Admin Panel

The User Interface

AppShell comes with an Admin-style UI which you can "plug-in" into your application.

This can be done in two typical ways:

  • The application has a single UI, there's no separate Backend/Admin and Public Frontend.
  • The application has a separate admin and public area. AppShell UI is being used for admin.

AppShell As Main App UI

Change the layout in the first line of resources/views/home.blade.php file to be:

@extends('appshell::layouts.private')

This layout will dynamically extend the chosen theme under the hood.

Add AppShell assets to Laravel Mix:

In this scenario, the entire application will be built on top of the AppShell UI, and the app's and AppShell's javascript files will be combined in a single appshell3.js file.

In webpack.mix.js change:

// Replace this line:
// mix.js('resources/assets/js/app.js', 'public/js')
// With this one:
mix.js([
    'resources/js/app.js',
    'vendor/konekt/appshell/src/resources/assets/js/appshell3.js'
    ], 'public/js/appshell3.js')
   // And replace this line:
   //.sass('resources/assets/sass/app.scss', 'public/css');
   // With this one:
    .sass('vendor/konekt/appshell/src/resources/assets/sass/appshell3.sass', 'public/css');

You can use any name for the output js file instead of appshell3.js, eg. app.js. To do so change the second mix.js parameter from 'public/js/appshell3.js' to the desired name, and change in your app's config/concord.php the JS filename according to Customizing Admin UI Documentation.

Unless you need it, remove the omnipresent Vue instance from Laravel's default app.js file:

resources/assets/js/app.js:

// REMOVE/COMMENT THESE 3 LINES:
const app = new Vue({
    el: '#app'
});

and the compile the assets with mix: npm run dev

AppShell As Separate Admin UI

This way the default app.js and app.css from Laravel will be intact, and AppShell's assets will not be mixed with the rest of the application.

Add AppShell assets to Laravel Mix:

In webpack.mix.js change:

mix.js('resources/js/app.js', 'public/js')
   // Add these 2 lines:
   .js('vendor/konekt/appshell/src/resources/assets/js/appshell.standalone.js', 'public/js/appshell3.js')
   .sass('vendor/konekt/appshell/src/resources/assets/sass/appshell3.sass', 'public/css')
   // Keep this for the "rest" (usually public frontend)
   .sass('resources/sass/app.scss', 'public/css');

and the compile the assets with mix: yarn run dev

TIP: You may need to install yarn and run:

yarn install

Private And Public Layouts

Regardless of whether you use AppShell as a Single UI or a separate Admin UI with some public frontend, it has two layouts:

  • appshell::layouts.private
  • appshell::layouts.public

The private layout is the one that is available after user login, containing menus, account dropdown and other elements depending on the logged in users' access level.

The public layout is for views that are accessible for unauthenticated users. These are the login, register and forgot password pages by default. Your application may expose additional public pages, like a public status page or public reports. The views of those pages should extend the public layout:

@extends('appshell::layouts.public')

Use Mix Asset Function

Feature added in v2.4

The default AppShell theme uses the asset() function to inject css and js files into the layout by default.

In case you want to use mix() instead of asset, set the konekt.app_shell.ui.use_mix config value to true.

The easiest way to set configuration values is to pass them directly in config/concord.php:

return [
    'modules' => [
        Konekt\AppShell\Providers\ModuleServiceProvider::class => [
            'ui' => [
                'use_mix' => true,
            ]            
        ]
    ]
];

Custom Assets

Feature added in v3.1

When using the default AppShell Theme, it is possible to use completely custom URLs for loading the layout's assets appshell.css and appshell.js.

This can be useful in various situations where you want to load the assets from a different location than your application's base URL.

This feature is disabled by default. To enable it, set the following values in config/concord.php:

return [
    'modules' => [
        Konekt\AppShell\Providers\ModuleServiceProvider::class => [
            'default_theme' => [
                'custom_assets' => [
                    'enabled' => true,
                    'css_link' => 'https://x.co/appshell3.css', // Can be absolute or relative URL
                    'js_link' => '/site/assets/vendor/appshell/appshell.js', // Can be absolute or relative URL 
                    'helper' => null, // Can be either `asset`, `mix` or null
                ],
            ],           
        ]
    ]
];

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