This is a basic MVC Framework designed by Travis Lilleberg for general use.

@author Travis Lilleberg <[email protected]>
@date July-August 2015


/******** USAGE ********/

There is an 'Example' controller and four 'example' views to illustrate
how to work in this environment. You should read general instructions
on how to work within MVC as well.


/******** FILE STRUCTURE ********/

404.html ----- our 404 page.
.htaccess ---- reroutes all requests to index.php
index.php ---- our single access point to the site (see process below)
README ------- hi
config ------- contains config.php, which defines our database credentials
               and other environment-specific settings.
core --------- any non-class scripts that run on every request (bootstrap.php)
lib ---------- any classes that we use on every request
dist --------- our javascript, css, and images
application -- our models, views and controllers (see process)
logs --------- error logs 


/******** PROCESS ********/

This site works like so:

1. The request comes in like this:
   slis.simmons.edu/usability/search/query/china?extra=params
   NOTE: The parts of the url represent:
      domain/root/controller/action/queryString?advancedSearchParams

2. The .htaccess file rewrites url like this:
   slis.simmons.edu/usability/index.php?url=search/query/china&extra=params
   NOTE: All requests get sent to index.php .
   NOTE: The controller, action, queryString are part of the 'url' parameter.

3. index.php defines the site's ROOT directory and loads core/bootstrap.php

4. bootstrap.php does a bunch of stuff, it:
   4.1 Loads config/config.php, which includes our DB credentials.
   4.2 Defines our error handling.
   4.3 Loads all files in lib.
   4.4 Defines our 404 function.
   4.5 Pulls 'url' out of $_GET and passes $url and $_GET to Router::route

5. Router::route does the following:
   5.1 Reads the url parameter: "search/query/china".
   5.2 Loads application/controllers/Search.php
   5.3 Creates new Search() object.
   5.4 Loads any extra parameters from $_GET into the new object.
   5.5 Calls Search::query("china").

6. The Search controller does the following:
   6.1 Creates a new Model object.
      NOTE: The Model allows us to connect to the database.
   6.2 Performs the database query using the Model object.
   6.3 Creates a new View object.
   6.4 Passes all parameters to the view object.
      NOTE: This includes database query results.
   6.5 Runs View::loadView() multiple times.

7. View::loadView does the following:
   6.1 Redefines all our parameters as local variables.
   6.2 Loads a specific template from application/views/ .
      NOTE: This is done multiple times, to call: header, content, footer, etc

That's it! So simple!