Php-Laravel Blog

Monday, 19 May 2025

What is Laravel and Why It’s a Great Path for Web Developers

If you're thinking about diving into web development, you've likely come across the name Laravel. But what is Laravel exactly, and why is it such a popular choice among developers? In this post, we’ll explore what Laravel is, what makes it powerful, and why it’s a great framework to pursue—especially if you're working with PHP.

🧩 What is Laravel?

Laravel is a free, open-source PHP framework that follows the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. It provides developers with a clean and elegant syntax while offering robust tools to build full-featured web applications.

Laravel comes with built-in solutions for many common development tasks like:

User authentication (login/register)
Routing and middleware
Database management using Eloquent ORM
Form validation and session handling
Sending emails
Building APIs
Command-line automation using Artisan

It’s designed to simplify the complex parts of development, so you can focus more on building great features.

🚀 Why Choose Laravel?

Here’s why Laravel stands out and is a fantastic choice for web development:

✅ 1. Beginner-Friendly

Laravel has an intuitive and readable syntax, which makes it easy for newcomers to pick up and start building right away. The official documentation is detailed and beginner-friendly, and the Laravel ecosystem includes starter kits like Laravel Breeze that scaffold basic login and registration functionality in minutes.

✅ 2. Modern Tools, Built In

Laravel isn’t just a PHP framework—it’s a full-featured toolkit. Whether you're creating a small website or a complex SaaS platform, Laravel gives you everything you need:

Blade templating engine for views
Eloquent ORM for working with databases
Laravel Mix or Vite for frontend asset compilation
Support for REST APIs, queues, events, and more

✅ 3. Active Ecosystem

The Laravel ecosystem is rich with tools:

Laravel Breeze / Jetstream: Prebuilt user auth scaffolding
Laravel Nova / Voyager: Admin dashboards
Laravel Sanctum / Passport: API authentication
Laravel Forge / Envoyer: Deployment tools

These tools help you scale from idea to production seamlessly.

✅ 4. Huge Community and Support

With thousands of developers using it daily, Laravel has one of the most vibrant and helpful communities. Whether you're learning or troubleshooting, you’ll find tons of tutorials, courses, forums, and GitHub discussions to guide you.

✅ 5. Career-Boosting Skills

Laravel is used by startups, agencies, and even large enterprises. Knowing Laravel opens up freelance opportunities, remote jobs, and full-time roles across the globe. And since Laravel is rooted in PHP—a widely used language—you’re learning skills that are always in demand.

🎯 Final Thoughts

If you want to build beautiful, functional web apps quickly and efficiently, Laravel is a fantastic framework to learn. It makes modern PHP development not only possible but enjoyable.

Laravel helps you go from an idea to a working app faster, with less effort, and teaches you best practices along the way.

Whether you're a beginner or looking to sharpen your backend development skills, Laravel is a solid, rewarding path to pursue.

Sunday, 18 May 2025

Customizing the Laravel Landing Page

When you start a new Laravel project, you're greeted with a sleek but generic welcome page. While it's nice for initial testing, you'll eventually want to replace it with something more personalized—especially if you're building a real application.

In this post, I’ll walk you through how to customize Laravel’s default landing page to make it feel like it truly belongs to your project.

We shall replace the landing page with this simple page:

🔍 Where is the Landing Page?

Laravel’s welcome page lives in this file:

resources/views/welcome.blade.php

This is a simple Blade file (Laravel’s templating engine), and you can customize it like any regular HTML page with embedded Blade syntax.

🧑‍🎨 Let’s Customize It

Open welcome.blade.php in your text editor and replace its content with something more tailored to your app. For example:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Welcome - Company Web Admin</title>
    <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Nunito:wght@600&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
<style>
    table {
        margin-top: 20px;
        margin-left: auto;
        margin-right: auto;
    }

    .custom-button {
        background-color: #1d4ed8; /* Blue */
        color: white;
        padding: 10px 25px;
        border: none;
        border-radius: 8px; /* Rounded corners */
        font-size: 16px;
        font-weight: bold;
        cursor: pointer;
    }

    .custom-button:hover {
        background-color: #2563eb; /* Lighter blue on hover */
    }

    h1 {
        text-align: center;
        margin-top: 50px;
        font-family: Arial, sans-serif;
    }
</style>
 
</style>

</style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Welcome to the Company Web Admin Page</h1>
    <table>
        <tr>
            <td>
                <a href="{{ route('login') }}">
                    <button>Login</button>
                </a>
            </td>
            <td>
                <a href="{{ route('register') }}">
                    <button>Register</button>
                </a>
            </td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</body>
</html>

With just a few lines of code, you now have a custom landing page that reflects your brand and leads users directly to the login form.

