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How To for Backpack\Base


Customize the menu or sidebar

During installation, Backpack publishes a few files in you resources/views/vendor/backpack/base/inc folder. In there, you'll also find:

  • sidebar_content.php
  • topbar_left_content.php
  • topbar_right_content.php

Change those files as you please.

Customize the dashboard

The dashboard is shown from Backpack\Base\app\Http\Controller\AdminController.php::dashboard(). If you take a look at that method, you'll see that the only thing it does is to set a title from the language file, and return a view: backpack::dashboard.

In order to place something else inside that view, simply publish that view in your project, and Backpack will pick it up, instead of the one in the package. Create a resources/views/vendor/backpack/base/dashboard.blade.php file:

@extends('backpack::layout')

@section('header')
    <section class="content-header">
      <h1>
        {{ trans('backpack::base.dashboard') }}<small>{{ trans('backpack::base.first_page_you_see') }}</small>
      </h1>
      <ol class="breadcrumb">
        <li><a href="{{ backpack_url() }}">{{ config('backpack.base.project_name') }}</a></li>
        <li class="active">{{ trans('backpack::base.dashboard') }}</li>
      </ol>
    </section>
@endsection

@section('content')
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-md-12">
            <div class="box">
                <div class="box-header with-border">
                    <div class="box-title">{{ trans('backpack::base.login_status') }}</div>
                </div>

                <div class="box-body">{{ trans('backpack::base.logged_in') }}</div>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
@endsection

To use information from the database, use view composers to push variables inside this view, when it's loaded. Or better yet, load all your dashboard information using AJAX calls, if you're loading charts, reports, etc, and the DB queries might take a long time.

Take a look at the AdminLTE dashboards - you can easily use whatever content block you want from there.

Customizing the general layout/design

See the docs.

Customizing the Auth controllers

In config/backpack/base.php you'll find these configuration options:

    // Set this to false if you would like to use your own AuthController and PasswordController
    // (you then need to setup your auth routes manually in your routes.php file)
    'setup_auth_routes' => true,

You can change both setup_auth_routes to false. This means Backpack\Base won't register the Auth routes any more, so you'll have to manually register them in your route file, to point to the Auth controllers you want. If you're going to use the Auth controllers that Laravel generates, these are the routes you can use:

Route::group(['middleware' => 'web', 'prefix' => config('backpack.base.route_prefix')], function () {
    Route::auth();
    Route::get('logout', 'Auth\LoginController@logout');
});

Customize the routes

Custom routes - option 1

You can place a new routes file in your app/routes/backpack/base.php. If a file is present there, no default Backpack\Base routes will be loaded, only what's present in that file. You can use the routes file vendor/backpack/base/src/resources/views/base.php as an example, and customize whatever you want.

Custom routes - option 2

In config/backpack/base.php you'll find these configuration options:


    /*
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    | Routing
    |--------------------------------------------------------------------------
    */

    // The prefix used in all base routes (the 'admin' in admin/dashboard)
    'route_prefix' => 'admin',

    // Set this to false if you would like to use your own AuthController and PasswordController
    // (you then need to setup your auth routes manually in your routes.php file)
    'setup_auth_routes' => true,

    // Set this to false if you would like to skip adding the dashboard routes
    // (you then need to overwrite the login route on your AuthController)
    'setup_dashboard_routes' => true,

In order to completely customize the auth routes, you can change both setup_auth_routes and setup_dashboard_routes to false. This means Backpack\Base won't register any routes any more, so you'll have to manually register them in your route file. Here's what you can use to get started:

Route::group(['middleware' => 'web', 'prefix' => config('backpack.base.route_prefix', 'namespace' => 'Backpack\Base\app\Http\Controllers')], function () {
    Route::auth();
    Route::get('logout', 'Auth\LoginController@logout');
    Route::get('dashboard', 'AdminController@dashboard');
    Route::get('/', 'AdminController@redirect');
});

Customize the look and feel of AdminLTE (using CSS)

In config/app.php you should have a config option that looks like this:

    // Overlays - CSS files that change the look and feel of the admin panel
    'overlays' => [
        'vendor/backpack/base/backpack.bold.css',
        // 'vendor/backpack/base/backpack.content.is.king.css', // opinionized borderless alternative
    ],

If you don't (it was added in Base 0.9.9), you can create it.

