Blue Harvest

Blue Harvest is a powerful image hosting repository developed by the Web Team at the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. Built with Laravel and Vue.js through InertiaJS, it offers functionality similar to Unsplash, providing a robust platform for image storage and management.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Local Development Setup
  • Install NodeJS
  • Configure Environment Variables
  • Install PHP, Composer, and Laravel
  • Install Required PHP Modules
  • Setup Typesense
  • Setup the Database
  • Setup your App key
  • Setup Reverb
  • Setup Your IDE
  • Setup the Blue Harvest Clip API
  • Start the development server
• Commands
  • Development Server
  • Setup Commands
• Required PHP Modules

Requirements

• PHP 8.x

• Node.js (Latest LTS)

• Composer

• Laravel

• MySQL 8.0

• Typesense Server

• PHP Modules

• Blue Harvest Clip API (for AI features)

• IDE with support for:

  • Prettier
  • ESLint

All components must be properly configured with appropriate environment variables in the .env file. Follow the local development setup instructions to configure your environment.

Local Development Setup

Install NodeJS

NodeJS is required to bundle the application frontend.

Configure Environment Variables

Create your environment configuration file:

cp .env.example .env

Important: The application requires proper environment configuration to run. After creating your .env file, configure the required values following the documentation or consult with a team member for sensitive information.

Install PHP, Composer, and Laravel.

PHP, Composer, and Laravel are all required to run the application.

Install Required PHP Modules

The application requires specific PHP modules to function properly. Installation steps vary by operating system:

Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install php-bcmath php-curl php-gd php-imagick php-redis php-xml php-zip
# etc...

MacOS (using Homebrew):

brew install php
brew install imagemagick
pecl install imagick redis
# etc...

Windows:

• Enable required extensions in your php.ini file
• Use XAMPP or Laravel Homestead for a pre-configured environment

See the complete list of required modules below.

Setup Typesense

Typesense powers the search functionality in Blue Harvest. Follow these steps to set it up:

1. Install Typesense by following their Installation Guide
2. Configure your .env file with the appropriate Typesense connection values
3. Start the Typesense server

Without proper Typesense configuration, the search features will not work.

Setup the Database

Blue Harvest requires MySQL. Follow these steps to configure your database:

1. Install MySQL from the official website. Use the latest LTS version (currently 8.0).

2. Create the database and user:

# Login to MySQL
mysql -u root -p

# Create database and user
CREATE DATABASE blue_harvest;
CREATE USER 'blueharvest_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON blue_harvest.* TO 'blueharvest_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

3. Update your .env file with the database credentials

4. Run migrations:

php artisan migrate

Setup your App key

The App key is a random string used by Laravel for encryption and security. It's required for secure session management and other encrypted data.

php artisan key:generate

If your .env doesn't update automatically, copy the output and paste it into .env manually.

Setup Reverb

Notifications require Reverb to work. Not required for local development.

php artisan install:broadcasting

Setup Your IDE

This application uses Prettier for code formatting and ESLint for JavaScript/TypeScript linting. Configure your IDE to support these tools.

Setup the Blue Harvest Clip API

AI image processing features require the Clip API. Auto tagging and content flagging will be disabled if the API is not configured.

Start the development server

Run each command in a separate terminal window. See the commands section for details.

npm run dev
php artisan serve
php artisan queue:work
php artisan queue:work --queue=scout
php artisan queue:work --queue=processImages
php artisan reverb:start

Commands

Development Server

Run these commands in separate terminal windows:

# Frontend compilation
npm run dev

# Laravel development server (localhost:8000)
php artisan serve

# Queue workers
php artisan queue:work                         # Default queue (notifications)
php artisan queue:work --queue=scout          # Search indexing
php artisan queue:work --queue=processImages  # Image processing

# WebSocket server for real-time events
php artisan reverb:start

Setup Commands

# Install dependencies
composer install
npm install

# Database setup
php artisan migrate
php artisan db:seed

Note: Queue workers handle background tasks like notifications, search indexing, and image processing asynchronously. WebSocket server (Reverb) enables real-time notifications.

Required PHP Modules

• bcmath
• calendar
• Core
• ctype
• curl
• date
• dom
• exif
• FFI
• fileinfo
• filter
• ftp
• gd
• gettext
• hash
• iconv
• igbinary
• imagick
• json
• libxml
• mbstring
• mysqli
• mysqlnd
• openssl
• pcntl
• pcre
• PDO
• pdo_mysql
• pdo_pgsql
• pdo_sqlite
• pgsql
• Phar
• posix
• random
• readline
• redis
• Reflection
• session
• shmop
• SimpleXML
• sockets
• sodium
• SPL
• sqlite3
• standard
• sysvmsg
• sysvsem
• sysvshm
• tokenizer
• xml
• xmlreader
• xmlwriter
• xsl
• Zend OPcache
• zip
• zlib