Running Dynacover on a PHP CLI environment - erikaheidi/dynacover GitHub Wiki
It is also possible to run Dynacover in a local PHP environment. This will require:
- PHP (cli only) 7.4+
- GD / PHP-GD
- Curl
- Composer
Installation is done in a few steps: clone, install dependencies, set up credentials, and you are ready to go.
1. Clone this repository
Start by cloning this repository to your local PHP dev environment or remote PHP server:
git clone https://github.com/erikaheidi/dynacover.git
cd dynacover
2. Install Composer Dependencies
composer install
This will install a few dependencies and generate a config.php
file in the root folder of your application.
3. Set Up Twitter Credentials
Open the generated config.php
file and set up your credentials:
#config.php
<?php
return [
//Twitter API Keys
'twitter_consumer_key' => getenv('DYNA_TWITTER_KEY') ?: 'APP_CONSUMER_KEY',
'twitter_consumer_secret' => getenv('DYNA_TWITTER_SECRET') ?: 'APP_CONSUMER_SECRET',
'twitter_user_token' => getenv('DYNA_TWITTER_TOKEN') ?: 'USER_ACCESS_TOKEN',
'twitter_token_secret' => getenv('DYNA_TWITTER_TOKEN_SECRET') ?: 'USER_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET',
//GitHub Personal Token (for templates using GH Sponsors)
'github_api_bearer' => getenv('DYNA_GITHUB_TOKEN') ?: 'GITHUB_API_BEARER_TOKEN',
//Paths
'templates_dir' => getenv('DYNA_TEMPLATES_DIR') ?: __DIR__ . '/app/Resources/templates',
'images_dir' => getenv('DYNA_IMAGES_DIR') ?: __DIR__ . '/app/Resources/images',
'output_dir' => getenv('DYNA_OUTPUT_DIR') ?: __DIR__,
//Default Template
'default_template' => getenv('DYNA_DEFAULT_TEMPLATE') ?: 'cover_basic.json'
];
The github_api_bearer
token is optional, only in case you want to use the GitHub API to fetch Sponsors.
You need to replace the following strings with the corresponding tokens:
APP_CONSUMER_KEY
APP_CONSUMER_SECRET
USER_ACCESS_TOKEN
USER_ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET
GITHUB_API_BEARER_TOKEN
4. Test Twitter Connection
To test that your credentials are valid, you can list your latest followers with:
php dynacover fetch followers
If everything is set up correctly, you will see a list with your 10 latest followers.
5. Choose a Template and Preview your Cover
To preview your cover without uploading it to Twitter, run:
php dynacover generate twitter
This will use the default cover_basic.json
template. You can specify a template with the template=template_path
parameter:
php dynacover generate twitter template=app/Resources/templates/cover_neon.json
Built-in templates are located in the app/Resources/templates
directory. You can also create your own templates in any preferred location and pass the template json path as parameter, relative to the application root folder. Check the included templates to see how it works. Ideally, you should choose a default template and set it up within the dynacover
script configuration.
Covers are generated in the root of the application folder, with the name latest_header.png
. Check the generated image before uploading it to Twitter to confirm it has your latest followers, and it looks like you expect.
6. Upload to Twitter
To upload the latest generated cover to twitter, run:
php dynacover cover upload
To generate and update your cover using the template that is configured as default in the app config, run:
php dynacover cover update
7. Set Up Crontab (Optional)
For this to be completely dynamic and update frequently, you'll need to include the script to your Crontab or equivalent. First make sure you set up the default_template
config parameter in the dynacover
script to your preferred template. By default, this is app/Resources/templates/cover_basic.json
.
To open the current user's crontab, run:
crontab -e
This will open up a text editor. You should include the full paths to both the php
executable and the dynacover
script, like in this example which will update the cover every 5 minutes:
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/php /home/erika/dynacover/dynacover cover update > /dev/null 2>&1