Introduction

The app is connected with Laravel 5.5 based CMS using REST APIs, the following documentation will guide you through the process to connect the app with your backend. This guide assumes you have some experience in setting up PHP based web applications and Laravel Framework 5.5. Our mobile app supports Android platform, please ensure you have Android setup on your machine before following this tutorial, if you are new, please follow Android Developer Guide

1. Server Requirement

   The server on which you are going to deploy the backend must fulfill the following requirements:

   • PHP >= 7.0.0
   • Mysql 5.7
   • OpenSSL PHP Extension
   • PDO PHP Extension
   • Mbstring PHP Extension
   • Tokenizer PHP Extension
   • XML PHP Extension

2. Deploying Backend

   Follow these steps:

   • Extract the weshare.zip on your server
   • For example if your domain is http://weshare.com then you will be able to access the backend as http://weshare.com/weshare/public
   • Use our simple Installation Wizard to setup your server by visiting /installer
   • For example, http://weshare.com/weshare/public/installer
   • Fill up the form and your server will be configured now
   • After you hit the install button, you will also get the url of admin panel
   • If you want to make any customization or have any specific requirement, please follow below points, otherwise you can now skip to Mobile App section below

3. Configuration

   All the major configuration values you will need to set in .env file which is present in root folder of the accompanied source code. Following are the most important values, you may set other values in .env as well if you have experience and requirment to do so:

• App related - Very Important:
  • APP_NAME: Title of your app
  • APP_URL: Url of your backend
• Database related - Very Important:
  • DB_HOST: Database host, usually it’s localhost
  • DB_PORT: Database port, incase of mysql it’s usually 3306
  • DB_DATABASE: Database Name
  • DB_USERNAME: Database username
  • DB_PASSWORD: Database password
• Firebase related - Very Important:
  • FIREBASE_ISS: Required to succefully login through FB/Google, Value: https://securetoken.google.com/<firebase-project-id>. If not setup properly authentication in your app will not work properly.
• Push Notification related:
  • ONESIGNAL_APP_ID
  • ONESIGNAL_REST_API
• Email Related: Email integration is provided with Mailgun, Amazon SES, SMTP. For more details refer to https://laravel.com/docs/5.5/mail. If you are integrating with mailgun, you can simply set following values in .env
  • MAILGUN_DOMAIN
  • MAILGUN_SECRET

  If you need more configuration or advance setting, you can look for keys starting with MAIL_ in .env

1. Database

   In accompanied source code you will find a sql file named weshare.sql. Create the database and then import the file in your database.

2. Admin Panel

   Admin panel is developed in Angular 7 and shipped in seperate folder. You will need to update app title and base url.

   • Open public/admin/assets/appConfig.json
   • Update value of appName and apiBaseUrl
   • If you need to make any changes in admin other than this, follow next steps
   • Open weshare-admin.zip, it’s an Angualr 7 based project, nodejs version 8 or above is required
   • Run npm install command if this your first time
   • If you are not familiar with Angular 7 we will suggest you to get basic idea from https://angular.io/guide/quickstart
   • In src/app/@core/models/constants.model.ts update value of API_BASE_URL and APP_NAME variables
   • After making the required changes issue a command ng build --prod
   • Now angular would have created/updated the dist folder in root with updated compiled files
   • You need to copy all the files in dist folder to you Laravel’s public/admin folder.
   • For example cp -r weshare-angular/dist/* weshare/public/admin/ assuming weshare-angular is your angular project folder and weshare is your laravel project folder

1. Android

   Before continuing make sure you have :-

   • Firebase Account https://console.firebase.google.com
   • Firebase’s Realtime Database is enabled. Use following security rule or use Start in test mode:

       {   
         "rules": {
           // only authenticated users can read or write to my Firebase
           ".read": "auth !== null",
           ".write": "auth !== null"   
         }
       }
     

   • Firebase’s Storage is enabled
   • Google or Facebook auth is enabled in Sign-in method in Firebase’s Authentication section
   • SHA-1 fingerprint of your machine https://cloud.google.com/solutions/mobile/mobile-firebase-app-engine-flexible#generating_a_sha-1_fingerprint_for_the_app

   After following the steps given below make sure you have values of all the following keys with you:

   • applicationId
   • BASE_URL
   • app_name
   • web_client_id
   • facebook_app_id
   • fb_login_protocol_scheme
   • ad_unit_id1
   • ad_unit_id2
   • dynamic_link_domain
   • support_email
   • onesignal_app_id - follow https://app.onesignal.com/apps/new to add your app and obtain OneSignal app id

   You will need to update above values in app/build.gradle

   Refactoring

   • Change the applicationId in app/build.gradle, set this to the package name you want to keep for your application e.g com.weshare
   • Use the same package name while setting up android app in Firebase in the next step.
   • Logo and placeholders used in app are png images which you will find in app/src/main/res/drawable folder.
   • To change the images in app simply replace the images at above mentioned location with your images.

   Firebase Setup

   • Create a Firebase account or log into an existing account.

   • Click Add project. Follow the remaining setup steps and click Create project.

   

   • After the wizard provisions your project, click Continue.

   • In the Overview page of your project, click the Settings gear and then click Project settings.

   • Click Add Firebase to your Android app and follow the wizard

   

   • In Debug signing certificate SHA-1, enter the SHA-1 value you generated in the previous section.

   • Click Register app.

   • Download the google-services.json file and place it in app folder.

   

   • Click Next in the Download config file section and follow the rest of the steps if required.

   • Next click on Authentication and click on Sign-in method

   

   • Enable Phone Authentication

   • Similarly enable Realtime Database and Storage from side menu.

   Setup Onesignal

   • Go to https://onesignal.com/ signup and create an app
   • Add server key and sender id from firebase console(Cloud messaging under project settings)
   • You’ll get onesignal app id

   Setup AdMob

   • Go to https://admob.google.com/home/ signup and create an app
   • Create two Banner Ads and copy admob_appid and both banner ids
   • Place ad_unit_id1 and ad_unit_id2 in app/build.gradle
   • Place admob_app_id in AndroidManifest.xml file. You’ll find APPLICATION_ID meta-data in end of the file, fill in its value attribute.

   Configuration and Theming

   • Open app/build.gradle, you need to edit/add values in respective fields in defaultConfig under android
   • Fill in applicationId with your package name which you registered on firebase console
   • Fill in app_name and support_email with your desired app name and support email
   • For notifications follow https://app.onesignal.com/apps/new to add your app and obtain OneSignal app id which will be used in onesignal_app_id under manifestPlaceholders.

   • We provide scope for customization of following values:

     resValue 'color', "colorPrimary", "#2196F3"
     resValue 'color', "colorPrimaryDark", "#1976D2"
     resValue 'color', "colorAccent", "#1A237E"