🧪 Test the Page

If you’re already running Laravel’s development server, simply refresh your browser at:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

You should see your new design immediately.

If not running yet, start it with:

php artisan serve

📝 Summary

Laravel’s landing page is just a Blade view (welcome.blade.php).
You can edit it like any HTML file.
Add your own styles, messages, and buttons to reflect your app’s purpose.
Use Blade’s {{ route('login') }} to link directly to Laravel's built-in login page.

Customizing your Laravel landing page is a great first step in branding your application and guiding users toward what they need to do next.

Happy coding! 🚀

Laravel User Login App – Step-by-Step Guide

1. Create a New Laravel Project

First, navigate to your wamp64/www folder (or your preferred location), then run:

composer create-project laravel/laravel login

This will create a new Laravel project named login.

2. Set Up the Database

Create a new database in phpMyAdmin (e.g., login_db).
Open the .env file in your Laravel project and configure your database settings:

DB_DATABASE=login_db
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

3. Fix Default String Length (for older MySQL versions)

In App\Providers\AppServiceProvider.php, update the boot method to fix key length issues:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

public function boot()
{
Schema::defaultStringLength(191);
}

4. Install and Setup Laravel Breeze (Built-in in Laravel 10+)

Laravel Breeze is now easy to set up:

composer require laravel/breeze --dev
php artisan breeze:install
npm install && npm run dev
php artisan migrate

✅ This sets up:

A landing page (/)
A login page (/login)
A registration page (/register)
A dashboard page (/dashboard)

5. Run the Application

Start the development server:

php artisan serve

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in your browser.

🧾 Features You Now Have

✅ Welcome landing page
✅ Login functionality
✅ User registration
✅ Protected dashboard (only accessible after login)

You’re now ready to expand the app by adding roles, user management, and more features.

Getting Started: What’s Installed on My PC and How to Begin PHP Laravel Development

Ready to start your Laravel journey? Before coding, make sure you have these key tools installed on your PC:

1. WAMP Server (or any local server stack)

Why? Provides Apache, MySQL, and PHP to run your Laravel apps locally.

How to install:

Go to https://www.wampserver.com/
Download the latest version compatible with your system (32-bit or 64-bit)
Run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions
After installation, launch WAMP and ensure the server is running (green icon)

2. PHP

Why? Laravel runs on PHP, version 7.3 or higher is recommended.

How to install:

If you use WAMP, PHP comes bundled with it.
To check PHP version, open Command Prompt and run:

php -v

If you want to install PHP separately, visit https://www.php.net/downloads and follow the instructions for your OS.

3. Composer

Why? The dependency manager for PHP, used to install Laravel and packages.

How to install:

Go to https://getcomposer.org/download/
Download and run the Composer-Setup.exe (Windows installer)
Follow the prompts to install globally and link it to your PHP installation
Confirm installation by running:

composer --version

4. Laravel Installer (optional)

Why? Quickly create new Laravel projects via command line.

How to install:

Open your terminal/command prompt and run:

composer --version

4. Laravel Installer (optional)

Why? Quickly create new Laravel projects via command line.

How to install:

Open your terminal/command prompt and run:

composer global require laravel/installer

Make sure Composer's global bin directory is added to your system PATH.

Verify by running:

laravel --version

5. Git (optional but recommended)

Why? Version control for tracking changes and collaboration.

How to install:

Download from https://git-scm.com/downloads
Run the installer and follow the setup steps
Check installation with:

git --version

With these tools installed, you’ll have a solid foundation to develop Laravel apps efficiently.

Introduction: Why PHP Laravel is a Game-Changer for App Development

Welcome to the world of PHP Laravel — a powerful and elegant framework that’s transforming how developers build modern web applications. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the complexities of backend development or struggled to find a framework that’s both simple to learn and robust enough for serious projects, Laravel might just be the perfect fit.

Laravel offers a clean, expressive syntax that helps you write readable and maintainable code faster. Whether you’re building a small blog, a complex e-commerce platform, or a sleek user login system, Laravel’s rich ecosystem of tools and libraries makes the development process smoother and more enjoyable.

In this blog, we'll explore everything from the basics of setting up a Laravel project to advanced techniques for crafting scalable and secure PHP applications. If you want to master the PHP development stack and create apps that shine, stay tuned — Laravel is here to empower your coding journey.

Ready to dive in? Let’s unlock the potential of Laravel together!