Support Laravel 6, 7 and future major releases

[apolopena]

Problem this feature will solve

More developers will use this starter if it can support Laravel 6 and 7. Also th codebased needs to be refactored so it can support upcoming major releases of Laravel such as version 9.

Background

The example projects are built for laravel 8 and composer is currently hardceded to install a version of laravel/ui that only works for laravel 8 BUT laravel will work at for this starter at versions 6 and 7. Also this starter should be able to support upcoming major rlease of version 9.

Proposed Solution

Support laravel 6, 7, and future major versions of laravel.
Add the framework to be able to support future major versions of Laravel
Support frontend scaffolding for these versions

To keep in scope:
Currently:
React Examples will only work for version 8
Vue example will work for 6, 7 and 8. See #105

Constraints and Assumptions

Front end scaffolding (React/Vue/Bootstrap) uses laravel/ui which only supports Laravel down to version 6.

Here is a list of the laravel/ui versions required for each version of Laravel:

• Laravel 6
  • laravel/ui version ^1.2
• Laravel 7
  • laravel/ui version ^2.4
• Laravel 8
  • laravel/ui version ^3.2.0

Alternatives or Workarounds

One could setup all their front end scaffolding for a particular laravel version but that defeats the purpose of this starter, also without changing the scaffolding install script there would be bugs.

Additional context

Backwards compatibility can help increase the popularity and flexibility of a piece of software.

• Valid minor versions of Laravel (use * notation for the patch number)
• https://laravelversions.com/ Dedicated to information regarding Major Laravel versions
• Laravel versioning Quirks explained
• • Laravel 5.5 does not support php 7.4

[apolopena]

Dropping support for laravel 5.*

Rationale:
Laravel 5.* is pretty much outdated now and every minor version was treated as a major version making it a nightmare for this starter support. Also Laravel 5.8 is now EoL

[apolopena]

Dropping support for specifying Laravel Minor and Patch versions in starter.ini since by design Laravel writes ^Major into composer.json so the latest/stable Minor and Patch version is always used.

Added strict validation for the only supported values for laravel version in starter ini

• 8.*
• 7.*
• 6.*