This chapter initially introduces the CI naming conventions. These conventions include the rules, style guide, and CodeIgniter naming spirit. The second part of this chapter will review CI project configurations for built-in resources as well as user-defined or third-party add-on libraries. Note that we will actually build our own project code in the subdirectory application described in Chapter 1, Getting Started, with optionally relative resource directories for our project's self-made resources, such as CSS / Media / jQuery libraries' resources or third-party add-ons, extending the base CI downloaded from the Ellis Labs site or GitHub.

We should remember that developing a CI project is done by replacing/expanding the default provided controllers, views, models, and other resources in a well-defined OOP fashion. We should extend controllers, models, and add additional views as well as use defined helpers or libraries. We can add these from third-party libraries or helpers, or develop new ones for our special project business logic and needs.

The initial step after installing the CI is making the proper configurations for our project requirements, such as database, session, auto-loaded helpers, and the libraries we want.

The CI has a set of configuration files defined in the project directory located at application/config. These configurations are loaded initially whenever we execute any of our project's CI controllers via a URI call using a browser or issuing an HTTP request via code. The major configuration files are: config.php, database.php, autoload.php, and routes.php.

We should review each of the major configuration files with its configuration value, which includes recommended value, and possible values.