Setup Guide — NewsPortal Pro

Windows Setup

Install a Local PHP Environment

You need PHP 8.2, MySQL 8, and Composer. The easiest way is Laragon — one installer, everything included.

🦅

Laragon

PHP 8.2 + MySQL + Composer in one click

Recommended

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XAMPP

Classic choice, use PHP 8.2 version

Popular

🎩

Laravel Herd

Official Laravel local environment

Laravel Official

After installing Laragon, click Start All from the Laragon tray icon before proceeding.

Place the Project Files

Unzip the downloaded newsportal.zip and place the newsportal folder into your web root:

Environment	Web Root Path
Laragon	`C:\laragon\www\newsportal\`
XAMPP	`C:\xampp\htdocs\newsportal\`
WAMP	`C:\wamp64\www\newsportal\`

Run the Setup Script

Open your environment's terminal (right-click the Laragon tray icon → Terminal), navigate to the project folder and run:

cd C:\laragon\www\newsportal
setup.bat

The script will prompt you for database credentials and do everything automatically:

Creates the news_portal database
Runs composer install
Generates the app key
Runs all migrations
Seeds 30 articles, 17 users, 80 tags

Start the Development Server

After setup, the script asks if you want to start the server. Press Y or run manually:

php artisan serve
   INFO  Server running on http://127.0.0.1:8000

With Laragon you can also access the site via http://newsportal.test without running artisan serve — Laragon creates virtual hosts automatically.

✓

You're Live!

Default Login Credentials

Frontend URLhttp://localhost:8000

Admin Panelhttp://localhost:8000/admin

Emailadmin@example.com

Passwordpassword

Change the admin password immediately after first login in any non-local environment.

Linux / macOS Setup

Install PHP 8.2 and MySQL

Ubuntu / Debian:

# Add PHP 8.2 repository
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php -y
sudo apt update

# Install PHP and required extensions
sudo apt install php8.2 php8.2-cli php8.2-mysql php8.2-mbstring \
  php8.2-xml php8.2-gd php8.2-zip php8.2-bcmath php8.2-curl -y

# Install MySQL
sudo apt install mysql-server -y
sudo mysql_secure_installation

macOS (Homebrew):

# Install PHP and MySQL
brew install php mysql composer
brew services start mysql

Install Composer

curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
composer --version

Extract and Run Setup

# Extract the zip
unzip newsportal.zip -d /var/www/
cd /var/www/newsportal

# Run the one-command setup
chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh

Follow the prompts to enter your database credentials. The script handles the rest.

Start Server

php artisan serve --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8000

For a production server with Nginx, see Server Configuration in the docs.

✓

Done!

Default Login Credentials

Frontend URLhttp://localhost:8000

Admin Panelhttp://localhost:8000/admin

Emailadmin@example.com

Passwordpassword

Shared Hosting / cPanel Setup

Your host must support PHP 8.2+ and MySQL 8.0+ and allow SSH access for Composer. Most modern cPanel hosts do. Check with your provider if unsure.

Set PHP Version to 8.2

In cPanel → MultiPHP Manager or PHP Selector, set PHP to 8.2 and ensure these extensions are enabled: pdo_mysql, mbstring, xml, gd, zip, bcmath, curl.

Create MySQL Database

In cPanel → MySQL Databases:

Create a new database, e.g. mysite_newsportal
Create a database user with a strong password
Add the user to the database with All Privileges

Upload and Extract Files

Upload newsportal.zip via cPanel File Manager to your document root (public_html/ or a subdirectory), then extract it.

The Laravel public/ folder should be your web root. You may need to point your domain to newsportal/public/ in cPanel → Domains.

Configure .env via SSH

# SSH into your server, then:
cd /home/username/public_html/newsportal

cp .env.example .env
nano .env  # fill in DB credentials

Set DB_DATABASE, DB_USERNAME, DB_PASSWORD to your cPanel database details.

