetJobPeer::cleanup(60);
 
    if ($nb)
    {
      $this->getUser()->setFlash('notice', sprintf('%d never activated jobs have been deleted successfully.', $nb));
    }
    else
    {
      $this->getUser()->setFlash('notice', 'No job to delete.');
    }
 
    $this->redirect('jobeet_job');
  }
 
  // ...
}

We have reused the JobeetJobPeer::cleanup() method defined yesterday. That's another great example of the reusability provided by the MVC pattern.

deleteNeverActivated: { label: Delete never activated jobs, action: foo }

peer_method

The number of database requests needed to display the job list page is 14, as shown by the web debug toolbar.

If you click on that number, you will see that most requests are to retrieve the category name for each job:

To reduce the number of queries, we can change the default method used to get the jobs by using the peer_method option:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  list:
    peer_method: doSelectJoinJobeetCategory

The doSelectJoinJobeetCategory() method adds a join between the job and the category tables and automatically creates the category object related to each job.

The number of requests is now down to four:

Form Views Configuration

The form views configuration is done in three sections: form, edit, and new. They all have the same configuration capabilities and the form section only exists as a fallback for the edit and new sections.

display

As for the list, you can change the order of the displayed fields with the display option. But as the displayed form is defined by a class, don't try to remove a field as it could lead to unexpected validation errors.

The display option for form views can also be used to arrange fields into groups:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  form:
    display:
      Content: [category_id, type, company, logo, url, position, location, description, how_to_apply, is_public, email]
      Admin:   [_generated_token, is_activated, expires_at]

The above configuration defines two groups (Content and Admin), each containing a subset of the form fields.

The admin generator has built-in support for many to many relationship. On the category form, you have an input for the name, one for the slug, and a drop-down box for the related affiliates. As it does not make sense to edit this relation on this page, let's remove it:

// lib/form/JobeetCategoryForm.class.php
class JobeetCategoryForm extends BaseJobeetCategoryForm
{
  public function configure()
  {
    unset($this['jobeet_category_affiliate_list']);
  }
}

"Virtual" columns

In the display options for the job form, the _generated_token field starts with an underscore (_). This means that the rendering for this field will be handled by a custom partial named _generated_token.php.

Create this partial with the following content:

// apps/backend/modules/job/templates/_generated_token.php
<div class="sf_admin_form_row">
  <label>Token</label>
  <?php echo $form->getObject()->getToken() ?>
</div>

In the partial, you have access to the current form ($form) and the related object is accessible via the getObject() method.

class

As the form will be used by administrators, we have displayed more information than for the user job form. But for now, some of them do not appear on the form as they have been removed in the JobeetJobForm class.

To have different forms for the frontend and the backend, we need to create two form classes. Let's create a BackendJobeetJobForm class that extends the JobeetJobForm class. As we won't have the same hidden fields, we also need to refactor the JobeetJobForm class a bit to move the unset() statement in a method that will be overridden in BackendJobeetJobForm:

// lib/form/JobeetJobForm.class.php
class JobeetJobForm extends BaseJobeetJobForm
{
  public function configure()
  {
    $this->removeFields();
 
    $this->validatorSchema['email'] = new sfValidatorAnd(array(
      $this->validatorSchema['email'],
      new sfValidatorEmail(),
    ));
 
    // ...
  }
 
  protected function removeFields()
  {
    unset(
      $this['created_at'], $this['updated_at'],
      $this['expires_at'], $this['is_activated'],
      $this['token']
    );
  }
}
 
// lib/form/BackendJobeetJobForm.class.php
class BackendJobeetJobForm extends JobeetJobForm
{
  protected function removeFields()
  {
    unset(
      $this['created_at'], $this['updated_at'],
      $this['token']
    );
  }
}

The default form class used by the admin generator can be overridden by setting the class option:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
config:
  form:
    class: BackendJobeetJobForm

The edit form still has a small annoyance. The current uploaded logo does not show up anywhere and you cannot remove the current one. The sfWidgetFormInputFileEditable widget adds editing capabilities to a simple input file widget:

// lib/form/BackendJobeetJobForm.class.php
class BackendJobeetJobForm extends JobeetJobForm
{
  public function configure()
  {
    parent::configure();
 
    $this->widgetSchema['logo'] = new sfWidgetFormInputFileEditable(array(
      'label'     => 'Company logo',
      'file_src'  => '/uploads/jobs/'.$this->getObject()->getLogo(),
      'is_image'  => true,
      'edit_mode' => !$this->isNew(),
      'template'  => '<div>%file%<br />%input%<br />%delete% %delete_label%</div>',
    ));
 
    $this->validatorSchema['logo_delete'] = new sfValidatorPass();
  }
 
  // ...
}

The sfWidgetFormInputFileEditable widget takes several options to tweak its features and rendering:

• file_src: The web path to the current uploaded file
• is_image: If true, the file will be rendered as an image
• edit_mode: Whether the form is in edit mode or not
• with_delete: Whether to display the delete checkbox
• template: The template to use to render the widget

The edit_mode option uses the sfPropel::isNew() method.

