Why Laravel?

Laravel is one of the most popular php frameworks. When I first started learning Laravel I found that the setting up of the dev environment was the hardest part. I have created a tutorial below which I believe is the fastest and easiest way to get started on a mac. It should also work on Ubuntu.

Requirements

Before starting make sure you have the following installed

• Virtual Box - https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
• Vagrant - https://www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html
• Composer - https://getcomposer.org/download/

Install Laravel

• Open terminal and navigate to the folder where you would like to create your project (using 'cd' if you're a total beginner see https://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials/navigating-the-terminal-a-gentle-introduction--mac-3855 step 5)
• composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel blog to create a folder called blog which contains your new laravel project. Replace blog at the end of the command with the name of your project.
• Cd into your project cd blog
• run composer require laravel/homestead --dev which will set up homestead to run laravel on your machine
• run php vendor/bin/homestead make
• run vagrant up this can take some time to download the virtual machine
• next you should run the command sudo nano /etc/hosts it will ask for your password. This is the password that you use to log into your mac.
• use the down arrow to go to the bottom of the file and add a new row in and paste the following 192.168.10.10 homestead.test
• Press Ctrl + o to save the document and Ctrl+x to exit
• You should now be able to access your project in the browser by going to http://homestead.test

You can also:

• run vagrant ssh to ssh into your virtual machine to run migrations etc. This will be useful as you get to know the system.

The Docs

Best places to start:

• https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/routing#basic-routing Routes (how you access the pages)
• https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/controllers#introduction (Controllers to decide what those pages show)
• https://laravel.com/docs/5.6/eloquent#introduction (inserting and getting from the database)

Hopefully I helped somebody get started with laravel using this post. I am new on steemit and will be posting more laravel content shortly. I found when learning laravel that setting up the envoronment was the main hurdle. Once this is set up learning the docs and code is a breeze!

If you have any laravel questions ask them below and I will try my best to answer them.

Thanks! Dont forget to vote up!