The EasyAdmin dashboard

Almost every site needs an admin panel: a list of posts, users and orders with search and edit forms. Writing it by hand is long and dull. The EasyAdmin package builds such a panel from Doctrine entities.

Installation

composer require easycorp/easyadmin-bundle
php bin/console make:admin:dashboard

The second command creates the panel's main controller — by default it opens at /admin.

A section for an entity

php bin/console make:admin:crud

The command asks which entity to create a section for and generates a controller:

namespace App\Controller\Admin;
 
use App\Entity\Post;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Controller\AbstractCrudController;
 
class PostCrudController extends AbstractCrudController
{
    public static function getEntityFqcn(): string
    {
        return Post::class;
    }
}

That is already enough: a list, search, create and edit forms and deletion appear.

Sections are added to the menu in the dashboard controller:

use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Config\MenuItem;
 
public function configureMenuItems(): iterable
{
    yield MenuItem::linkToDashboard('Home', 'fa fa-home');
    yield MenuItem::section('Content');
    yield MenuItem::linkToCrud('Posts', 'fa fa-file-text', Post::class);
    yield MenuItem::linkToCrud('Comments', 'fa fa-comment', Comment::class);
    yield MenuItem::section('People');
    yield MenuItem::linkToCrud('Users', 'fa fa-user', User::class);
}

Fields

By default EasyAdmin shows every property. The configureFields() method sets which fields to show and how:

use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\AssociationField;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\BooleanField;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\DateTimeField;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\IdField;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\TextEditorField;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\TextField;
 
public function configureFields(string $pageName): iterable
{
    yield IdField::new('id')->hideOnForm();
    yield TextField::new('title', 'Title');
    yield TextEditorField::new('body', 'Text')->hideOnIndex();
    yield AssociationField::new('author', 'Author');
    yield BooleanField::new('published', 'Published');
    yield DateTimeField::new('createdAt', 'Created')->hideOnForm();
}

hideOnForm() removes a field from the form, hideOnIndex() from the list.

Search, ordering, filters

use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Config\Crud;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Config\Filters;
 
public function configureCrud(Crud $crud): Crud
{
    return $crud
        ->setEntityLabelInSingular('Post')
        ->setEntityLabelInPlural('Posts')
        ->setSearchFields(['title', 'body'])
        ->setDefaultSort(['createdAt' => 'DESC'])
        ->setPaginatorPageSize(30);
}
 
public function configureFilters(Filters $filters): Filters
{
    return $filters->add('published')->add('author')->add('createdAt');
}

Custom actions

Besides the standard buttons you can add your own — "Publish", for example. An action is described in configureActions() and tied to a controller method.

Protection

The panel must be closed to outsiders:

# config/packages/security.yaml
security:
    access_control:
        - { path: ^/admin, roles: ROLE_ADMIN }

Individual sections can be restricted further: MenuItem::linkToCrud(...)->setPermission('ROLE_SUPER_ADMIN').

Common mistake

The access_control rule is easy to forget or delete by accident — and the panel opens to anyone who guesses the /admin address. Right after installation visit the site as a guest and make sure the panel is unavailable, or better, write a test that checks it.

Thanks for reading!