Overview

Files placed in the php-config directory should correspond one-to-one with files in php-classes, matching them in path and name. Whenever a PHP class within php-classes is loaded, a corresponding file ending in .config.php is checked for under php-config and, if found, is executed before the PHP class is used at all. The config script can modify any of the class’ public static properties and has access to details of the current request, including the currently logged-in user (if available).

Slate’s PHP classes are designed to expose their configurable options in this way, and those based on Emergence’s ActiveRecord base class — used to define and interface with database tables — expose their fields, relationships, and validation to be modified and extended in this fashion.

Examples

Changing the school name, abbreviation, or slogan

See → Slogan, name, and abbreviation

Adding a field to the courses table

For example, suppose you want to add an additional field to your courses table, to map courses to district-issued course codes.

The courses table is defined by the PHP class Slate\Courses\Course, which is loaded from the file php-classes/Slate/Courses/Course.php and can be configured by a file saved to php-config/Slate/Courses/Course.config.php:

Slate\Courses\Course::$fields['DistrictCode'] = array(
    'type'    => 'string',
    'notnull' => false
);

Add a field to the users table

Similarly, to keep track of which campus a student attends, we can add a field to the users table by creating a config file for the Slate\Student class at php-config/Slate/Student.config.php:

Slate\Student::$fields['Campus'] = array(
    'type'    => 'enum',
    'values'  => array(1, 2, 3),
    'notnull' => false
);

Integrate with different Canvas accounts based on user’s campus

Building on the example above, and the fact that config files are scripts with access to information about the current request and user, we can do something more advanced, like varying our settings for connecting to another system based on the current user:

<?php

RemoteSystems\Canvas::$canvasHost = 'myschool.instructure.com';
RemoteSystems\Canvas::$apiToken   = 'aBcDeFgHiJkLmNoPqRsTuVwXyZ12345';

if ($GLOBALS['Session']->Person &&
    $GLOBALS['Session']->Person->Campus) {
    // user is logged in and has a campus set
    RemoteSystems\Canvas::$accountID = $GLOBALS['Session']->Person->Campus;
} else {
    // default to account 1
    RemoteSystems\Canvas::$accountID = 1;
}