How to create new Laravel project using Laragon?

Hi guys. For those who still searching for a good development environment to build a project in, and doesn't know about Laragon, you are at the right place. As a fellow programmer myself, me, somehow, feeling the obligation to share with all of you about this faster and easier way to build a development environment on your computer. And in this evolving era, Laravel framework is widely used for PHP web language as it is more organised and customizable. How easy it is to create a Laravel project on Laragon platform? Let's get through with it.

Laragon is a portable universal development environment that can be used for PHP, Node.js Phyton, Java, Go and Ruby. It is fast and lightweight as you can use it by just install it and run it on your computer like an application. It will stay lean as possible as its core binary itself is less than 2MB and only as much as 4MB while running. You will no longer have the problem of incompatibility to run development environment in your device. And NO. Laragon doesn't use any Windows configuration. It has its own service orchestration which allows it to run things fast and smoothly.

Okay, let's drop all the formality. I can say that as a student before, I used to install XAMPP on my laptop to enable to do all my web project assignment. And honestly, it was messy and time-consuming. XAMPP itself is using the Windows configuration. Hence, you have to make sure all the configuration is right before you can actually use the platform. Like XAMPP, Laragon consists of a few key elements: programming language such as PHP, Ruby, Java and Phyton; database such as MongoDB or MySQL; and web services such as Apache and Nginx.

How easy is to use Laragon?

Supeerrrr easy. Just download it at Laragon and run it when you done. It will ask a couple of permission to allow the application to run its services. Just click a few Next and Yes, and you are done. Don't worry. Once installation done, it will work immediately. And, what I love the most about Laragon is it uses pretty url, that is app.test, instead of using localhost/app.

Laragon interface.

Before you start using it, you can set any services you need by clicking on the 'GEAR' icon or you can also right click anywhere on the interface. Choose Preference option and you will see in this General tab, you can set if you want to run Laragon as soon as Windows starting, or maybe you wanna set another hostname for your project. If you want to keep everything as it is, click on Services & Ports tab next. Here, you can see there are several options that you can change and use as below:

As you can see, Laragon already checked Apache and MySQL as its default setting. If you done checking your preferences, just click on the X on the top-right. But, if you wish to use PostgreSQL or even Oracle, you can download the zip archive of preferred database version and extract them into the Laragon bin folder, which usually will be at c:\laragon\bin. Then, repeat the same step as earlier. 

How to create a project in Laragon?

Once ready, You may click on Start All to start all the services for your soon-to-be-created project. To create a project in Laragon, you just have to right-click anywhere on the interface and select Quick App. Here you can see several framework are listed for your programming base. Click on your preferred framework and a popup will ask you to insert a project's name. Don't forget to choose wisely. Click OK when you done. Laragon will install all dependencies into your environment then, as below.

Once the text on your black screen changed to C:\laragon\www\[entered_name]>,  your are now ready to start programming. You can find your project folder in c:\laragon\www\[entered_name]. And before we end this session (wink*), always remember that you can include additional plugin by downloading them from respective website and extract them in c:\laragon\bin. Good luck!