PHP Quick start guide

Create a new PHP project

Before creating your first PHP project, you should ensure that your local machine has PHP and Composer (opens in a new tab) installed. If you are developing on macOS, PHP and Composer can be installed via Homebrew (opens in a new tab).

This guide is based on the 8.2 PHP version. The instructions below will guide you on how to create an empty PHP project for your blog app. If you have an existing PHP project then you can skip this step.

1. Create a new folder called prepr-php. Open this new project in your preferred code editor and create a new folder called public. In this folder create a new file called index.php.

2. Add the following code to the index.php:

   ./public/index.php

   <?php
    
   echo '<div>';
    
       echo '<h1>My blog site</h1>';
    
   echo '</div>';

3. Run the following command in the terminal to start the server:

   php -S localhost:8000

4. You should now be able to view your app in your browser:

http://localhost:8000/public/index.php

Install the Prepr Graphql SDK

The Prepr Graphql SDK is an integration tool that helps to retrieve CMS data with GraphQL. The instructions below show you how to install the Prepr Graphql SDK so that you can add GraphQL queries to request data from the Prepr API.

1. Execute the following command in the terminal:

   composer require preprio/php-graphql-sdk

2. Next, you need to get the URL of the endpoint. This URL includes the access token for the environment you want to query from. Get this URL by logging into your Prepr account:
   a. Go to Settings → Access tokens to view all the access tokens.
   b. Copy the API URL value from the GraphQL Production access token to only retrieve published content items.

   

3. Update the index.php file in public folder with the following code and replace the <YOUR-PREPR-API-URL> placeholder with the API URL that you copied in the previous step to connect to Prepr:

   ./public/index.php

   <?php
    
   // Enable autoload of the Prepr SDK
   require '../vendor/autoload.php';
    
   // Use the Prepr SDK
   use Preprio\Prepr;
    
   // Connect to the Prepr GraphQL API
   $apiRequest = new Prepr('<YOUR-PREPR-API-URL>');
    
   echo '<div>';
    
       echo '<h1>My blog site</h1>';
    
   echo '</div>';

4. Refresh the page in your browser. If the app runs without errors, then the setup above was done correctly. The next step is to fetch content from Prepr using the installed GraphQL SDK.

Fetch multiple blog posts

Now that your Prepr Graphql SDK is installed and connected to Prepr, fetch the blog posts from Prepr.

Add a GraphQL query

1. Create a queries directory in the root directory of your project and create a file named get-posts.graphql.

2. Add the following query to this file to retrieve all blog posts:

   ./queries/get-posts.graphql

   query {
       Posts {
           items {
               _id
               _slug
               title
           }
       }
   }

If you’re using preloaded demo data in your Prepr CMS environment as mentioned above in the Prerequisites section, you should have a few published blog posts as shown in the below image. The query will retrieve the ID, Slug, and Title of each blog post.

In the next step, we'll fetch and process the query response.

Fetch data

Now that the query has been added, fetch the blog posts from Prepr and display them in the app.

1. Open the index.php file in the public folder and add the code below to display the data retrieved from the query.

   ./public/index.php

   <?php
   require '../vendor/autoload.php';
    
   use Preprio\Prepr;
    
   $apiRequest = new Prepr('<YOUR-PREPR-API-URL>');
    
   echo '<div>';
       echo '<h1>My blog site</h1>';
    
       // Display a list
       echo '<ul>';
    
       // Make a query request for a list of blog posts
       $apiRequest
           ->query('../queries/get-posts.graphql')
           ->request();
    
       $apiResponse = $apiRequest->getResponse();
    
       $posts = $apiResponse['data']['Posts']['items'];
       if ($posts) {
    
           foreach ($posts as $post) {
               
               // Display each post returned by the query
               echo '<li>
                   <a href="' . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] . '?slug='.$post['_slug'].'">'.$post['title'].'</a>
               </li>';
           }
       }
    
       echo '</ul>';
   echo '</div>';

Now when you view the website on your localhost, you'll see something like the image below.

Fetch individual blog posts

Now that you have the list of blog posts, add links to them. When a visitor clicks on a link, your app should open a detailed blog post page automatically. The instructions below show you how to set up the routing from the main page to the detailed page and how to fetch the post details based on the slug of the post that was clicked.

Fetch blog post details

Add another query to fetch a specific blog post by its slug and make this page visible when clicking a blog post.

1. Create a file called get-post-by-slug.graphql in the queries folder and add the following to query a specific blog post by its slug:

   ./queries/get-post-by-slug.graphql

   query ($slug: String) {
       Post (slug: $slug) {
           _id
           title
           cover {
               url(width: 300, height: 250)
           }
           content {
               __typename
               ... on Text {
                   _id
                   body
                   text
               }
               ... on Assets {
                   items {
                       _id
                       url(width: 300, height: 250)
                   }
               }
           }
       }
   }

Now that the query is added, fetch the individual post by its slug. Fetch the blog post title, cover image and the post content.

2. Open the index.php file in the public folder again and add a condition to display a specific blog post when the slug is filled.

   ./public/index.php

   <?php
   require '../vendor/autoload.php';
    
   use Preprio\Prepr;
    
   $apiRequest = new Prepr('<YOUR-PREPR-API-URL>');
    
   echo '<div>';
       echo '<h1>My blog site</h1>';
    
   // Show the list of blog posts if there is no slug
       if(!isset($_GET['slug'])) {
       
           <ul>';
    
               $apiRequest
                   ->query('../queries/get-posts.graphql')
                   ->request();
    
               $apiResponse = $apiRequest->getResponse();
    
               $posts = $apiResponse['data']['Posts']['items'];
               if ($posts) {
    
                   foreach ($posts as $post) {
    
                       echo '<li>
                           <a href="' . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] . '?slug='.$post['_slug'].'">'.$post['title'].'</a>
                       </li>';
                   }
               }
    
           echo '</ul>';
    
       // Retrieve a post by the slug and show the details
       } else {
    
           $apiRequest
               ->query('../queries/get-post-by-slug.graphql')
               ->variables([
                   'slug' => $_GET['slug']
               ])
               ->request();
    
           $apiResponse = $apiRequest->getResponse();
    
           $post = $apiResponse['data']['Post'];
           if($post) {
    
               echo '<h1>' . $post['title'] . '</h1>';
    
               echo '<div class="my-10">
                   <img src="' . $post['cover']['url'] . '"/>
               </div>';
    
               if($post['content']) {
                   foreach($post['content'] as $content) {
    
                       if($content['__typename'] === 'Assets') {
    
                           echo '<div class="my-10">
                               <img src="' . $content['items'][0]['url'] . '"/>
                           </div>';
    
                       } elseif($content['__typename'] === 'Text') {
    
                           echo '<div>
                               ' . $content['body'] . '
                           </div>';
    
                       }
                   }
               }
           }
       }
    
   echo '</div>';

Now, when you view your site, you can click a blog post to open that specific post like in the image below.