CodeIgniter in Eclipse

ACodeIgniter is a Model/View/Controller (MVC) Application Development Framework (ADF) for PHP.  What does this mean?  So it looks like CodeIgniter is basically the PHP version of Ruby on Rails.

Ruby & PHP = Scripting Languages

Rails & CodeIgniter = Frameworks

Frameworks are a way to quickly do repetitive coding tasks, like build a blog 15 minutes.  They’re able to do this by having a lot of reusability built in.  The reason I want learn a framework is because:

1. All the cool kids are doing it
2. I want to build a webpage dynamically based on the data, not my own preconceived notion of what the data should look like.
3. I want to reuse snippets of webpages in various places

1) Download and Install Codeigniter

Download CodeIgniter from http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/download .  It will be in the form of a zip file.

2) Extract the zip file to your web server directory

In my case I use XAMPP, so my web server directory is

C:\xampp\htdocs

After the download I have a directory called

C:\xampp\htdocs\CodeIgniter_2.1.3

I’ll rename this.

C:\xampp\htdocs\CodeIgniter

 3) Launch the Web Server and Check the CodeIgniter Installation

Open up the XAMPP Control Panel Application

Start Apache

Open a Web Browser

Navigate to http://localhost/CodeIgniter

If all went well you will see a Welcome to CodeIgniter! screen.

 

4) Import CodeIgniter into Eclipse

Open up eclipse.

Go to New -> Other -> PHP -> PHP Project

Give the project a name.

Click on “Create project at existing location (from existing source)”

Point the “Directory” at the CodeIgniter location.  For me this is C:\xampp\htdocs\CodeIgniter

Leave the rest of the default alone and click Finish.

 

Now everything is ready for modifying the framework and bending it to your will.

 

5) Tutorial

The tutorial on the CodeIgniter website is good, so I’ll refer to that one for coming up to speed fast.

http://ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/tutorial/index.html