When installing Laravel, I used to type tedious commands with composer every time, but using the installer was much easier (better late than never).

Preparation

• composer
• MacOS

Install the Installer Globally

composer global require "laravel/installer"

Set the Path

If you're on MacOS, this should work. (I don't know about Windows...)

export PATH="~/.composer/vendor/bin:$PATH"

Create a New Project

laravel new PROJECTNAME

The latest version of Laravel will be installed in the current directory.

As mentioned in the documentation, it runs faster than using composer.

Thoughts

Fast and easy.

Additional Notes

Add export PATH="~/.composer/vendor/bin:$PATH" to the .bash_profile in your MacOS home directory. If .bash_profile doesn't exist, create it. If you want to know the difference from .bashrc, Google it.