PhpStorm: easily create new Laravel project

Today I want to tell about another "trick" - or how to create a Laravel project without Command line or Terminal, directly from PhpStorm. Just go to File -> New Project and in the dialog specify project name and folder, and - most importantly - choose type Composer Project. 0923_laravel_phpstorm_01

Then you will see a new dialog, where you can basically choose any packages that you want Composer to download and install automatically. In this case we choose laravel/laravel (use auto-complete above), and then PhpStorm shows available versions on the bottom right, so we can specify which one we want. 0923_laravel_phpstorm_02

Important things here - you have to specify path to php.exe executable on your computer (at the bottom) and you can also specify where you have composer.phar installed (at the top) - alternatively, it can be downloaded automatically by PhpStorm. And, basically, that's it - then PhpStorm downloads all the packages that you listed, then takes care of their dependancies and performs all other necessary operations. See comments at the bottom. 0923_laravel_phpstorm_03

And then - the final result: ta-daaaaa! 0923_laravel_phpstorm_07

So that's it, another "well hidden" feature of PhpStorm. Laravel is only one way of using Composer project - you can specify more required packages with Laravel, or use your own different package list as a starting point.

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Retzko

4 weeks ago

Hi Povilas - I'm looking for some documentation/tutorial on the following workflow: Main development environment is a desktop machine running Laravel 12 Vapor on Windows using PhpStorm IDE and versioning on GitHub. All of that is good. When I travel, I want to update my laptop's PhpStorm project with the current work, continue to work on-the-road, and then refresh my desktop version when I get back to the office. I've found plenty of tutorials on creating a new project (including yours), but haven't found one for the next level of ongoing dynamic maintenance. I'd appreciate your thoughts on this and, especially, if you could point me to a good resource. Thanks - Rick

Modestas

Hi, the answer to your question is - GitHub.

Once you are leaving your house with the laptop - you simply push the changes on desktop and then pull them on your laptop.

There's no other easy way to do what you are trying to do. Our team uses the same laptop to work in front of bigger screens and on the go, so we don't have any specific workflows for your case, sorry.

Thanks for the quick response, Modestas!