Description

This variable returns the entire control panel definition of the current page as a plain array. It is mostly used to set the control panel type and its controls to be presented to the user. You can modify it or use it to change the behavior of the control panel based on certain conditions.

It should return one of the standard control panel definition data as explained here, with some more data from the file system combined into it. Use the $_ variable to access it directly, or, if you are inside a function closure, you can also access it directly through the $GLOBALS['_'] variable. All definitions must be primitive, and must be able to be encoded and decoded from/to JSON without changing their initial value.

Examples

It is very common to extract the $GLOBALS variable at the beginning of each closure to be able to use the variable name as if we were in the global scope:

// :(
function panel($a, $b, $c) {
    $content = $GLOBALS['_']['content'] ?? null;
    $description = $GLOBALS['_']['description'] ?? null;
    $title = $GLOBALS['_']['title'] ?? $GLOBALS['page']->title ?? null;
}

// :\
function panel($a, $b, $c) {
    $_ = (array) ($GLOBALS['_'] ?? []);
    $page = $GLOBALS['page'] ?? new Page;
    $content = $_['content'] ?? null;
    $description = $_['description'] ?? null;
    $title = $_['title'] ?? $page->title ?? null;
}

// :)
function panel($a, $b, $c) {
    extract($GLOBALS, EXTR_SKIP);
    $content = $_['content'] ?? null;
    $description = $_['description'] ?? null;
    $title = $_['title'] ?? $page->title ?? null;
}

// :(
$panel = static function ($a, $b, $c) {
    $content = $GLOBALS['_']['content'] ?? null;
    $description = $GLOBALS['_']['description'] ?? null;
    $title = $GLOBALS['_']['title'] ?? $GLOBALS['page']->title ?? null;
};

// :\
$panel = static function ($a, $b, $c) {
    $_ = (array) ($GLOBALS['_'] ?? []);
    $page = $GLOBALS['page'] ?? new Page;
    $content = $_['content'] ?? null;
    $description = $_['description'] ?? null;
    $title = $_['title'] ?? $page->title ?? null;
};

// :)
$panel = static function ($a, $b, $c) {
    extract($GLOBALS, EXTR_SKIP);
    $content = $_['content'] ?? null;
    $description = $_['description'] ?? null;
    $title = $_['title'] ?? $page->title ?? null;
};

// :)
$panel = static function ($a, $b, $c) use ($_, $page) {
    $content = $_['content'] ?? null;
    $description = $_['description'] ?? null;
    $title = $_['title'] ?? $page->title ?? null;
};

Alert

Declares alert messages using the standard control panel data definition style. By default, it has no effect unless you have the Alert extension installed.

To declare an alert is quite simple:

$_['alert']['error'][] = 'Message goes here.';

Values in the first-level array are alert types. It has no special rules. You can add any type of alert you want, but in general, it can be expressed as error, info, and success. Especially for the error type, it is very often used to prevent the next operation from being performed if there is at least one error alert data available when the request is made:

$_['alert']['error'][] = 'This is an error message.';
$_['alert']['info'][] = 'This is an info message.';
$_['alert']['success'][] = 'This is a success message.';

$_['alert']['info'][] = 'This is another info message.';
$_['alert']['info']['ref-123'] = 'This is an info message with static reference.';

// This will remove the info message that said ‘This is an info message with static reference.’
unset($_['alert']['info']['ref-123']);

// This will replace the info message that said ‘This is an info message with static reference.’ with an ‘###’
$_['alert']['info']['ref-123'] = '###';

// Example with variable(s) in string
$_['alert']['info'][] = ['Hello, my name is Taufik.'];
$_['alert']['info'][] = ['Hello, my name is %s.', 'Taufik'];
$_['alert']['info'][] = ['%s, my name is %s.', ['Hello', 'Taufik']];

if (!empty($_['alert']['error'])) {
    return $_; // Skip the operation at this point, due to the previous errors!
}

// From this point forward, the file operation will be performed…
$file = $_['file'] ?? "";
if (!$file || !is_file($file)) {
    $_['alert']['error'][] = ['Path %s is not a valid file.', ['<code>' . $file . '</code>']];
    return $_; // Skip the operation at this point, due to an invalid file!
}

if (rename($file, dirname($file) . D . 'asdf.txt')) {
    $_['alert']['success'][] = ['File %s successfully renamed to %s.', ['<code>' . $file . '</code>', '<code>asdf.txt</code>']];
} else {
    $_['alert']['error'][] = ['Could not rename file %s due to a file system error.', ['<code>' . $file . '</code>']];
}

return $_;

Asset

Declares assets to be included in the control panel using the standard control panel data definition style. By default, it has no effect unless you have the Asset extension installed.

