Pails is a seriously lightweight MVC framework written in PHP. The overarching vision is that less code is more powerful (and certainly gives rise to fewer bugs). Read more on my blog

Pails is licensed under the GPLv3. If the GPL doesn't work for you, let's talk about your use case. If you need verification that this is free software (for your boss, CTO, etc.), that can also be arranged.

Come talk about pails in #pails on Freenode.

Sites using pails

• #dreammaker - A platform for people to make dreams and others to help them come true
• Front Range Barbeque - The version currently under development uses pails
• MailOver - Send mail to your friends via twitter! (Only the dev site uses pails)

Building a site with pails

You can build a pails app using some automated scripts OR manually. Using scripts is probably faster.

First, install pails:

git clone https://github.com/bparks/pails.git
cd pails && make install              # Note: if you don't have permissions to
                                      # /usr/local/**/, you'll need to precede
                                      # the installation command with 'sudo'

Then, run the pails command to build out a new tree for you:

pails new my_pails_app    # Creates a new app
cd my_pails_app
pails server    # Runs the PHP development server (requires PHP 5.4+)

TODOs

• Build an example app
• Make a shiny new pails app do more than complain about missing pieces

Build an app!

Models go in /models and extend ActiveRecord\Model.

Controllers go in /controllers with names like StuffController (case matters) and extend Pails\Controller.

Views go in /views, in subfolders named by controller (all lowercase). Thus, a view for the 'index' action of StuffController would be views/stuff/index.php.

Each public method in a Controller class is a valid action.

Before and after actions

Just like Rails, pails has before and after actions. Right now, they need to be public methods, which are configured as before or after actions with a class-level variable called $before_actions or $after_actions, like so:

$before_actions = array('require_login', 'require_admin');

The referenced functions can't take any arguments.

You can also exclude them from beign applicable to certain actions by making this array associative, like so:

$before_actions = array(
    'require_login',
    'require_admin' => array('except' => array('index'))
);

BE WARNED that in a future release, the way to do this properly will be to fiddle with these variables (or preferably to call a method by the same name, which doesn't exist yet) inside the class's __construct() function. This eleminates the problem caused by inheritance of subclasses clobbering before and after actions that are set by superclasses.

Questions?

Send email to bparks@synapsesoftware.com.

The manual way (if you really want it)

Construct a webroot

webroot
|-lib
|-controllers
|-models
|-views
|-config
|-[images]
|-[css]
|-[js]
|-<etc. - however you normally structure your webroots>

Clone the pails repository

If you're using git for your project, clone pails as a submodule, executing the following commands from your webroot:

git submodule init
git submodule add https://github.com/bparks/pails.git lib/pails

Otherwise, just clone the repo into [webroot]/lib/pails

Copy the necessary config files where they need to go

From the webroot:

cp -r lib/pails/example/* .

Verify that .htaccess and config/application.php.default exist

Clone php-activerecord into the lib directory

pails uses php-activerecord for persistence. This makes data access trivial.

git clone https://github.com/jpfuentes2/php-activerecord.git lib/php-activerecord

Configure your app

Move config/application.php.example to config/application.php and change values as necessary.