Symfony Sonata Distribution

Welcome to the Symfony Sonata Distribution - a fully-functional Symfony2 Sonata application that you can use as the skeleton for your new application.

This distribution exists to save you from repeating all the steps needed to create a basic Sonata app.

This document contains information on how to download, install, and start using Symfony with Sonata. For a more detailed explanation, see the Installation chapter of the Symfony Documentation.

NOTE: For older Symfony versions use the corresponding branch.

1. Installing the Sonata Distribution

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When it comes to installing the Symfony Sonata Distribution, you have the following options.

Use Composer (recommended)

As Symfony uses Composer to manage its dependencies, the recommended way to create a new project is to use it.

If you don't have Composer yet, download it following the instructions on http://getcomposer.org/ or just run the following command:

curl -s http://getcomposer.org/installer | php

Then, use the create-project command to generate a new Symfony Sonata application:

php composer.phar create-project -s dev jmather/symfony-sonata-distribution path/to/install

Composer will install Symfony and all its dependencies under the path/to/install directory.

Download an Archive File

To quickly test Symfony Sonata, you can also download an archive of the Sonata Distribution and unpack it somewhere under your web server root directory.

You also need to install all the necessary dependencies. Download composer (see above) and run the following command:

php composer.phar install

2. Checking your System Configuration

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Before starting coding, make sure that your local system is properly configured for Symfony.

Execute the check.php script from the command line:

php app/check.php

Access the config.php script from a browser:

http://localhost/path/to/symfony/app/web/config.php

If you get any warnings or recommendations, fix them before moving on.

3. Set up, initialize and browse the app

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Initializing the DB

Before you can run the server and log in to Sonata you need to create the tables first.

./app/console doctrine:schema:create

Create the users

You can either create a handful of users like this (one of the usernames is 'superadmin' with password 'test')

./app/console doctrine:fixtures:load

Or you can manually create a user yourself

./app/console fos:user:create username [email protected] password
./app/console fos:user:promote username ROLE_SONATA_ADMIN

Install assets:

./app/console assets:install --symlink --relative web

Start the server:

Congratulations! You're now ready to use Symfony Sonata

./app/console server:run

Login

Now you can login as user 'superadmin' with password 'test' at

http://localhost:8000/admin

Warning

Currently .htaccess is configured to use app_dev.php but not app.php (production - no debug). When you launch your application don't forget to use app.php.

Browsing the Demo Application

From the config.php page, click the "Bypass configuration and go to the Welcome page" link to load up your first Symfony page.

You can also use a web-based configurator by clicking on the "Configure your Symfony Application online" link of the config.php page.

To see a real-live Symfony page in action, access the following page:

web/app_dev.php/demo/hello/Fabien

4. Getting started with Symfony

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This distribution is meant to be the starting point for your Symfony applications, but it also contains some sample code that you can learn from and play with.

A great way to start learning Symfony is via the Quick Tour, which will take you through all the basic features of Symfony2.

Once you're feeling good, you can move onto reading the official Symfony2 book.

A default bundle, AcmeDemoBundle, shows you Symfony2 in action. After playing with it, you can remove it by following these steps:

• delete the src/Acme directory;

• remove the routing entries referencing AcmeBundle in app/config/routing_dev.yml;

• remove the AcmeBundle from the registered bundles in app/AppKernel.php;

• remove the web/bundles/acmedemo directory;

• remove the security.providers, security.firewalls.login and security.firewalls.secured_area entries in the security.yml file or tweak the security configuration to fit your needs.

What's inside Symfony Sonata Distribution?

The Symfony Sonata Distribution is based on the Symfony Standard Edition. Additionally the following bundles are used to configure a fully functional Sonata application:

• SonataCoreBundle - The foundation on which the Sonata bundles rest

• SonataAdminBundle - The main bundle needed to create the admin interface

• SonataDoctrineORMAdminBundle - Integrates Doctrine ORM project with the admin bundle

• FOSUserBundle - Provides user management

• SonataUserBundle - Integrates the FOSUserBundle and adds some features

• SonataBlockBundle - This bundle provides a block management solution

There are some more bundles necessary to run the application so take a look at the composer.json file.

What's inside Symfony Standard Edition

The Symfony Standard Edition is configured with the following defaults:

• Twig is the only configured template engine;

• Doctrine ORM/DBAL is configured;

• Swiftmailer is configured;

• Annotations for everything are enabled.

It comes pre-configured with the following bundles:

• FrameworkBundle - The core Symfony framework bundle

• SensioFrameworkExtraBundle - Adds several enhancements, including template and routing annotation capability

• DoctrineBundle - Adds support for the Doctrine ORM

• TwigBundle - Adds support for the Twig templating engine

• SecurityBundle - Adds security by integrating Symfony's security component

• SwiftmailerBundle - Adds support for Swiftmailer, a library for sending emails

• MonologBundle - Adds support for Monolog, a logging library

• AsseticBundle - Adds support for Assetic, an asset processing library

• JMSSecurityExtraBundle - Allows security to be added via annotations

• JMSDiExtraBundle - Adds more powerful dependency injection features

• WebProfilerBundle (in dev/test env) - Adds profiling functionality and the web debug toolbar

• SensioDistributionBundle (in dev/test env) - Adds functionality for configuring and working with Symfony distributions

• SensioGeneratorBundle (in dev/test env) - Adds code generation capabilities

• AcmeDemoBundle (in dev/test env) - A demo bundle with some example code

Enjoy!