Website with CMS (template)

A template project for a static website with an admin page for content management. Frontend only, no own server required, but requires the project to live in GitHub and deploying in Netlify. Netlify Identity is used for admin user authentication and storing github access tokens for the admin users.

The site is built with Hugo and the admin management UI with Svelte. Uses icons from System UIcons.

Admin UI demo

Usage

1. Create your own repository with this project as a template by clicking Use this template button in the top part of this page.
2. Get the content of the repository you just created to your own machine with git clone git@github.com:<your-repo>.git.
3. Set suitable values in package.json for name, version, license, description and so on. To automatically update the values also in package-lock.json, run npm install. Remember to commit your changes.
4. Create a separate branch for production (e.g. "production") to better control what gets published for everyone to see. Make sure the local branch is set to track the origin. Also, make sure the branch names in the release script scripts/release match yours.
5. Create a GitHub personal access token to be able to edit the repository content via this project's admin page. Give it permission to access and edit repositories (permission "repo"). Store the value securely for later use.
6. Set up the project in Netlify
   1. Sign in or sign up to the Netlify management.
   2. Select New site from Git and follow the instructions to set up, selecting your production branch (e.g. production) as the branch to deploy, setting npm run build as the build command and build as the publish directory.
   3. Configure your domain. Or if you are not using a custom domain, you can change the name of the netlify app to produce a nicer url in Settings -> General -> Site details -> Site information -> Site name and take note of the domain displayed at the top of the page.
   4. Set environment variables in Site settings -> Build & Deploy -> Environment similarly to those in .env.sample but with production values. Note that the GITHUB_PROD_BRANCH needs to be the branch you set as deploy branch in Netlify in the previous step and the DOMAIN_NAME match the domain displayed in Netlify.
   5. Enable Identity under the Identity.
   6. Set Identity user registration to invite-only via Settings and usage -> Identity -> Registration preferences.
   7. To include correct urls in the login-related emails, use the email templates provided in this repository. Set custom email templates in Netlify Settings -> Identity -> Emails. Enter the paths to the email templates (and subjects of your choice):
      • Invitation: /admin/email-templates/invitation.html
      • Confirmation: /admin/email-templates/confirmation.html
      • Password recovery: /admin/email-templates/password-recovery.html
      • Email-change: /admin/email-templates/email-change.html
7. To take into use the environment variables set for the Netlify app, do a first release of your project by running the script ./scripts/release on your computer in a bash terminal. The script will prompt needed values. Wait for the deploy to finish: you can track the deploy in the Deploys tab in Netlify.
8. Send an invitation to yourself from the Netlify Identity tab to be able to create an admin account.
9. Sign up as an admin by finding the invitation in your email and clicking the link provided. After signing up, go to Account in your admin page and input the personal access token generated earlier. Then, reload the page to make new requests with the token set (you will need to sign in again, but there you can set the browser to remember you).
10. Now you can start adding content via the admin UI. Note that it does not (yet) support adding sections to your page: you will need to add new sections in local development as they also require setting up correct files in your hugo theme.
11. For local development, create development branches for "master" and "production", e.g. dev-content, dev-live and set up environment variables: make a copy of .env.sample as .env and set the variables to match your project's development values.
12. Develop your project further using the development instructions below. E.g.
    • Create sections and other content layouts for your site following hugo documentation, e.g. set up your own theme in site/themes/<my-theme> (if you use a theme with a different name or change the name, remember to change the name in environment variables too)
    • Set your own color scheme and fonts for admin-side by editing css variable values in src/ui/App.svelte under :root
    • Customize the admin emails in src/email-templates
    • Edit your README to match your project

Development

Local development instructions are for macOS and expect you to have homebrew and NodeJS.

If you don't have Hugo installed yet, install it with brew install hugo.

Install dependencies:

npm install

To run a local development server:

npm start

This runs a hugo development server serving files from build and sets up live reload for both hugo and svelte. The admin panel built from src folder and can be found at /admin/.

To release, i.e. update version, tag and push to production branch (no local build required):

./scripts/release

Additional commands

You can add new content files with (it will prompt the needed info):

npm run add-content

To test the production build locally:

npm run build

Notes

There are some issues with live reloading the svelte-side. It doesn't always load the content without manually refreshing the page.