Architecture & concepts

Melis Platform is a Laminas (ZF2-lineage) MVC application. On top of standard Laminas it adds a handful of conventions that power the backoffice. Understanding these five concepts is enough to read — and extend — almost any part of the platform.

1. Modules

Everything in Melis is a module (a standard Laminas module). The list of backoffice modules loaded by the application lives in:

config/melis.module.load.php

return [
  'MelisAssetManager',
  'MelisDbDeploy',
  'MelisCore',
  'MelisCms',
  'MelisFront',
  // … your own modules go here
];

At bootstrap, config/application.config.php assembles the final module list via MelisCore\MelisModuleManager (which merges these modules with component modules and the site module selected by MELIS_MODULE).

A module bundles its own controllers, services, views, translations and a set of Melis-specific config files (see below). Its Module::getConfig() merges them together.

2. The config tree & "melis keys"

Beyond the usual module.config.php, each backoffice module publishes app config files that are merged into a single, queryable tree under a plugins root:

File	Declares
app.interface.php	UI zones/sections and their forwards (see §3)
app.tools.php	Tools: data tables, columns, filters, action buttons
app.toolstree.php	Where a tool attaches in the left menu
app.forms.php	Form definitions

You query this tree through the MelisCoreConfig service (vendor/melisplatform/melis-core/src/Service/MelisCoreConfigService.php):

$config = $sm->get('MelisCoreConfig');

// Fetch a node by path:
$node = $config->getItem('meliscore_leftmenu');

// Resolve all the "melis keys" → full config paths:
$keys = $config->getMelisKeys();

A melis key is a stable, human-friendly alias for a deeply nested config path, declared on a node via 'conf' => ['melisKey' => 'my_key']. It lets modules reference each other's UI without hard-coupling to a path.

3. Zones & forwards (how the backoffice renders)

The backoffice UI is config-driven. A page is a tree of zones; each zone can declare a forward — a module / controller / action triplet that renders that zone:

'forward' => [
  'module'     => 'MelisCms',
  'controller' => 'PageTree',
  'action'     => 'render-page-tree',
],

MelisCore\Controller\PluginViewController walks the config tree, dispatches each forward, and assembles the resulting HTML. This is why the left menu, headers and tools are all declared in config rather than hard-coded — and why adding a tool is mostly a matter of declaring the right config and providing a controller + view.

4. Services & factories

Melis relies on the Laminas service manager. Services are registered in each module's module.config.php (service_manager → aliases / factories) and resolved by name:

$svc = $this->getServiceManager()->get('MelisCoreConfig');

Common core services include MelisCoreConfig, MelisCoreAuth, MelisCoreRights, MelisCoreUser, MelisCoreTool. Business services typically extend MelisGeneralService (which adds event dispatching); database access goes through Laminas TableGateway wrappers.

5. Events

Modules hook into the request lifecycle in Module::onBootstrap() and via listeners on the shared event manager. Core behaviour (authentication, rights checks, flash messages, caching…) is wired this way, and you can publish/subscribe to custom Melis events — e.g. melis_core_auth_login_ok fires after a successful login.

Bonus: database changes (dbdeploy & flyway)

Schema and seed changes are versioned:

• dbdeploy (MelisDbDeploy): each module ships numbered SQL deltas; applied deltas are tracked in a changelog table so they run once. Module deltas are published into dbdeploy/.
• flyway (flyway/sql/): project-level migrations (e.g. V3__add_melisai_rights.sql), applied with flyway migrate.

Where to look in the code

Concern	Path
Module list	config/melis.module.load.php
App bootstrap	config/application.config.php
Platform DB config	config/autoload/platforms/<MELIS_PLATFORM>.php
Config service	vendor/melisplatform/melis-core/src/Service/MelisCoreConfigService.php
Zone/forward render	vendor/melisplatform/melis-core/src/Controller/PluginViewController.php
Module manager	vendor/melisplatform/melis-core/src/MelisModuleManager.php

Next: put it together by creating your first tool.