Insert asset files this way:

// Load asset file from local host
$_['asset'][] = [
    'path' => '.\path\to\file.css',
    'stack' => 10
];

// Load asset file from external URL
$_['asset'][] = [
    'link' => 'https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js',
    'stack' => 10
];

The stack property specifies the loading order of the asset files in the HTML output. You can also use the link or url property instead of path to load external asset files.

Asset output will follow the file path extension. If the path ends with .css, then the data will be converted into a <link rel="stylesheet"> element. If the path ends with .js, then the data will be converted into a <script> element.

Static reference written as a set of non-numeric characters will be converted into an id attribute in the HTML output. You can also set a custom id value different from the asset reference by adding an id property. If you set the value to false on this property, then the id attribute will be completely removed:

// `<script id="jquery-3.6.1" src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js"></script>`
$_['asset']['jquery-3.6.1'] = [
    'link' => 'https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js',
    'stack' => 10
];

// `<script id="jquery-library" src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js"></script>`
$_['asset']['jquery-3.6.1'] = [
    'id' => 'jquery-library',
    'link' => 'https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js',
    'stack' => 10
];

// `<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js"></script>`
$_['asset']['jquery-3.6.1'] = [
    'id' => false,
    'link' => 'https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js',
    'stack' => 10
];

You can hide (unload) certain asset files from the HTML output without removing the asset data by adding the skip property with a true value (this property has the value set to false by default).

$_['asset']['jquery-3.6.1'] = [
    'link' => 'https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js',
    'stack' => 10
];

// Unload asset `https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js`
$_['asset']['jquery-3.6.1']['skip'] = true;

Other HTML attributes can be set via the 2 property:

// `<script async src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>`
$_['asset'][] = [
    '2' => [
        'async' => true,
        'type' => 'text/javascript'
    ],
    'link' => 'https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.1.min.js'
];

Icon

The icon property exists to store the control panel’s icon data. This data is usually auto-filled when a component that has an icon feature is present on the page.

Get the icon path you want from Google’s Material design icons browser, or use the community version of the Material design icons browser, which is easier to use and offers more icon alternatives made by contributors. Another alternative includes a site like Icônes, where you can get a large number of icons that are not Material, but have compatible viewBox values (choose icons that have a viewBox of 0 0 24 24 or a multiple of that).

Be sure to follow the guidelines of the original Material icon system if you want to use icon path data from a third party to represent your own brand.

100% Scale	1000% Scale

Live Area	Padding

Lot

Defined under namespace x\panel\lot\type. The following are some common property names. Not all of these properties will be applied to the component, and even if they do exist as component data, they do not always have a role. They may come from the parent data. However, these properties will always have the same functionality across all components.

General syntax:

x\panel\lot\type(array $value, int|string $key): ?Stringable|string

Example usage:

echo x\panel\lot\type([
    'title' => 'Section Title',
    'description' => 'Section description.',
    'type' => 'section',
    'content' => '<p>Section content goes here.</p>'
], 0);

The example below calls the section type directly so you don’t have to specify the type property:

echo x\panel\lot\type\section([
    'title' => 'Section Title',
    'description' => 'Section description.',
    'content' => '<p>Section content goes here.</p>'
], 0);

Type

Some of the optional extensions have also implemented their own layout types that inherit from the layouts listed above:

You can display the desired control panel layout by appending a type query to the URL with the control panel layout type:

http://127.0.0.1/panel/set/page?type=page/page

Depending on the situation, the control panel layout can be automatically set or even ignored without the need to append a type query in the URL, or it can also redirect you to the correct control panel type when a dangerous action might occur. For example, if you try to create a file in a folder by manually opening an empty ?type=file layout in the address bar, but it turns out that the control panel path actually points to a file without an extension, you will be automatically redirected to the form to edit that extension-less file.

