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Digital Library is a full-fledged web application built using Yii/PHP. The main purpose of coming up with this demo app is to show newbie Yii developers how to use the various Yii features to build a meaningful web application that is different from the obligatory Blog demo that usually accompanies the frameworks.

#About Digital Library: An online book store app that has two modules: Admin (back end) and Library(front end).

#Versions of the app: There are 3 versions of the DL app corresponding to the 3 branches: - Version 1(master branch): - Uses PHP script file for authorization data and access control filters for RBAC - Allows a book to have only one author and category each. - Doesn't support caching - Supports database migration - Version 2('Caching-and-Many-Many-relations' branch): - Uses PHP script file for authorization data and access control filters for RBAC - Allows a book to have a maximum of 3 authors and categories each - Supports caching - Supports database migration - Version 3('Use-Yii-RBAC' branch): - Uses the database for RBAC - There is an admin component for it - Allows a book to have a maximum of 3 authors and categories each - Supports caching - Allows the books catalog to be searched based on title or author - Supports database migration

##Admin Module: Is where the book store is administered

###Admin Module Features:

• Add/update/delete Books, Authors, Publishers, Categories, Admin Users, Admin Roles
• Activate/Deactivate/Delete Members
• View requests for books
• Issue/return of books

####Books:

• Add/update/delete books
  • Currently, a book can have only one author, category, and publisher
  • Before adding a book, atleast one author, category, and publisher need to be added to the system

####Authors, Publishers and Categories:

• Add/update/delete

####Issues:

• View a list of books issued to the members
• Delete an issue by flagging it returned

####Requests:

• View a list of requests for books from members
• Issue a book to the respective user thereby removing it from the request list

####Admin Users:

• Are those that administer the system
• Belong to roles that can be defined by the master admin user (the omnipotent user of the system)
• Can carry out activities as per the access rights assigned to the roles they belong to
• The DB script that comes with the system automatically creates the master admin user: "administrator" with the password: "admin"
  • This user has full access rights to the system
• Can add/delete admin users
  • Assign the user to a role while adding

####Members:

• Are the public users of the system
• Activate/deactivate/delete members

####Roles:

• Roles determine the activities that can be performed by a user in the system

• The included DB script automatically creates two roles:

  • 'admin'
    • Omnipotent
    • The 'administrator' user belongs to this role
      • Add/delete other admin users and assign roles to them
  • 'supervisor'
    • Less powerful than admin
    • Has restricted access to the backend

• View a list of users belonging to a role

  • Change the role for a user

##Library Module:

Is the frontend of the application that will be used by members

• Members can:
  • View the books catalog
  • Add books to the request cart
  • Checkout the books thereby sending a request to the backend
    • Only registered users can send request for books
  • Contact the administrator (needs to be tested!)

###Things that can be learned from studying these versions of the app:

• Yii Module creation
  • Admin and Library
• Authentication and authorization
  • Role based access control (both file- and db-based)
• Enabling and disabling of menu items based on the logged in user's role
• Use of Yii's ORM (Active Record and Relational Active Record) for database access
• Form input and AJAX validation
• Button columns with images in CGridView
• Error handling
• Implementing search
• Database migrations to migrate up/down from one version of the app to the next/previous

###TODO list to make it more feature rich:

####App specific:

• Allowing multiple authors and categories for a book (implemented in versions 2 and 3)
• Role-based access control is a manual process
  • Need an interface to automate this process
    • Version 3 implements db based RBAC using srbac extension
    • Users of the Admin role can use the rbac component to create roles, tasks, operations and assign them to users
      • The app will automatically display the appropriate menu items based on these assignments
        • No need to add code in main.php view file to display various menu items
        • No need to add access control filters in controller classes to allow/deny access to actions
• Concurrency support

####Yii specific:

• Caching (implemented in versions 2 and 3)
• Security
• i18n
• Search (implemented in version 3)

####Software Requirements:

• Yii 1.1.9+, PHP 5.3+ and MySQL 5.0+

####Installation:

• Clone or copy the app in a web-accessible folder

• Checkout the submodules if cloned via git or copy/symlink the yii-framework to ./protected/yiiCore/

  • Detailed steps for installing the project on local machine:

    • Using Git:

      • using Git version 1.6.5 or greater

        • git clone --recursive https://github.com/Krish-Chandra/DL.git

      • Using earlier versions of Git

        • git clone https://github.com/Krish-Chandra/DL.git
        • cd DL (DL is the folder in which the project is installed/cloned)
        • git submodule init
        • git submodule update

      • Another way to setup the project

        • git clone https://github.com/Krish-Chandra/DL.git
        • cd DL\protected
        • git clone https://github.com/yiisoft/yii.git yiiCore

    • Using the Zip files:

      • Download the project zip file, unzip the contents to a web-accessible folder
      • Download the Yii framework zip file from Yii website or GitHub, unzip the conents to './protected/yiiCore/'

• Create the database

• Go!