Dotkernel Light – Starting with Mezzio microframework and Laminas components

Dotkernel Light is a version of Dotkernel Frontend that includes only the bare-bones essentials. Though simpler, it’s perfect for:

• A presentation site,
• An introduction into the Mezzio microframework architecture,
• A starting point for a more complex project where you have full control over functionality.

Goal

Dotkernel Light is designed at the same time to be a fast-start example of using Mezzio microframework, as well as of using an entry-level version of Dotkernel Frontend. Primarily, its purpose is to present the noobie developer with as few moving parts as possible. It’s also a perfect starting point for the more advanced developer who wants full control of the platform’s functionality.

Light retains the modern architecture of Mezzio microframework and several Laminas components used in Dotkernel Frontend. The low number of out-of-box components encourages the active exploration of functionality required by your application. Basically, you add only the packages your application needs.

Components and functionality

We designed Dotkernel Light to be a stripped-down version of Dotkernel Frontend. Just like Dotkernel Frontend, Dotkernel Light is built on top of Mezzio microframework using Laminas components. The big difference is the limited features and thus lower number of packages. This makes the learning curve of working with the repo considerably gentler.

Currently, Light contains this functionality:

• Routing
• Templating
• Error handling
• Tests and code quality checks

Compared to Frontend, Light had these items removed:

• Doctrine and all database related stuff
• Sessions/Cookies/Flash messages
• Authentication/Authorization
• Dependency Injection
• Mail related stuff
• Navigation
• CORS
• Forms/Validators/InputFilters
• User module
• Contact module
• Plugin module
• CSS/JS code that was no longer in use due to the above module removals
• Instructions from README.md that are no longer needed

As expected, several packages used by Frontend are not required:

• dotkernel/dot-authorization
• dotkernel/dot-data-fixtures
• dotkernel/dot-dependency-injection
• dotkernel/dot-flashmessenger
• dotkernel/dot-mail
• dotkernel/dot-navigation
• dotkernel/dot-rbac-guard
• dotkernel/dot-response-header
• dotkernel/dot-session
• laminas/laminas-form
• laminas/laminas-i18n
• mezzio/mezzio-authorization-rbac
• mezzio/mezzio-cors
• ramsey/uuid-doctrine
• roave/psr-container-doctrine
• mezzio/mezzio-tooling
• rector/rector

Useful links

• Dotkernel Light GitHub repository
• Working demo of Dotkernel Light
• Dotkernel Light documentation
• Laminas Project
• Documentation of Mezzio

---