Being a huge CodeIgniter fan, I’ve been building small bits of code to be used in many projects.
It however occurred to me that my kit was nothing compared to what these guys did: Bonfire
Bonfire
Bonfire is a relatively new, but steadily growing kit built on top of CodeIgniter.
This means that if you already code in CI, you can pick it up immediately. It has all the simplicity and intuitive design pattern of CodeIgniter without you having to build all the generic pieces of your project.
It comes with an authentication system, a pre-backed backend (that isn’t annoying), an HMVC that has multiple controllers with different purposes, and a powerful Templating system. I am very impressed. In the last few days that I’ve been coding in Bonfire, I’ve made more progress in it than I have in any other framework (except CodeIgniter).
There is some reading to do, but the documentation is almost there. The code itself is relatively well documented when in doubt so there isn’t much issue if there isn’t an online guide.
The pre-baked backend makes your life easier without taking too much control away from you; a problem I face often with too much automation.
MongoDB
In addition to Bonfire, I’ve been using a CI library for abstracting mongoDB calls. This library by Alex Bilbie has worked out pretty good for my purposes. They seem to lack good documentation currently, but the code itself is the best documentation in this case.
I was able to just drop the config and the library into Bonfire and get cracking right away.
As always, if you are looking for additional resources for CodeIgnitor, here you go: CodeIgniter – User Guide.
