Jake 2.0 Released

In 2009 I posted an enhancement to the Jake Joomla component that allowed for the use of ordinary CakePHP URL’s to enhance readability and SEO.  However, the component only worked for the current stable versions of CakePHP and Joomla (1.3 and 1.5, respectively).  Since then, there have been major upgrades to both those projects and after much work I am pleased to announce the release of Jake 2.0, which supports the latest stable versions as of this writing: CakePHP 2.2.2 and Joomla 2.5.0.  This has been tested on PHP 5.3.6 and Apache 2.2.

As with the previous version, you can run the CakePHP app separately, via its own VirtualHost, or inside Joomla, without any significant code changes to either.

Update 12/27/12 – The component has been updated for Joomla 3.0 and published to github.

Setup Steps

The server configuration has changed to allow for cleaner separation of the CakePHP and Joomla codebases.  Previously the CakePHP app install was underneath the Joomla webroot, which would make upgrading either project difficult, cause headaches with source-control, etc.  Now, the CakePHP directory should be a sibling to the Joomla one, i.e.,

/path/to/www/joomla-cms (your JOOMLA_ROOT)
/path/to/www/cakephp (your CAKEPHP_ROOT)

This will allow you to, for example, upgrade Joomla and CakePHP independently at any time. Much better.

1. Add the following Apache Alias, used for delivering existing files from under CAKEPHP_ROOT/app/webroot, to the Joomla VirtualHost. This should point to the app/webroot directory of the CakePHP app.

   Alias /webapp "CAKEPHP_ROOT/app/webroot"
   <Directory "CAKEPHP_ROOT/app/webroot">
   AllowOverride All
   Order allow,deny
   Allow from all
   </Directory>

2. Bounce Apache.
3. Update CAKEPHP_ROOT/index.phpto make the following changes:

   [...]
   define('APP_DIR', 'app');
    
   // Make sure it's not already defined...
   if (!defined('DS'))
      define('DS', DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR);
   define('ROOT', dirname(__FILE__));
   [...]

4. Update CAKEPHP_ROOT/app/webroot/index.phpto make the following changes:

   [...]
   //define('CAKE_CORE_INCLUDE_PATH', ROOT . DS . 'lib');
    
   // Modified from Cake/bootstrap.php so we can pre-define FULL_BASE_URL here instead.
   if (defined('JAKE')) {
   $s = null;
   if (isset($_SERVER['HTTPS'])) {
      $s = 's';
   }
    
   $httpHost = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
    
   if (isset($httpHost)) {
      define('FULL_BASE_URL', 'http' . $s . '://' . $httpHost . '/app');
   }
   unset($httpHost, $s);
   }
    
   /**
   * Editing below this line should NOT be necessary.
   * Change at your own risk.
   *
   */
    
   [...]
    
   App::uses('Dispatcher', 'Routing');
    
   $Dispatcher = new Dispatcher();
   $r = new CakeRequest();
    
   if (defined('JAKE'))
   {
      $r->url = $url;
      $r->here = $url;
      unset($url);
   }
   $Dispatcher->dispatch($r, new CakeResponse(array('charset' => Configure::read('App.encoding'))));

5. If you have upgraded to Joomla 2.5 from a previous 1.5 version that had the previous Jake component installed (which obviously stopped working when you upgraded), uninstall Jake.  In addition, you’ll need to manually remove the Jake menu links from the database (which in my experience were not deleted upon uninstall).  To do this, execute the following, replacing your Joomla table prefix as appropriate:

   DELETE FROM `[TABLE_PREFIX]_menu` WHERE `link` LIKE '%jake%';

6. Install the new Jake component via the Joomla Extension Manager: com_jake-2.0.0.zip.  See the update above regarding github.
7. Update JOOMLA_ROOT/.htaccessas follows:

   [...]
   ## Begin - Custom redirects
   #
   # If you need to redirect some pages, or set a canonical non-www to
   # www redirect (or vice versa), place that code here. Ensure those
   # redirects use the correct RewriteRule syntax and the [R=301,L] flags.
   #
    
   # For Jake, we need to handle everything that starts with "app"
   # See http://www.phpbb-seo.com/en/apache-mod-rewrite/article3226.html and http://blog.echothis.com/2009/07/22/search-engine-friendly-urls-using-the-jake-bridge/
    
   # First, redirect any static assets to /webapp/* as per http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/setenvif.html
   # Note use of (.+) to make sure that /app/ itself is skipped here
    
   SetEnvIfNoCase  REQUEST_URI "\/app\/(.+)$"  path_to_check=cakephp/app/webroot/$1
    
   # Make sure that path_to_check is not empty
   RewriteCond     %{ENV:path_to_check} ^(.+)$
    
   RewriteCond     %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/../%{ENV:path_to_check} -f                     [OR]
   RewriteCond     %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/../%{ENV:path_to_check} -d
   RewriteRule     ^app\/(.*)$     /webapp/$1                                      [QSA,L]
    
   # And finally, handle everything remaining as an ordinary Cake action
   RewriteRule ^app(.*)$ /index.php?option=com_jake&jrun=$1 [QSA,L]
    
   ## End - Custom redirects
   [...]

Now you can access your CakePHP app inside Joomla at the URL http://yourserver/app, using the latest and greatest versions of Cake and Joomla.