We covered a lot of ground in this chapter while delivering just a single feature. We did not bother with the graphic part of the web application, concentrating only on the functionality provided. A full stack of basic Yii technologies was used here, from the bottom with active records and data providers to the top with controllers, widgets, and active forms.

This chapter was expected to be an example of what is being used when developing the application with Yii. We glossed over the important part of the rendering process—the assets—but that's for the chapters to come. Next, we'll see what else Yii has up its sleeve to reduce the coding effort of the developer: the CRUD automatic code generators.

Also note that while we're not really going to follow the Yii conventions for structuring the files in our project, we ended up with a structure surprisingly similar to the basic application template. This came up naturally, and part of the answer to this is in Chapter 7, Modules, where we'll find out more about the internals of MVC implementation in Yii.