Collections 2

A lightweight personal media catalog built with CodeIgniter 4.

Collections 2 imports HTML table exports from Obsidian, stores them in MySQL, and serves fast searchable views for CDs, books, Blu-rays, and Arkas issues.

Features

• Fast homepage and media page caching.
• AJAX search across creator/title with highlighted matches.
• Automatic import trigger from the About page when source files change.
• Responsive UI using Tailwind CSS + daisyUI.
• Simple content workflow: maintain data in Obsidian, export HTML, upload, done.

Stack

• PHP ^8.2
• CodeIgniter ^4.7
• MySQL (default driver: MySQLi)
• Tailwind CSS v4
• daisyUI
• esbuild

Project Structure

• app/Controllers/Home.php: homepage, media pages, about page.
• app/Controllers/Ajax.php: AJAX endpoints (search).
• app/Models/ContentModel.php: media queries and stats helpers.
• app/Models/AjaxModel.php: search query model.
• app/Models/ImportModel.php: import pipeline from Obsidian HTML files.
• app/Views/: page templates and partials.
• public/js/src/: frontend JS source files.
• tailwind/: Tailwind input and utility layers.
• writable/obsidian_html/: import source folder + manifest tracking.

Routes

• GET / -> homepage
• GET /media/{alias} -> media list by type
• GET /about -> story page + import trigger
• GET /ajax/search?q=... -> JSON search results (AJAX only)

Quick Start

1. Install dependencies

composer install
npm install

2. Configure environment

Copy env to .env if needed, then set at least:

CI_ENVIRONMENT = development

database.default.hostname = localhost
database.default.database = collections
database.default.username = root
database.default.password =
database.default.DBDriver = MySQLi
database.default.port = 3306

For local development without caching:

cache.handler = dummy

For production, use file/redis/etc:

cache.handler = file

3. Prepare database

This repository currently does not include migrations, so create tables manually.

Minimum required columns:

• media
  • id (PK)
  • media_type_id (int)
  • title (string)
  • creator (string, nullable/empty allowed)
  • collection (string, nullable/empty allowed)
• media_types
  • id (PK)
  • media_type (string label)
  • alias (route alias, e.g. cds, books, arkas, blu-rays)
  • position (int, for menu ordering)
  • item_msrp (numeric)
  • items_count (int)
  • total_msrp (numeric)

Important:

• media.media_type_id must reference media_types.id.
• Footer and navigation depend on media_types records existing.

4. Build frontend assets

Development (watch mode):

npm run dev

Production build:

npm run build

5. Run application

CodeIgniter local server:

php spark serve

Or serve via Apache/Nginx with document root set to public/.

Content Import Workflow

Collections 2 expects Obsidian HTML exports in:

• writable/obsidian_html/

Expected filenames:

• cds-collection.html
• books-collection.html
• arkas-collection.html
• blu-ray-collection.html

How it works:

1. Visit /about.
2. ImportModel::initImport() compares file mtimes against writable/obsidian_html/manifest.json.
3. If changed, importer parses the first table from each file.
4. media table is refreshed and repopulated.
5. Media type stats are recalculated and runtime cache/log/session artifacts are cleaned.

Caching

Current behavior:

• Home::index() caches rendered homepage output (page-home).
• Home::media() caches rendered media pages (page-media-{alias}-p{page}).
• Home::about() is not cached.

Recommended setup:

• Development: cache.handler = dummy
• Production: cache.handler = file (or Redis/Memcached if configured)

Search API

Endpoint:

• GET /ajax/search?q=term

Behavior:

• Requires AJAX header (X-Requested-With: XMLHttpRequest).
• Ignores terms shorter than 2 characters.
• Searches creator and title.
• Returns up to 15 rows with creator, title, collection, type.

Scripts

• npm run dev: run CSS and JS watchers in parallel.
• npm run build: build minified CSS and JS bundles.
• composer test: run PHPUnit test suite.

Notes

• mediaTypes is preloaded globally in BaseController for navigation/footer rendering.
• Version display uses SYS_VERSION and is shown in footer.
• Public assets are versioned in layout with ?v=SYS_VERSION.

License

MIT