This config option allows you to add CSS files that add style on top of AdminLTE, to make it look different. Our backpack.bold.css file is included by default, which makes AdminLTE look more modern. But if you want your backend to match your front-end, you can create a CSS file anywhere inside your public folder, and add it here.

For example, if you're using the Stack HTML template on your front-end, you can just add this overlay to make AdminLTE look very similar.

Use separate login/register forms for users and admins

This is a default in Backpack\Base 1.0.0.

Backpack's authentication uses a completely separate authentication driver, provider, guard and password broker. They're all named backpack, and registered in the vendor folder, invisible to you.

If you need a separate login for user, just go ahead and create it. Add the Laravel authentication, like instructed in the Laravel documentation: php artisan make:auth. You'll then have:

  • the user login at /login -> using the AuthenticationController Laravel provides
  • the admin login at /admin/login -> using the AuthenticationControllers Backpack provides

The user login will be using Laravel's default authentication driver, provider, guard and password broker, from config/auth.php.

Backpack's authentication driver, provider, guard and password broker can easily be overwritten by creating a driver/provider/guard/broker with the backpack name inside your config/auth.php. If one named backpack exists there, Backpack will use that instead.

Overwrite Backpack authentication driver, provider, guard or password broker

Backpack's authentication uses a completely separate authentication driver, provider, guard and password broker. Backpack adds them to what's defined in config/auth.php on runtime, and they're all named backpack.

To change a setting in how Backpack's driver/provider/guard or password broker works, create a driver/provider/guard/broker with the backpack name inside your config/auth.php. If one named backpack exists there, Backpack will use that instead.

Use separate sessions for admin&user authentication

This is a default in Backpack\Base 1.0.0.

Login with username instead of email

  1. Create a username column in your users table and add it in $fillable on your User model. Best to do this with a migration.
  2. Delete your email column and remove it from $fillable on your User model. Alternatively, just remove UNIQUE and NOT NULL from it. Best to do this with a migration.
  3. Change your config/backpack/base.php config options:
    // Username column for authentication
    // The Backpack default is the same as the Laravel default (email)
    // If you need to switch to username, you also need to create that column in your db
    'authentication_column' => 'username',
    'authentication_column_name' => 'Username',

    That's it. This will:

    • use username for login;
    • use username for registration;
    • use username in My Account, when a user wants to change his info;
    • completely disable the password recovery (if you've deleted the email db column);

Use your own User model instead of BackpackUser

By default, authentication and everything else inside Backpack is done using the Backpack\Base\app\Models\BackpackUser model, which extends Laravel's default App\User model. If you change the location of App\User, or want to use a different User model for whatever other reason, you can do so by

  • changing user_model_fqn in config/backpack/base.php to your new class;
  • making sure everything inside BackpackUser is also inside your new model (this is important for recovering password, etc);

Use your own profile image (avatar)

By default, Backpack will use Gravatar to show the profile image for the currently logged in backpack user. In order to change this, you can use the option in config/backpack/base.php:

// What kind of avatar will you like to show to the user?
// Default: gravatar (automatically use the gravatar for his email)
//
// Other options:
// - placehold (generic image with his first letter)
// - example_method_name (specify the method on the User model that returns the URL)
'avatar_type' => 'gravatar',

Please note that this does not allow the user to change his profile image.

Manually install Base

If for any reason the Backpack/Base installation process fails for you, you can manually run all the commands in the installer, which are listed below. Failure to install can happens sometimes if the user does not have enough permissions (sudo access is needed) or if the composer command is not registered (and php composer needs to be run instead).

# Install backpack/generators
composer require backpack/generators --dev

# Install laracasts/generators
composer require laracasts/generators:dev-master --dev

# Publish configs, langs, views and AdminLTE files
php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Backpack\Base\BaseServiceProvider" --tag="minimum"

# Publish config for notifications - prologue/alerts
php artisan vendor:publish --provider="Prologue\Alerts\AlertsServiceProvider"

# Generate users table (using Laravel's default migrations)
php artisan migrate

# Publish the BackpackUser model inside your app/Models directory
php artisan backpack:base:publish-user-model

# Publish the CheckIfAdmin middleware inside your app/Http/Middleware directory
php artisan backpack:base:publish-middleware

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