Workopia

Workopia is a job listing web application developed entirely with native PHP. The application features custom routing, controllers, views, middleware, and a lightweight database layer, all organized using namespaces and PSR-4 autoloading.

My goal with Workopia was to create a practical, from‑scratch a modern PHP application. Along the way, I focused on clean code practices, modular structure, and a clear separation of concerns so that others can learn and build upon this foundation.

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✅ Features

• Custom Laravel-inspired routing system
• MVC architecture (models, views, controllers)
• Role-based authorization middleware
• PDO-based database access
• Session handling
• PSR-4 autoloading
• Clear separation of concerns

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📦 Requirements

• PHP 7.4 or higher
• MySQL 5.7 or higher
• Composer (for autoloading setup)

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⚙️ Installation

1. Clone this repository into your local web server root (e.g., www, htdocs, etc.)
2. Create a MySQL database named workopia
3. Import the workopia.sql file into your database
4. Rename config/_db.php to config/db.php and configure your database credentials
5. Run composer install to configure autoloading
6. Ensure your web server’s document root is set to the public directory

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🌐 Setting the Document Root

Set your document root to the public directory to ensure correct routing and asset loading.

PHP Built-in Server

From the project root, run:

php -S localhost:8000 -t public

XAMPP

If you are using XAMPP, you can set the document root in the httpd.conf file. Here is an example:

DocumentRoot "C:/xampp/htdocs/workopia/public"
<Directory "C:/xampp/htdocs/workopia/public">

MAMP

If you are using MAMP, you can set the document root in the httpd.conf file. Here is an example:

DocumentRoot "/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/workopia/public"
<Directory "/Applications/MAMP/htdocs/workopia/public">

Laragon

If you are using Laragon, you can set right-click the icon in the system tray and go to Apache > sites-enabled > auto.workopia.test.conf. Your file may be named differently.

You can then set the document root. Here is an example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "C:/laragon/www/workopia/public"
    ServerName workopia.test
    ServerAlias *.workopia.test
    <Directory "C:/laragon/www/workopia/public">
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

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📁 Project Structure and Notes

Custom Laravel-like router

Creating a route in routes.php looks like this:

$router->get('/lisings', 'ListingController@index');

This would load the index method in the App/controllers/ListingController.php file.

Authorization Middleware

You can pass in middleware for authorization. This is an array of roles. If you want the route to be accessible only to logged-in users, you would add the auth role:

$router->get('/listings/create', 'ListingController@create', ['auth']);

If you only want non-logged-in users to access the route, you would add the guest role:

$router->get('/register', 'AuthController@register', ['guest']);

Public Directory

This project has a public directory that contains all of the assets like CSS, JS and images. This is where the index.php file is located, which is the entry point for the application.

You will need to set your document root to the public directory.

Framework Directory

All of the core files for this project are in the Framework directory. This includes the following files:

• Database.php - Database connection and query method (PDO)
• Router.php - Router logic
• Session.php - Session logic
• Validation.php - Simple validations for strings, email and matching passwords
• Authorization.php - Handles resource authorization
• middleware/Authorize.php - Handles authorization middleware for routes

🔄 PSR-4 Autoloading

This project uses PSR-4 autoloading. All of the classes are loaded in the composer.json file:

 "autoload": {
    "psr-4": {
      "Framework\\": "Framework/",
      "App\\": "App/"
    }
  }

Namespaces

This project uses namespaces for all of the classes. Here are the namespaces used:

• Framework - All of the core framework classes
• Framework\Router - All of the router classes
• Framework\Session - All of the session classes
• Framework\Validation - All of the validation classes
• Framework\Authorization - All of the authorization classes
• Framework\Middleware\Authorize - Authorization middleware
• App\Controllers - All of the controllers

App Directory

The App directory contains all of the main application files like controllers, views, etc. Here is the directory structure:

• controllers/ - Contains all of the controllers, including listings, users, home and error
• views/ - Contains all of the views
• views/partials/ - Contains all of the partial views

Other Files

• /index.php - Entry point for the application
• public/.htaccess - Handles the URL rewriting
• /helpers.php - Contains helper functions
• /routes.php - Contains all of the routes
• /config/db.php - Contains the database configuration
• composer.json - Contains the composer dependencies
• workopia.sql - Contains the database dump

📃 License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. Please see License File for more information.