Using annotations to make dependency injection even easier

Mouf helps you set up your dependency-injection container using a nice graphical user interface.

• Deep-linking into instances
• Adding logo to your instances

Deep-linking into instances

When you have a look at an instance in Mouf, you can see to which instances this instance is bound. But you don't know the content of those instances.

Here is a simple sample with a Node class that has a title and children nodes.

class Node implements HtmlElementInterface {
    /**
     * @var string
     */
    public $title;

    /**
     * @var Node[]
     */
    public $children;
}

A typical node instance will look like this:

You can improve user experience in Mouf by adding the @Important annotation.

class Node implements HtmlElementInterface {
    /**
     * @Important
     * @var string
     */
    public $title;

    /**
     * @Important
     * @var Node[]
     */
    public $children;
}

Just put the annotation in your public property / setter / constructor docblock.

You will now see this:

See the difference? It is much easier to see what we are doing now. However, you must still declare yourself what should be displayed (using @Important) and what should be hidden. Indeed, if Mouf made everything visible at once in all instances displayed, it would soon be unusable.

Note: in a constructor, you can decide which parameters are important and which are not important by passing the parameter name after the annotation. Here is a sample:

/**
 * @Important $a
 */
public function __construct($a, $b=null) {

}

Showing a property only if it is not empty

Sometimes, you want to show a property if it is set, but hide it if it is empty. You can do that using the @Important Ifset annotation. This will show the property only if it set (if it is different from "default value").

For instance:

/**
 * This setter will be displayed in "medium" view only if the value is set.
 * Otherwise, the developer must step in "big" view to set the value. 
 * 
 * @Important IfSet
 * @param string $value
 */
public function setValue($value) {
    ...
}

Adding logos to your instances

When you look at an instance in Mouf, it has a small logo next to it. Usually, this is a "PHP file" logo:

Did you know you can customize this logo using an annotation? Here is how to do it:

/**
 * A class with a special logo
 *
 * @Renderer { "smallLogo":"images/my_custom_logo.png" }
 */
class MyClass {

}

The @Renderer annotation can be used to add custom logos to your instances. The path you put in the "smallLogo" property should not start with a / and will be relative to your application's ROOT_URL.

Here is a sample instance with a custom logo:

Found a typo? Something is wrong in this documentation? Just fork and edit it!