📃 Full Description

ClipURL is a professional Laravel-based URL shortener web application packed with advanced features such as real-time click analytics, admin panel, guest & user link management, password protection, expiration control, and email notifications.

Built using Laravel 10, Bootstrap 5, and a clean modular architecture, this tool is perfect for developers, marketers, or businesses who want a branded, secure, and self-hosted short link service

✨ Features

• ✅ Clean Bootstrap 5 frontend (fully responsive)
• ✅ Admin dashboard with settings panel
• ✅ Custom short links with aliases
• ✅ Guest shortening (optional)
• ✅ Password-protected short URLs
• ✅ Expiration date for short URLs
• ✅ QR Code auto-generation
• ✅ Click tracking and analytics (IP, location, platform, referrer)
• ✅ CSV Bulk link shortening
• ✅ Email notification settings (user registration & link creation)
• ✅ Full user login/register system (Laravel Breeze)
• ✅ Settings stored in database
• ✅ Session-based guest history
• ✅ Admin link restriction policies
• ✅ Protected admin routes
• ✅ Laravel 10.x & PHP 8 compatible

⚙️ Requirements

• PHP 8.0 or higher
• Composer
• Node.js + NPM
• MySQL Database
• Laravel CLI

📖 Installation Instructions

📦 1. Download the Project Files

# Unzip the project into your web directory
cd /path-to-your-project/

🔧 2. Install Backend Dependencies

Make sure you have Composer installed. Then run:

composer install

🎨 3. Install Frontend Dependencies

Install Node.js dependencies and compile frontend assets:

npm install
npm run build

✅ For development, you can use:

npm run dev

🗝️ 4. Environment Setup

Copy the .env.example file and generate the application key:

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

Now open the .env file in any text editor and configure the following:

APP_NAME=ClipURL
APP_URL=http://localhost:8000

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=clipurl
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=

[email protected]

✅ Make sure your database clipurl exists in MySQL.

🧱 5. Run Migrations and Seed Admin Account

Run this command to create all tables and seed the admin account:

php artisan migrate --seed

This will create:

• All necessary tables:
  • users, short_urls, click_logs, settings, notification_settings
• Default admin account:

Email: [email protected]
Password: password

🔐 Tip: You can promote any user to admin with:

php artisan tinker
>>> AppModelsUser::where('email', '[email protected]')->update(['is_admin' => true]);

▶️ 6. Start the Laravel App

php artisan serve

Then open in your browser:

http://localhost:8000

✉️ 7. Email Notifications (Mailtrap Setup)

To enable email notifications for:

• New user registrations
• New shortened links

Configure Mailtrap in your .env file (create a Mailtrap account first):

MAIL_MAILER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=smtp.mailtrap.io
MAIL_PORT=2525
MAIL_USERNAME=your_mailtrap_username
MAIL_PASSWORD=your_mailtrap_password
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null
[email protected]
MAIL_FROM_NAME="ClipURL"

📬 Emails will be sent to the address defined in ADMIN_EMAIL.

🛡️ 8. Admin Panel Access

Admin dashboard is accessible at:

http://localhost:8000/admin/dashboard

Protected by middleware. Only users with is_admin = true can access it.

🧪 9. Run Tests (Optional)

php artisan test

📦 Folder Structure

app/
├── Http/
│   └── Controllers/
│       ├── UrlShortenerController.php
│       └── Admin/AdminDashboardController.php
├── Models/
│   ├── ShortUrl.php
│   ├── ClickLog.php
│   ├── Setting.php
│   └── NotificationSetting.php
resources/
└── views/
    ├── auth/
    ├── admin/
    ├── layouts/
    ├── partials/
    └── ...