tips-and-tricks.md

Tips and Tricks

Better Organizing Backend Configuration

The recommended way to start configuring your backend is to use the app/config/config.yml file and put your configuration under the easy_admin key. However, for large backends this configuration can be very long.

In those cases, it's better to create a new app/config/admin.yml file to define all the configuration related to the backend and then, import that file from the general config.yml file:

# app/config/config.yml
imports:
    - { resource: parameters.yml }
    - { resource: security.yml }
    - { resource: services.yml }
    - { resource: admin.yml }  # <-- add this line

# app/config/admin.yml      # <-- create this file
easy_admin:
    # ...
    # copy all the configuration originally defined in config.yml
    # ...

Improving Backend Performance

EasyAdmin does an intense use of Doctrine metadata introspection to generate the backend on the fly without generating any file or resource. For complex backends, this process can add a noticeable performance overhead.

Fortunately, Doctrine provides a simple caching mechanism for entity metadata. If your server has APC installed, enable this cache just by adding the following configuration:

# app/config/config_prod.yml
doctrine:
    orm:
        metadata_cache_driver: apc

In addition to apc, Doctrine metadata cache supports memcache, memcached, xcache and service (for using a custom cache service). Read the documentation about Doctrine caching drivers.

Note that the previous example configures metadata caching in config_prod.yml file, which is the configuration used for the production environment. It's not recommended to enable this cache in the development environment to avoid having to clear APC cache or restart the web server whenever you make any change to your Doctrine entities.

This simple metadata cache configuration can improve your backend performance between 20% and 30% depending on the complexity and number of your entities.

Use a Custom Dashboard as the Index Page of the Backend

By default, the index page of the backend is the list view of the first configured entity. If you want to display instead a custom page or dashboard, [override the default AdminController] override-admin-controller and use the following code:

// src/AppBundle/Controller/AdminController.php
namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use JavierEguiluz\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Controller\AdminController as BaseAdminController;

class AdminController extends BaseAdminController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/admin/", name="admin")
     */
    public function indexAction(Request $request)
    {
        // if the URL doesn't include the entity name, this is the index page
        if (null === $request->query->get('entity')) {
            // define this route in any of your own controllers
            return $this->redirectToRoute('admin_dashboard');
        }

        // don't forget to add this line to serve the regular backend pages
        return parent::indexAction($request);
    }

    // ...
}

Create a Read-Only Backend

Disable the delete, edit and new actions for all views and the users won't be able to add, modify or remove any information:

easy_admin:
    list:
        actions: ['-edit', '-new']
    show:
        actions: ['-delete', '-edit']

Unloading the Default JavaScript and Stylesheets

EasyAdmin uses Bootstrap CSS and jQuery frameworks to build the interface. In case you want to unload these files in addition to loading your own assets, override the default layout.html.twig template and empty the head_stylesheets and body_javascripts Twig blocks.

Read the [Advanced Design Customization] advanced-design-customization tutorial to learn how to override default templates.