Quickly test eZ Platform with the PHP internal server

I can haz aligned image

eZ Platform 16.02 was released last week. As far as I'm concerned, I did quite some changes mostly in Online Editor (the rich text editor) to improve the handling of embeds and images in RichText fields. And I'm happy to see my I can haz aligned image cat (generated with memegenerator.net) in the release notes :-)

Also, thanks to this patch to the eZ Platform JavaScript REST Client, it's now possible to use eZ Platform and its backend interface with the PHP internal server. Written like that, this does not seem a very big nor a very useful change. Actually, this makes easier to install and run eZ Platform for instance to test the new version or even to start a project by not having to configure a web server. If you are on an Ubuntu/Debian system, the following commands should be enough to have a running eZ Platform install:

# system requirements
$ sudo apt-get install curl mysql-server mysql-client php5-cli php5-xsl php5-mysql php5-curl imagemagick

# let's get composer
$ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php

# a database is needed, by default 'ezplatform'
$ mysql -u root -p -e 'CREATE DATABASE ezplatform CHARACTER SET utf8;'

# creating the project, with -n it won't ask you anything
$ ./composer.phar create-project --no-dev --prefer-dist -n ezsystems/ezplatform-demo

# install the database and run the server
$ cd ezplatform-demo
$ php app/console ezplatform:install --env=prod demo
$ php app/console server:run --env=prod

If you are a PHP developer, most likely composer is already globally setup and the required package might also be already installed, so the first 2 commands might not even be required.

After running those commands, you can open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in your favorite browser to see the frontend site or http://127.0.0.1:8000/ez to reach the backend interface (the default login is admin and the password is publish). Of course, this setup is not suited for production but it's definitively enough for local developments or to discover eZ Platform.