It returns true if the model object of the form is new, and false otherwise. This is of great help when you need to have different widgets or validators depending on the status of the embedded object.

Filters Configuration

Configuring filters is quite the same as configuring the form views. As a matter of fact, filters are just forms. And as for the forms, the classes have been generated by the propel:build --all task. You can also re-generate them with the propel:build --filters task.

The form filter classes are located under the lib/filter/ directory and each model class has an associated filter form class (JobeetJobFormFilter for JobeetJobForm).

Let's remove them completely for the category module:

# apps/backend/modules/category/config/generator.yml
config:
  filter:
    class: false

For the job module, let's remove some of them:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
filter:
  display: [category_id, company, position, description, is_activated, is_public, email, expires_at]

As filters are always optional, there is no need to override the filter form class to configure the fields to be displayed.

Actions Customization

When configuration is not sufficient, you can add new methods to the action class as we have seen with the extend feature, but you can also override the generated action methods:

As each generated method does only one thing, it is easy to change a behavior without having to copy and paste too much code.

Templates Customization

We have seen how to customize the generated templates thanks to the class and id attributes added by the admin generator in the HTML code.

As for the classes, you can also override the original templates. As templates are plain PHP files and not PHP classes, a template can be overridden by creating a template of the same name in the module (for instance in the apps/backend/modules/job/templates/ directory for the job admin module):

Final Configuration

The final configuration for the Jobeet admin is as follows:

# apps/backend/modules/job/config/generator.yml
generator:
  class: sfPropelGenerator
  param:
    model_class:           JobeetJob
    theme:                 admin
    non_verbose_templates: true
    with_show:             false
    singular:              ~
    plural:                ~
    route_prefix:          jobeet_job
    with_propel_route:     true
 
    config:
      actions: ~
      fields:
        is_activated: { label: Activated?, help: Whether the user has activated the job, or not }
        is_public:    { label: Public? }
      list:
        title:         Job Management
        layout:        stacked
        display:       [company, position, location, url, is_activated, email]
        params:  |
          %%is_activated%% <small>%%jobeet_category%%</small> - %%company%%
           (<em>%%email%%</em>) is looking for a %%=position%% (%%location%%)
        max_per_page:  10
        sort:          [expires_at, desc]
        batch_actions:
          _delete:    ~
          extend:     ~
        object_actions:
          extend:     ~
          _edit:      ~
          _delete:    ~
        actions:
          deleteNeverActivated: { label: Delete never activated jobs }
        peer_method:  doSelectJoinJobeetCategory
      filter:
        display: [category_id, company, position, description, is_activated, is_public, email, expires_at]
      form:
        class:     BackendJobeetJobForm
        display:
          Content: [category_id, type, company, logo, url, position, location, description, how_to_apply, is_public, email]
          Admin:   [_generated_token, is_activated, expires_at]
      edit:
        title: Editing Job "%%company%% is looking for a %%position%%"
      new:
        title: Job Creation
 
# apps/backend/modules/category/config/generator.yml
generator:
  class: sfPropelGenerator
  param:
    model_class:           JobeetCategory
    theme:                 admin
    non_verbose_templates: true
    with_show:             false
    singular:              ~
    plural:                ~
    route_prefix:          jobeet_category
    with_propel_route:     true
 
    config:
      actions: ~
      fields:  ~
      list:
        title:   Category Management
        display: [=name, slug]
        batch_actions: {}
        object_actions: {}
      filter:
        class: false
      form:
        actions:
          _delete: ~
          _list:   ~
          _save:   ~
      edit:
        title: Editing Category "%%name%%"
      new:
        title: New Category

With just these two configuration files, we have developed a great backend interface for Jobeet in a matter of minutes.

Final Thoughts

In just one hour, we have built a fully featured backend interface for the Jobeet project. And all in all, we have written less than 50 lines of PHP code. Not too bad for so many features!

Tomorrow, we will see how to secure the backend application with a username and a password. This will also be the occasion to talk about the symfony user class.