So You Think You Can Composer?

Transcript

1. So You Think You Can Composer? Coen Jacobs - WordPress meetup Enschede @CoenJacobs - #wpm053
2. Composer
4. Compooooooser
5. Composer PHP package manager
6. “Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/ update) them for you.”
7. So what does it do?
8. The Composer magic • Manage project dependencies • Powerful autoloader
9. Install your dependencies Defined in composer.json Version locked in composer.lock
10. Where to find these dependencies?
12. Custom version control GitHub repositories (private or public) for example
13. "require": {
 "laravel/framework": “5.2.*" } What is a dependency?
14. "laravel/framework": "5.2.*" vendor package version constraint
15. /vendor/laravel/framework Installed in /vendor
16. Everything gets autoloaded Include /vendor/autoload.php
17. Manual loading require_once 'classes/class-core.php'; require_once 'includes/wpseo-local-functions.php'; require_once 'includes/ajax-functions.php'; require_once 'classes/class-core.php'; require_once 'classes/class-admin.php'; require_once 'classes/class-admin-wrappers.php'; require_once 'classes/class-metaboxes.php'; require_once 'classes/class-frontend.php'; require_once 'classes/class-storelocator.php'; require_once 'classes/class-taxonomy.php'; require_once 'widgets/widget-show-address.php'; require_once 'widgets/widget-show-map.php'; require_once 'widgets/widget-show-openinghours.php'; require_once 'widgets/widget-storelocator-form.php';
18. Autoloading require_once 'vendor/autoload.php';
19. Autoload bonus • Only include files when class is used • Includes files from your dependencies • … and files from the dependencies of your dependencies… • … and so on
20. Ok, so what about WordPress?
21. WordPress is a dependency So are plugins and themes
22. WordPress itself is not a Composer package
24. "require": {
 "johnpbloch/wordpress": "4.4.*" } WordPress as a dependency
25. But wait… WordPress will always be WordPress
26. We need a couple tricks
27. WordPress is started from the index.php file
28. … so we can’t install it in /vendor/wordpress
29. That index.php does this require( dirname(__FILE__ ) . '/wp-blog-header.php' );
30. Custom install paths for EVERYTHING
32. "extra": { "wordpress-install-dir": "wp", } Define install directory in composer.json
34. “You can move the wp-config.php file to the directory above your WordPress install. This means for a site installed in the root of your webspace, you can store wp-config.php outside the web-root folder.”
35. Custom index.php define( 'WP_USE_THEMES', true ); require( 'wp/wp-blog-header.php' );
36. Project structure so far
37. Why would you do all this?
38. Advantages of Composer • Dependencies declared in a single file • Installing and updating handled by a tool • Dependencies locked on specific versions • No third party code in version control
39. Version control magic • Add all Composer installed directories to .gitignore • git clone && composer install
40. What about themes and plugins?
41. Default directories wp-content/plugins wp-content/themes
42. Custom directory constants in wp-config.php WP_CONTENT_DIR to /content PLUGINDIR to /content/plugins
43. Installer paths "extra": { "wordpress-install-dir": "wp", "installer-paths": { "vendor/package": ["dir/dir/"], } }
44. Themes and plugins need to have composer.json, require composer-installers AND have their package type set correctly Couple constraints
45. … but there is help!
47. Install Akismet via wpackagist.org "installer-paths": { "content/plugins/akismet/": ["wpackagist-plugin/akismet"], }
48. Full project structure
49. Full project structure and ignores
50. What about custom plugins and themes?
51. Ideally, in a separate repository And load them as any other dependency
52. Ignore parts of /content
53. Or exclude custom work in the ignored folder
54. Great dependency management and clean version control
55. Can we make this easier?
56. Sure!
58. Plug & play Composer setup, boilerplate project
59. This is where the fun begins…
60. What about plugin dependencies? Maybe some use the same PHP library?
61. WordPress SUCKS when it comes to dependency management Composer helps, but doesn’t solve everything
63. Not a Composer problem
64. … it’s a WordPress problem
65. So what’s wrong?
66. Plugin dependency conflict • Plugin A bundles version 1.0.0 of X • Plugin B bundles version 2.0.0 of X • Versions are not compatible with each other, but can be used at the same time
67. Which plugin loads first?
68. Alphabetical, basically wp-content/plugins/a-plugin (bundled version 2.0.0) wp-content/plugins/z-plugin (bundled version 1.0.0)
69. WordPress SUCKS when it comes to dependency management This can bite you, with or without Composer
70. Custom namespaces can solve this - kinda
72. Downsides to workarounds • Maintenance heavy for updates • Defeats purpose of package managers • … but it probably is the only way
73. Full site management via Composer solves this in 99.9% of the cases But it doesn’t help plugin developers…
74. Maybe, one day…
76. Keep on dreaming :) Coen Jacobs - @CoenJacobs - coenjacobs.me #wpm053