Assets plugin for CakePHP

What the plugin does

This plugin helps you to manage backend Assets which can be of any filetype. Assets are saved in a non-public folder and are handled by an AssetsTable.

You can create AssetEntities with useful methods:

General methods

• Check if the uploaded file still is there: $asset->exists() // true or false
• $asset->getFileSizeInfo() prints a human-readable filesize.
• Get a link to the AssetsController::download() (Admin-prefixed): $asset->getDownloadLink()

Image rendering

• Call echo $asset->getImage()->scaleWidth(350)->toWebP()->addCSS('my-class') to render a WebP-thumbnail as HTML.
• The rendered image will be saved in webroot/img/modified depending on the modifications and passed options.
• Pass your custom InterventionImage Filters through ImageAsset::applyFilter()
• You can call any InterventionImage API method through ImageAsset::modify()

CSV preview

• You can use the TextAssetPreviewHelper to render tables from CSV-files.
• Loop through rows in a csv-Asset: foreach ($asset->getReader()->getRecords() as $row) ...

Alibi-properties for any model

• $asset can be $user->image, $company->logo or your latest CSV import. Just configure a belongsTo relation on your model and set the ClassName.

Installation

You can install this plugin into your CakePHP application using composer.

The recommended way to install composer packages is:

composer require passchn/cakephp-assets

Load the plugin:

 bin/cake plugin load Assets

Run the Migrations to create the plugin tables:

bin/cake migrations migrate -p Assets

Now you should have an assets_assets and an assets_phinxlog table in your database.

Having issues? Check out this demo app or the single commits to see how to setup the plugin.

CakePHP Version Map

There is no version 1 of this plugin yet. To use it within your project, check the version map:

Plugin Version	CakePHP Version
dev-cake3	CakePHP 3.x
^0 -> ^0.4	CakePHP 4.x
^0.5	CakePHP 5.x

Uploading Files

AssetsController

You can directly upload files using the AssetsController. By default, you can access the index, view, and edit-methods through an Admin prefix: your-app.test/admin/assets/assets

Use Alibi names

You can use the Assets table to upload files from any model, say you have a users table and need a user image:

1. Create a field userimage_id in the users table as nullable char(36) (UUID).
2. Run the migrations: bin/cake bake users
3. Now you need to tell CakePHP that your Userimage is not a real Entity, but comes from the Assets.AssetsTable table:

in \App\Model\Table\Users: 

$this->belongsTo('Userimages')
    ->setForeignKey('userimage_id')
    ->setClassName('Assets.Assets');

This does not work anymore. The cakephp-bake plugin from version 2.8 onwards seems to detect that you don't actually have a userimages table and will not assume a belongsTo relation. You will have to write the code yourself or downgrade to version 2.7.

You can now put an upload field for your Userimage e.g. in templates/Users/edit.php:

<?= $this->Form->create($user, ['type' => 'file']) ?>
    ...
    ...
    <?= $this->Form->control('userimage.filename', [
        'type' => 'file', 
        'label' => 'Upload a profile photo',
    ]) ?>
    ...
<?= $this->Form->end() ?>

In order for this to work, the relation should be set properly, e.g. through bin/cake bake users, so that CakePHP knows that your $user->userimage is an Asset Entity. Note that you have to contain Userimages in your Controller or Table's finder methods:

$users = $this->Users->find()->contain([
        'Userimages',
        'Addresses,
        '...
    ]);
    
$image = $users->first()->userimage?->getImage();

The AssetsTable does not know which model the uploaded file belongs to. You can use the title, description, or category field to keep track of that.

To do this, you can inject custom behaviors into the AssetsTable to hook into Event Handlers (e.g., set the title on beforeSave()), or to create custom finder methods, e.g. by your defined categories.

In your config file app.php, app_local.php, or app_assets.php, you can override the default settings and add custom Behaviors.

File manipulation

Images

If an Asset is an image (the MimeType starts with image/*), you can call

$asset->getImage(); 

This returns an instance of the Assets\Utilities\ImageAsset class, which offers a wrapper API for ImagineImage.

For example, you can call:

echo $asset->getImage()->scaleWidth(350)->toWebP()->getPath()

This will generate a scaled version of your original file, converted to WebP, and return the relative path (in /webroot) to the file.

You might want to output html directly:

<?= $asset->getImage()->scaleWidth(520)->toJpg()->setCSS('my-class') ?>

This will call the ImageAsset::__toString() method and will return HTML with your set class, an alt-parameter with the Asset's title and correct width and height params.

Image manipulation is done through Intervention with GD as default, but you can enable imagick through your app.php config.

Rendering of <picture> elements

Load the PictureHelper in your AppView.php:

$this->loadHelper('Assets.Picture');

In a template, pass an ImageAsset to the Helper as well as an array of widths and params:

<?= $this->Picture->webp(
    $user->photo->modify('resize', 350, 600),
    [150, 350],
    [
        'class' => 'user-img',
        'width' => 350,
        'height' => 600,
        'sizes' => "(min-width: 230px) 100vw, (min-width: 640px) 50vw"
    ]
) ?>

Feedback, Bugs, and Feature Requests

This plugin was no plugin from the beginning and we are working on making it usable now among different CakePHP installations.

As this package is in early development as a plugin, we don't expect it to fit in for a lot of use cases right now.

If you have questions or problems with the plugin, open an Issue on GitHub.

You can also contact me via email: post@pascalschneider.eu

Packages this plugin uses

Besides CakePHP, the plugin depends on the following packages:

"josegonzalez/cakephp-upload": "^6.0",
"league/csv": "^9.8",
"nette/utils": "^3.2 || ^4.0",
"intervention/image": "^2.7"