Run Composer and Artisan

composer install --no-dev --optimize-autoloader
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate --seed
php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache

Set Directory Permissions

chmod -R 755 storage bootstrap/cache public/uploads
chown -R www-data:www-data storage bootstrap/cache

✓

Live!

Visit your domain. Admin at yourdomain.com/admin — login with admin@example.com / password. Change your password immediately.

Configure AI Features (Optional)

Get Your OpenAI API Key

Visit platform.openai.com/api-keys and create a new API key. The recommended model is gpt-4o-mini — it's fast and very cost-effective.

Enter Key in Admin Panel

Go to Admin → Settings → AI, paste your API key, select the model, then flip Enable AI Features ON.

Toggle each AI feature individually: Summary, Tags, SEO, Related Articles. You can enable only what you need.

Process Existing Articles

# Enrich all seeded articles with AI
php artisan news:process-ai

Processing 30 articles...
████████████████████ 30/30
✅  Done! 30 articles enriched.

Configure Email / SMTP (Optional)

Go to Admin → Settings → Email, toggle Use Custom SMTP ON, and enter your details. Here are quick configs for popular providers:

Gmail

Host:       smtp.gmail.com
Port:       587
Encryption: TLS
Username:   you@gmail.com
Password:   App Password (not your Gmail password)

Generate a Gmail App Password at: myaccount.google.com/apppasswords

Mailtrap (Testing)

Host:       sandbox.smtp.mailtrap.io
Port:       2525
Encryption: TLS
Username:   your mailtrap username
Password:   your mailtrap password

Mailgun

Host:       smtp.mailgun.org
Port:       587
Encryption: TLS
Username:   postmaster@yourdomain.com
Password:   your mailgun SMTP password

Useful Artisan Commands

# View full site statistics
php artisan news:stats

# Run AI on all unprocessed articles
php artisan news:process-ai

# Re-process a specific article by ID
php artisan news:reprocess-ai 5

# Send newsletter to all confirmed subscribers
php artisan news:send-newsletter "Weekly Digest"

# Preview newsletter without sending
php artisan news:send-newsletter "Weekly Digest" --preview

# Publish all scheduled articles
php artisan news:publish-scheduled

# Delete all spam comments
php artisan news:clear-spam

# Clear all caches (run after changing .env)
php artisan config:clear
php artisan cache:clear
php artisan view:clear

# Reset the database and reseed (dev only!)
php artisan migrate:fresh --seed

Common Problems

Syntax error, unexpected token "=" in Blade

This happens when => appears inside a Blade @foreach() directive with an inline array — XAMPP's Blade compiler can't handle it. Move the array to a @php block first:

// ❌ Breaks on XAMPP
@foreach(['a'=>'A'] as $k => $v)

// ✅ Always works
@php $opts = ['a' => 'A']; @endphp
@foreach($opts as $k => $v)

Pagination looks broken / no styling

Laravel 12 defaults to Tailwind CSS pagination. Ensure app/Providers/AppServiceProvider.php has this in boot():

Paginator::useBootstrapFive();

SQLSTATE: Access denied for user

Frontend has horizontal scrollbar

Logo uploaded but not showing on frontend

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Your News Portal is Ready!

You have a fully-functioning AI-powered news portal. Now head to Admin and start creating your first real article.

Open Admin Panel Read the Docs

Quick Navigation

Windows (Laragon / XAMPP) Linux / macOS cPanel Shared Hosting

Seeded User Accounts

Role	Email
Admin	`admin@example.com`
Editor	`james.editor@example.com`
Author	`alex.author@example.com`
Reader	`emma@example.com`

All passwords: password

Requirements Checklist

PHP 8.2+ with pdo_mysql, mbstring, gd, zip
Composer 2.x
MySQL 8.0+ (or MariaDB 10.4+)
OpenAI API Key (optional, for AI)
SMTP credentials (optional, for email)

Need Help?

Our support team is happy to help with setup and configuration issues.

Contact Support