The first CraftBian 2 version is now ready for some testing! I have made an image ready for Raspberry Pi 2 and 3, which is two separate images for now. I’m making an installation script, so CraftBian 2 should be installable on any device (at least in theory), which will be made available later

Be advised though, that this image IS an ALPHA. Stuff is most certainly broken (hence the testing part), and there will be a lot of features missing from CraftBian 1 .

What this image includes

• Ubuntu 16.04 linux release for Raspberry Pi
• Laravel 5.5.28
• CraftBian v2 ALPHA 1 which includes
  • Functionality to create, edit and delete servers
  • Send server commands through the web interface
  • Start/Stop the server
  • Power management of the Raspberry Pi
  • Limited settings for CraftBian

CraftBian 2 is not a continuation of CraftBian 1.. Its a complete do-over. A rewrite, utilizing the Laravel framework. This also means that many features from CraftBian 1 will not be present in this version of CraftBian 2. Those include:

• Backup feature
• Port forwarding feature
• Auto server restart, and power scheduling
• User management along with user role control
• Automated server broadcast over LAN
• etc.

All those above features are planned to be included later, along with new features.

My goal of this first ALPHA is mainly to see how well this idea works with the Laravel framework.

If you want in on the testing, don’t hesitate to contact me on my email djda9l@gmail.com .. Remember, the more testing and feedback i get on this version, the faster i can get new versions out to you, which includes the public release!

In this post I will be explaining some of the changes in CraftBian 2, codewise. These changes has mainly happened because i now utilize Laravel, so this is both notes to my self but might also be useful to others

Laravel

Laravel uses the MVC design pattern, which CraftBian v1.x did not. In CraftBian v1.x i used my “own” design pattern, with a ViewHandler that generated HTML so somewhat still separated from the View, but not completely. Laravel changes all that so that its now more distinctly separated hence the MVC: Model, View, Controller. Now in the view a templating engine called Blade is used, which gets its variables passed from the Controller. This structures the code much better, and most importantly – makes the code much easy to maintain. Furthermore Laravel provides loads of helper features which makes it easier to do Logging, Localization and even showing messages to the user. All features which CraftBian v1.x was missing very much

Localization

In CraftBian v1.x i simply didn’t do localization, which meant that all strings was typed in directly where needed. Laravel uses localization files like the below one

// This file is located in resources\lang\en\minecraft.php and is therefore the 
// ..English translation file

return [

    'motd' => 'MOTD',
    'gametype' => 'Gametype',
    'version' => 'Version',
    'players' => 'Players',
    'world' => 'World',
    'type' => 'Type',

    'server_not_started' => 'Server not started',
    'server_in_starting_stage_msg' => 'The server is currently in starting stage.
Error Messages is normal! If it hasnt started after 15 mins, try rebooting the Raspberry Pi',

    'current_output' => 'Current output',

    'waiting_for_server_output' => 'Waiting for server output...',

]

And when needing a specific translation, you call it out via the __() helper function, which takes the filename as input followed by the key needed like so

// In a Controller (PHP)

$translatedString = __('minecraft.gametype'); // <- Would be: Gametype

// In the blade templating engine (View)

{{ __('minecraft.current_output') }} // <- Would be: Current Output

Logging

Logging is also a feature which i would have appreciated back in CraftBian v1.x, mainly because it would be much easier to debug when CraftBians users were having trouble with something, which i needed to assist on. Laravel makes this very easy. An example below of logging a simple information is shown:

public function reboot()
{                     
    Log::info('Reboot has been called', ["user" => Auth::user()]);
    // ...
    // Doing the actual reboot stuff
    // ...
    Log::error('Rebooting unit failed!', ["returned" => $errorMessage]); 
}

As you can see its as simple as calling the static method info inside the Log class. This methods first argument would be a simple titile describing what has happened, and the next parameter is an array containing contextual and relevant info, but it is optional. There are other methods besides info or error, which you can find more info about here .

The log file containing all this is stored in storage/logs/laravel.log

Messages to the user (Flash messages)

CraftBian v1.x missed a lot of feedback to the user, when they did something inside the interface, being everything from saving a server.properties file for a Minecraft server, or setting up a backup schedule. In Laravel this is so easy to do with Flash messages:

// Below method is called when the user clicks a save button
public function saveSettings(Request $request)
{
    // .. the changed settings are inside the $request parameter
    // .. and is then updated, and finally:

    $request->session()->flash('success', 'Settings saved!'); 
    // The above line stores a message, which is the shown when the view 
    // .. is returned below:
    return view('settings');
}

This is mostly notes to my self, but others might find it useful / interesting  . It also gives you a slight insight in the development of CraftBian 2

I have more things i would like to cover, like the Model structure and how Object relational mapping works in Laravel, which i also get to utilize in CraftBian 2, because it now uses SQLite to store its settings instead of JSON as in CraftBian v1.x.