Getting Started
What's in the package
Quick Admin is released in 2 versions:
- PHP version: offers a good base for PHP implementations
- HTML version: for a clean start from scratch implementation or non-PHP implementations.
Differences between PHP & HTML versions
Each version has it's advantages and choosing one over the other depends of how you will want to implement it. For example, you may want to start a new project from scratch or use a framework like Zend or Cake, or maybe you don't want to use PHP at all and use some other scripting language and you don't want to spend precious time cleaning up PHP parts you don't need, in this case you'll want to use the clean HTML version.
However, if you don't have much experience with scripting languages like PHP or never used a framework like Zend or Cake PHP, Quick Admin's PHP version offers a good base, yet simple for starting your implementation, with examples of a minimal structure, file templating - header, pages, footer - reusable functions, etc.
Most of the features are available in both versions, with the following exceptions:
- Translate System - only available in PHP version
- Easy configurable theme & layout options - only available in PHP version / in HTML version you will have to modify the markup yourself as needed
Main structure
/ // Root Directory <php|html>/ // Quick Admin HTML/PHP versions bootstrap/ // Twitter Bootstrap documentation/ // Documentation theme/ // Theme Directory css/ // Default LESS/CSS files fonts/ // Fonts images/ // Default Images scripts/ // Scripts skins/ // Skins css/<skin>.css // Skin CSS files less/<skin>.less // Skin LESS files
CSS Files
Quick Admin uses couple of stylesheets to control visual apperance. There are stylesheets from Twitter Bootstrap, default theme stylesheets, skin stylesheets, and plugin stylesheets.
bootstrap/css/<file>.css // Twitter Bootstrap Stylesheets theme/css/<file>.css // Default Stylesheets theme/skins/css/<skin>.css // Skin Stylesheets theme/scripts/<plugin>/css/<file>.css // Plugin stylesheets
LESS is MORE
First of all, you may ask: What the <beep> is LESS? Well, LESS is The dynamic stylesheet language.
LESS extends CSS with dynamic behavior such as variables, mixins, operations and functions. LESS runs on both the client-side (Chrome, Safari, Firefox) and server-side, with Node.js and Rhino, but for our purpose, we will use the client-side less.js compiler for FAST and SMART deveopment and for production, we'll convert and minify the LESS files to the regular CSS by using a local compiler, like WinLess.
The LESS files
theme/less/mixins.less // Common Mixins theme/less/style.less // Default Stylesheet theme/skins/less/<skin>.less // Skin Stylesheet
Don't worry! If you never worked with LESS before, we assure you it's not that big of a step from CSS. Actually, after you start working LESS, you'll never look back. Also, it has a really great documentation.
Scripts
Quick Admin uses many 3rd party plugins & scripts, as well as custom
ones. There are scripts from Twitter Bootstrap, jQuery & plugins,
Modernizr, custom scripts, etc. They are all located in
theme/scripts/.
For more information about external scripts reffer to Credits