[9.x] Artisan about Command

[jbrooksuk]

This PR introduces a new about command that displays output about the system environment and configuration of the user's application. The command is inspired by Rails' own about command, though it's beautiful and has some additional powers 🪄

The command includes its own API so that applications and packages may push data into existing sections or create a new section with its own data:

use Illuminate\Foundation\Console\AboutCommand;

AboutCommand::add('Laravel Vapor', 'Vapor Runtime', '1.0.0');

You can also add multiple items:

AboutCommand::add('Environment', [
    'Laravel Cashier' => 'Stripe',
    'Laravel Nova' => '4.0.0'
]);

It's expected that packages will start to add their own sections of information, which could make this command output a lot of information. You can choose to filter down certain sections with --only and pass a comma-separated list of sections in snake_case.

Finally, you can choose to output this information as JSON by using the --json option (which can also be combined with --only):

[danharrin]

This is great, for package maintainers, it will allow us to more easily get debugging information from our users, which will help us fix issues. Not just version numbers, but checking if they have fallen into common traps like not linking their public storage directory.

Very nice!

[dillingham]

Might be cool to have about as an overview with a table of contents of registered abouts

and specific sections broken down by key because the about page might get pretty lengthy

php artisan about vapor

I could see a nice package for php artisan about code using the stats package

Models....................10
Controllers...............50
Avg Methods...............5

[pxlrbt]

Another approach for many packages could be adding comma-separated filters:

php artisan about --only=environment,laravel_nova

[voidgraphics]

Great PR, it's a little hard to read though with the values being so far from the keys. Especially in full screen.

[fgaroby]

@pxlrbt: wouldn't it be better using the vendor/package_name syntax ?

[jbrooksuk]

Okay, I've added --only which accepts a command-separated list of section names in snake case, i.e. Laravel Nova => laravel_nova.

I've also added an about method to ServiceProvider as a shortcut to adding sections.

[jbrooksuk]

Great PR, it's a little hard to read though with the values being so far from the keys. Especially in full screen.

The about is dynamic based on the width of your terminal:

[voidgraphics]

Great PR, it's a little hard to read though with the values being so far from the keys. Especially in full screen.

The about is dynamic based on the width of your terminal:

That is the problem I am bringing up. Full-screen terminal windows will have the key/values separated by a lot of dots, making it difficult to read because they are on opposite ends of the screen. It's not a huge issue, but maybe there are other, more legible layout options out there.

[sebdesign]

I agree with @voidgraphics, from a UX standpoint, the left-aligned words and the right-aligned words are too far away from each other, and the dot leaders do not always help when a terminal window is full-width.

This design is generally used in table of contents in books, or in restaurant menus, where the page layout is portrait (the width is narrower than the height). It does not work so well in landscape layouts, where the eyes have to scan a lot of width to match the left word with the right word.

[jbrooksuk]

We'll address this in the Console UI Improvements PR, on which this PR is based on.

[dennisprudlo]

@jbrooksuk Just a thought: How about getting rid of the --only option and use an optional argument list instead?
So about {sections?*} {--json}. This way the command reads better:

php artisan about environment
php artisan about environment laravel_nova some_other_section --json

[omerbaflah]

Great work! @jbrooksuk 👏🏻