In 2008, Adam Price developed BackendPro (BEP) and the last updated version was 0.6.1. As per Price, he said:
BackendPro is a control panel for developers written in PHP for the CodeIgniter framework. Its not like a CMS where it provides you with a full working system but it does provide you with part of a system. What I mean by this is it provides you with functionality to do all the simple repetitive tasks like authentication, permissions and a basic look and feel for your websites control panel. So using your current PHP and CodeIgniter knowledge you can use BackendPro to built a fully working website quickly since you can concentrate on your application instead of the bits to manage the system.
Unfortunately, development has ceased sometime in 2011. There was a patch made by Price to allow BEP to function properly in PHP5 but the fork made by Orlu Weli didn't use this. The issues reported on the said fork were fixed in this release.
Furthermore, this release will add new technologies that were not in the original feature set (e.g., multiple application-one core, Bootstrap as front-end framework).
Herewith is a list of features from the original release:
- User Authentication with registration and account activation
- User Permissions by using Access Control Lists (Has Access Control area to manage your websites access permissions)
- Site Preferences (Stored in a database with simple to use UI to update and change preferences)
- Asset Library (Means loading assets onto pages is quick and simple, also has asset caching to speed up the loading of asset files)
- PHP to Javascript variable conversion (Easy way to pass PHP variables into your javascript scripts)
- ReCAPTCHA
- Status messages (Can display info/success/warning/error messages to the user)
- Breadcrumb trail creation
Herewith listed are the features added in this release:
- Touted as a "multiple application - one core" so that it will be easy to upgrade the system files without affecting the application files. Likewise, each app can stand alone with its own set of modules.
- Bootstrap v3.1.1
- Font Awesome v4.1.0
- Option to use Bootstrap Themes in the frontend - e.g., Flatly from Bootswatch
- Option to use Bootstrap Templates in the frontend - e.g., Modern Business from Start Bootstrap
- AdminLTE as the admin panel template; a new skin (entitled "Flat") have been added specifically for use in BackEndManager.
- Beautiful Flat Icons by ElegantThemes are used in the dashboard apps of the admin panel.
- API-ready with REST server implementation.
- Other features to be added as needed
Features fixed from the BEP Price/Weli releases:
- ReCAPTCHA - Used new Google API codes. Updated config settings to make this feature work in the current release.
- Core Controllers Renamed - Capitalized the "c" in the main controllers' names to fix the problem on extended controller class not found.
- Auth Helper - A copy of the ACL helper was placed inside the main app's helper directory to fix the problem of functions not found.
- Added missing cache subdirectory inside the app's assets directory.
- Apache 2.x with mod_rewrite and mod_vhost_alias enabled (current release tested on 2.2.26)
- PHP 5.x (current release tested on 5.4.19)
- MySQL 5.x (current release tested on 5.0.10)
Start by cloning the project from its git repository, as such:
git clone https://github.com/reine/BackEndManager.git
If you do not want to use git, you can download a copy of the latest release in ZIP format.
Launch MySQL and use a database client (e.g., Sequel Pro or phpMyAdmin) to dump the SQL file located at docs/db/default/001-bem_default.sql
Then create an Apache virtual host with bem.dev as the ServerName and redirect it to the assets/default directory, as such:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot "/Users/reine/Sites/BackEndManager/assets/default"
ServerName bem.dev
ServerAlias www.bem.dev
ErrorLog "/private/var/log/apache2/bem.dev-error_log"
CustomLog "/private/var/log/apache2/bem.dev-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>
To make sure that the said server name (and its alias) is accessible via browser, edit your /etc/hosts file and add these at the bottom:
127.0.0.1 bem.dev
127.0.0.1 www.bem.dev
For Windows users: This file is located at C:/Windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts
Restart Apache and point your browser to http://bem.dev or http://www.bem.dev
It is good practice to use a dummy domain during the development stage rather than serving the site using localhost (i.e., via http://localhost/bem). Likewise, it is a good way to test how the site will eventually work once it is migrated to the production server.
You should be able to see the frontend of the site with a login link in the upper right of the page.
####Initial Login Info####
Username: Administrator
Email: hello@mydevstudio.com
Password: admin123
When you login, either use the username or the email to access the restricted content of the site.
###Configuration###
The configuration file was modified to allow both secure (https) and unsecure (http) access to the site pages. Likewise, it was modified to enable any domain (or subdomain) to serve its pages without manually altering the base_url() value. This feature avoids the hassle you will get when you want to host multiple domains (or subdomains) using one application only.
####API-Ready with REST Implementation####
The REST library is not autoloaded by default. It will only be executed if specifically called by the modules.
--- More content to follow ---
To set up a new app (the system can handle as many apps as possible using only one core), here are the steps to accomplish them:
-
Create a new app directory inside apps. (e.g. apps/extranet)
-
Copy all files inside apps/default to the new app directory.
-
Create a new assets directory inside assets. Make sure it has the same name as your new app directory. (e.g. assets/extranet)
-
Copy all files inside assets/default to the new assets directory. Rename the _install directory to install.
-
Create a new virtual host entry and redirect it to your new app's assets directory. Check out the sample below:
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost DocumentRoot "/Users/reine/Sites/BackEndManager/assets/extranet" ServerName extranet.dev ServerAlias www.extranet.dev </VirtualHost> -
Likewise, create an entry in your /etc/hosts file to be able to use the app's development domain.
127.0.0.1 extranet.dev 127.0.0.1 www.extranet.dev -
Restart Apache and point your browser to your new app's install directory - http://extranet.dev/install/
-
During the installation, change all references of app-new to extranet (the latter as the new name for your app). Provide the necessary database access information and create the admin account. Leave the encryption key field blank as the system will automatically generate this for new installations.
-
If you encounter any installation errors (e.g., file or directory permissions), please fix them and start the install process again.
Herewith listed are the modules for BackEndManager:
- Content Management
- Other modules to be added as needed
Successful install screen (for new app setup)
Login screen using Flatly as theme with Modern Business as template
Dashboard screen with the default Flat skin in the admin panel
This is a work in progress - use at your own risk.
If you find any bugs, please report them at the Issues section of the project repository. Do note that I may not always reply to them as needed because I also work on my client projects.
BackEndManager is released under GPL v2. Wherever a third-party code is used, owner of the said code retains his/her own copyright & license. As much as possible, we will only use open source codes.