If you're like me, then you probably enjoy playing around with a bit of PHP and have server environment setup in Xampp. That's cool and all, but you've probably always also had an issue with the fact that you had to specify the localhost address and the folders upon folders which you're building projects.
Pretty long right.
That can be exhausting. Now there's a hack for this, and you could set up virtual hosts and reduce the url length by a pretty reasonable amount. If you would like to do things this way, here's a guide on how to set it up.
https://www.drupal.org/docs/develop/local-server-setup/windows-development-environment/set-up-local-server-using-xampp
But just wait, after going through the guide, you observe you actually have to alter settings in your xampp file and the windows system32 folder (Uhhhhhh, that's not good). If you like to hack, then its probably fine. But for me not so much, I think black boxes should remain black (Just Kidding). However, this got me thinking...
What if there was a way to manage all our projects right when we run localhost. Instead of having to navigate to a particular url we could specify that in the project folder and have that take us to a particular link on our server. Also, we could monitor our progress over time on projects that we are working on right within systems (Who says because we are developers we can't have the good things of life too, Hahahaaaha). So, all this sounds like pretty beautiful full on sale English (I don't know this means, but you get the point right) and if you're a beginner to coding then you probably know its easier said than done. Its all English right, Well you are right and wrong.
Let's Break this down a bit,
Firstly, what do we want to do? Build a project manager for our projects in Xampp's main directory.
Secondly, What features should our manager have? Display all projects, Monitor project status (Set by Manager).
Thirdly, should it be customizable? Yes.
My goal is to take you through the steps of converting this all well understood but tricky English into code that actually does something and we will get, you just have to hold a bit.