# Record covers

Every record has a cover image that is stored locally in the /storage/covers directory
As you may have noticed, there is no cover column in the records table
The name of the image refers to the record's mb_id column
E.g. if the mb_id value is f0a4ed57-10e0-4c37-81b4-36311dc7d4b6, the cover image must be f0a4ed57-10e0-4c37-81b4-36311dc7d4b6.jpg
Later on in the course, we discuss some scripts to upload, replace and delete cover images
To start using the covers, we prepared a small script to download a zip file containing all the covers and store them locally in the right folder

# Create a symlink to the storage directory

If you followed all the instructions when starting up our project, the symlink should already be created
If not, you can create it by running the following command in your terminal: php artisan storage:link

link already exists

If you execute the php artisan storage:link more than once, you get the following error:
You can ignore this error, as the link was already created during the initial startup of the project

# Download the covers

REMARKS

The script we prepared is written in "pure PHP" and does not use the Laravel framework, therefore we will not discuss this code in detail
Later on, you can re-run this script every time you need to reset to the default covers

Create a new file download_covers.php inside the public directory
Copy the following code into public/download_covers.php

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport"
          content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <title>Download covers</title>
    <script src="https://cdn.tailwindcss.com?plugins=typography"></script>
</head>
<body class="p-4 bg-green-200">
    <h1 class="text-2xl font-bold mb-2">Download covers</h1>
    <div class="max-w-3xl bg-white/75 border rounded-md shadow-xl p-4">
        <?php
            $download_url = "https://pverhaert.sinners.be/covers_vinylshop.zip";
            $download_to = "storage/covers.zip";
        
            $script = basename($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
            file_put_contents($download_to, fopen($download_url, 'r'));
            $path = pathinfo(realpath($download_to), PATHINFO_DIRNAME);
            $zip = new ZipArchive;
            $res = $zip->open($download_to);
            if ($res === TRUE) {
                $zip->extractTo($path);
                $zip->close();
                echo "<p>The file <b>$download_url</b><br>was successfully extracted to <b>$path</b></p>";
                unlink($download_to);
            } else {
                echo "<p>Couldn't open <b>$download_to</b></p>";
            }
            echo '<p class="mt-6"><a href="/" class="px-6 py-2 bg-green-600 text-white rounded">BACK HOME</a></p>';
        ?>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

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Run the script by opening the url http://vinyl_shop.test/download_covers.php (opens new window) in your browser
Because of the symlink, the covers will be visible in the storage/app/public/covers directory and in the public/storage/covers directory
Open the url http://vinyl_shop.test/storage/covers/f0a4ed57-10e0-4c37-81b4-36311dc7d4b6.jpg (opens new window) to check one of the covers

covers folder not visible

It might be possible that the covers folder doesn't appear in PhpStorm.
Try to right-click the storage/app/public folder and choose Reload from Disk to force your working directory to refresh

WARNING

All PHP files you create directly in the public directory (like download_covers.php) are completely separated from Laravel and therefore you should not create a route in web.php either.