[Feature Request]: Support the public_html web root

[Brugman]

I mostly run WordPress sites, a bunch of vanilla PHP sites, and some Laravel sites. WordPress sites and vanilla index.php apps get picked up by Herd/Valet automatically if I put them in the root of a project folder.

Like Laravel uses the public subfolder to separate the web root from the other files in the project, I and many others have adopted the public_html folder a long time ago to match Apache. When you've got this folder committed to git, and used in your deployment procedures, it is not something you want to change on a whim.

Besides putting the site in the project root, Herd/Valet works out of the box with WP and vanilla sites in the public folder, but not the public_html folder. Could this be added to the core functionality? An even better implementation would let the user configure what folders are checked, become some may prefer htdocs or www subfolders.

You should just add your own local Valet driver!
That is easier said than done. I've spent an entire evening playing with modified versions of the default drivers. The only one that managed to pass all my tests was a slightly modified BasicValetDriver, but that contained none of the features that the WordPress specific driver has, so I know it is subpar. Sure, I could ask or wait for an expert to create a good local Valet driver for every specific CMS that defines a custom subfolder, but considering how generic the request is, I think it would be better solved at a core Herd/Valet level.

I would hesitate to ask this from the Valet project, as its focus is primarily on Laravel, but Herd's audience is much wider, (optimistically) bringing in lots of PHP devs that don't use Laravel. I think it would massively benefit Herd to add this flexibility to its Valet implementation.

[Brugman]

I've tried adding my own local Valet driver, again. And it didn't work.

I want to use the default WordPressValetDriver, so I copied that to MyWordPressValetDriver.
It extends BasicValetDriver. That driver looks equivalent to BasicWithPublicValetDriver, except the latter makes /public/ work. So I copied BasicWithPublicValetDriver to MyBasicWithPublicValetDriver.

Now I can modify MyBasicWithPublicValetDriver to contain /public_html/, and modify MyWordPressValetDriver to extend MyBasicWithPublicValetDriver instead. Problem solved? Nope.

It seems I cannot extend a custom driver with another custom driver. Maybe that's an alternative solution. If you could allow that in Herd/Valet, then my previous request which requires UI work could be scratched, but I obviously would prefer a built-in solution with a UI.

[InforPsico]

I'm asking the same thing.

I read that they managed to fix it here, but I can't get it to work, I don't know if you've been able to

#1207

[Brugman]

I have not. I'm giving it another shot, but I have low expectations.

My solution in the mean time has been to symlink public to public_html. This way Herd/Valet sees WP in public but I actually have it stored in public_html.

From what I've read, you and marcamos want a custom subfolder for Laravel sites. The Laravel config already has a reference to /public so modifying that seems easier and is not the same thing. I'm looking to merge two configs or extend a custom config with a custom config.

[Brugman]

I think I managed to build a working driver for WordPress sites in a public_html subfolder. If anyone wants a different subfolder it should be easy to modify.

https://github.com/Brugman/laravel-herd-valet-drivers/blob/master/MyWordPressPublicHTMLValetDriver.php

I'll leave this FR open because it still has value to be integrated in core.