Installation

Requirements

Before installing CodeIgniter Asset Connect, ensure your environment meets the following requirements:

• PHP 8.3 or higher
• CodeIgniter 4.6 or higher
• CodeIgniter Queue
• Composer

Installation Steps

1. Install via Composer

You can install the package via Composer:

composer require maniaba/asset-connect

2. Run Migrations

The library includes a migration to create the necessary database table for storing asset metadata. Run the migration using the following command:

php spark migrate --namespace=Maniaba\\AssetConnect

This will create the assets table in your database.

3. Configure Your Entities

To use Asset Connect with your entities, you need to add the UseAssetConnectTrait to any entity you want to associate files with:

<?php

namespace App\Entities;

use CodeIgniter\Entity\Entity;
use Maniaba\AssetConnect\Traits\UseAssetConnectTrait;
use Maniaba\AssetConnect\AssetCollection\Interfaces\SetupAssetCollectionInterface;

class User extends Entity
{
    use UseAssetConnectTrait;

    // You must implement this abstract method
    public function setupAssetConnect(SetupAssetCollectionInterface $setup): void
    {
        // Set the default collection definition
        // Note: Only one default collection can be set; additional calls will override previous ones
        $setup->setDefaultCollectionDefinition(ImagesCollection::class);

    }

    // Your other entity methods...
}

4. Configure Your Models (Optional)

If you want to automatically load the Asset Connect functionality when retrieving entities from your models, you can add the UseAssetConnectModelTrait to your models:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use CodeIgniter\Model;
use Maniaba\AssetConnect\Traits\UseAssetConnectModelTrait;

class UserModel extends Model
{
    use UseAssetConnectModelTrait;

    // Your model configuration...
}

If your model already has an initialize() method, you need to use PHP's trait aliasing feature to avoid method conflicts:

<?php

namespace App\Models;

use CodeIgniter\Model;
use Maniaba\AssetConnect\Traits\UseAssetConnectModelTrait;

class UserModel extends Model
{
    // Use the trait with method aliasing to avoid conflicts with existing initialize method
    use UseAssetConnectModelTrait {
        initialize as initializeAssetConnectModel;
    }

    protected function initialize(): void
    {
        // Call the trait's initialize method with its new alias
        $this->initializeAssetConnectModel();

        // Your existing initialize code...
        // etc...
    }

    // Your other model methods...
}

5. Configure Entity and Collection Definitions (Required)

This is a required step for Asset Connect to function properly.

You must register your entity types and asset collections in the configuration file. Create or extend the Config\Asset.php file in your application:

<?php

namespace Config;

use App\Entities\User;
use App\Entities\Product;
use App\AssetCollections\ProfilePicturesCollection;
use App\AssetCollections\ProductImagesCollection;
use Maniaba\AssetConnect\Config\Asset as BaseAssetConfig;

class Asset extends BaseAssetConfig
{
    /**
     * REQUIRED: Define entity types and their unique identifiers
     * Every entity that uses UseAssetConnectTrait must be registered here
     */
    public array $entityKeyDefinitions = [
        User::class => 'user',
        Product::class => 'product',
    ];

    /**
     * REQUIRED: Define collection definitions and their unique identifiers
     * Every asset collection class you create must be registered here
     */
    public array $collectionKeyDefinitions = [
        ProfilePicturesCollection::class => 'profile_pictures',
        ProductImagesCollection::class => 'product_images',
    ];
}

Why this is required:

• Asset Connect uses these identifiers to store and retrieve asset associations
• Without these definitions, the library cannot identify which entity or collection an asset belongs to
• These mappings are stored in the database and are essential for data integrity
• They enable proper querying and filtering of assets by type

Important: You must add every entity and collection to these arrays as you create them. Failure to do so will prevent Asset Connect from working with those entities or collections.

For more details, see the Configuration documentation.

Next Steps

After installation, you may want to:

1. Configure the library to customize its behavior
2. Learn about basic usage to start working with assets