• If the current control panel path points to a file, the control panel layout is implicitly set to file.
• If the current control panel path points to a file with the extension .data, the control panel layout is implicitly set to data.
• If the current control panel path points to a file with the extension .archive, .draft, or .page, the control panel layout is implicitly set to page.
• If the current control panel path points to a file with the extension .archive, .draft, or .page stored in the .\lot\page folder, the control panel layout is implicitly set to page/page.
• If the current control panel path points to a file with the extension .archive, .draft, or .page stored in the .\lot\user folder, the control panel layout is implicitly set to page/user.
• If the current control panel path points to a folder, it implicitly sets the control panel layout to folder. If it contains a page offset (the part property has a value greater than 0), it will implicitly set the control panel layout to files.
• If the current control panel path points to the .\lot\page folder or any folders in it, and it contains a page offset, it will implicitly set the control panel layout to pages/page. Otherwise, it will implicitly set the control panel layout to folder.
• If the current control panel path points to the .\lot\user folder, and it contains a page offset, it will implicitly set the control panel layout to pages/user. Otherwise, it will implicitly set the control panel layout to folder.

URL

Control panel URL consists of several parts. You are considered in the panel when you are logged-in and are in the scope of http://127.0.0.1/panel/fire/*, http://127.0.0.1/panel/get/*, http://127.0.0.1/panel/let/*, or http://127.0.0.1/panel/set/* where * cannot be numbers. An exact URL points to http://127.0.0.1/panel or http://127.0.0.1/panel/* where * is numbers greater than 0 does not implement this rule and will be used to display a generic page rendered from a file stored as .\lot\page\panel.archive or .\lot\page\panel.page or pages that come from files stored in .\lot\page\panel folder.

Note that the /panel route is not static and can be changed to another route by setting the route property in the .\lot\x\panel\state.php file.

Control panel URL is divided into several parts as follows:

An internal function is available to build a control panel URL from an array. Not all parts of the URL have to be declared. Some undeclared values will be available automatically based on the current URL data stored in $_.

Base

This value is mostly read-only, and would normally contain a root URL followed by a sub-path pointing to the control panel context. The sub-path can be customized by changing the route property value in the .\lot\x\panel\state.php file. It is a good practice to periodically change it to a value that is not easy guess. Hackers will usually try to guess your control panel route by manually typing it in the address bar using common phrases like /admin or /login:

<?php

return [
    // `$_['base']` value is now `'http://127.0.0.1/panel-e7178768'`
    'route' => '/panel-e7178768',
    …
];

Hash

This property has no value, and it is not possible to capture the URL hash using server side language anyway, so it is reserved.

Part

TODO

Path

TODO

Query

There are a number of reserved control panel URL queries:

All of the above queries, if present in the control panel URL, including any other queries which are not reserved, will affect the current value of the $_['query'] variable.

Task

TODO

Files

There are several file locations that you can use to safely enter or modify the current control panel definition data:

• .\lot\x\*\index\panel.php and .\lot\y\*\index\panel.php files should have a $_ variable in them, ready to be modified or used. Don’t forget to return the modified $_ variable to make sure it gets passed on to the next files.
• .\lot\x\*\index.php and .\lot\y\*\index.php files can also be used, but the $_ variable cannot be guaranteed to exist in them immediately, unless you have a parent folder name that when it is sorted alphabetically against the .\lot\x\panel folder, then it is guaranteed to always be placed after the .\lot\x\panel folder. To overcome its inconsistencies, you can modify the $_ variable via the _ hook, so that it is always executed later. It also ensures that the control panel definition data will be up to date, since this hook will be executed at the very last.

Example usage as .\lot\x\*\index\panel.php or .\lot\y\*\index\panel.php files:

$_['title'] = 'Title Goes Here';
$_['description'] = 'Description goes here.';

return $_;

Example usage as .\lot\x\*\index.php or .\lot\y\*\index.php files:

Hook::set('_', function ($_) {
    $_['title'] = 'Title Goes Here';
    $_['description'] = 'Description goes here.';
    return $_;
});

Using the hook method is probably the safest way for now since we can guarantee that the control panel data will always be up to date. But it may give you a tiny performance problem as hooks are working in stacks, and it will be sorted by the stack value before they are being executed in sequence so it requires extra steps before going to the actual tasks.