Dev Tutorial: Add Custom Pages to Easy!Appointments

Easy!Appointments is a powerful open-source appointment scheduling application built with PHP and the CodeIgniter 3 (CI3) framework. Out of the box, it provides a full booking flow, admin dashboard, and APIs — but sometimes you’ll want to extend it with your own pages (for example, a FAQ, About page, or custom reporting view).

In this tutorial, we’ll walk through how to add a custom page to Easy!Appointments while keeping with CI3’s MVC structure. You may use the framework documentation as the main guide for more information related to the framework.

https://developers.easyappointments.org/framework

1. Know the File Structure

Easy!Appointments follows CodeIgniter 3’s layout:

application/
    controllers/
    models/
    views/
    ...
assets/
system/
index.php

When adding a custom page, you’ll mainly work in:

• application/controllers/ → Handles the route & logic
• application/views/ → Your HTML/PHP output
• application/config/routes.php → Maps URLs to controllers

2. Create a Custom Controller

Let’s say we want to add a CustomContent page.

Create a new controller file:

application/controllers/CustomContent.php

<?php defined('BASEPATH') or exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Custom_content extends EA_Controller
{
    public function __construct()
    {
        parent::__construct();
        // Load helpers, libraries, or models if needed
        $this->load->library('accounts');
        $this->load->library('timezones');
    }

    public function index()
    {
        session(['dest_url' => site_url('custom_content')]);

        $user_id = session('user_id');

        if (cannot('view', PRIV_USER_SETTINGS)) {
            if ($user_id) {
                abort(403, 'Forbidden');
            }

            redirect('login');

            return;
        }

        $role_slug = session('role_slug');

        script_vars([
            'user_id' => $user_id,
            'role_slug' => $role_slug,
        ]);

        html_vars([
            'page_title' => 'Custom Content',
            'active_menu' => PRIV_SYSTEM_SETTINGS,
            'user_display_name' => $this->accounts->get_user_display_name($user_id),
            'privileges' => $this->roles_model->get_permissions_by_slug($role_slug),
        ]);

        $this->load->view('pages/custom_content');
    }
}

This defines a new controller named Custom_content with a default index() method.

3. Add a View File

Next, create the view file for the page:

application/views/pages/custom_content.php

<?php extend('layouts/backend_layout'); ?>

<?php section('content'); ?>

<div id="custom-content-page" class="container backend-page">
    <div id="custom-content" class="col-lg-8 offset-lg-2">

        Here is some custom text. 
        
    </div>
</div>

<?php end_section('content'); ?>

You can reuse Easy!Appointments’ CSS, or build your own styling.

4. Define a Route

To make the page accessible, edit:

application/config/routes.php

Add this line:

$route['custom_content'] = 'custom_content/index';

Now visiting https://yourdomain.com/index.php/custom_content will load the new page.

5. (Optional) Remove index.php from URLs

If your Easy!Appointments install supports mod_rewrite, you can remove index.php from the URL by editing .htaccess. This makes the custom page accessible via:

https://yourdomain.com/custom_content

6. Wrap-Up

That’s it! You’ve added a custom page to Easy!Appointments:

1. Controller in application/controllers/
2. View in application/views/
3. Route in application/config/routes.php

From here, you can extend further — e.g., connect to existing models, use CI3 helpers, or integrate with the appointment system itself.

✅ Pro Tip: Keep your changes in version control so future Easy!Appointments updates don’t overwrite your customizations.

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