A CMS for static site generators. Give non-technical users a simple way to edit and add content to any site built with a static site generator.
Netlify CMS is released under the MIT License. Please make sure you understand its implications and guarantees.
Netlify CMS is a single-page app that you pull into the /admin part of your site.
It presents a clean UI for editing content stored in a Git repository.
You setup a YAML config to describe the content model of your site, and typically tweak the main layout of the CMS a bit to fit your own site.
When a user navigates to /admin she'll be prompted to login, and once authenticated
she'll be able to create new content or edit existing content.
Netlify CMS is a React app. To install it in your site, add an /admin folder in
your public directory and use this index.html as a template:
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
<title>Content Manager</title>
<!-- Include the stylesheets from your site here -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://unpkg.com/netlify-cms@^0.1/dist/cms.css" />
<!-- Include a CMS specific stylesheet here -->
</head>
<body>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/netlify-cms@^0.1/dist/cms.js"></script>
</body>
</html>Note: Unpkg is a CDN for javascript modules, and it let's you point to semantic versions of files using prefix characters (so backwards-compatible bug fixes will loaded as soon as they're made available).
Add a config.yml file to the /admin folder and configure your content model:
backend:
name: github
repo: owner/repo # Path to your Github repository
branch: master # Branch to update (master by default)
media_folder: "img/uploads" # Folder where user uploaded files should go
collections: # A list of collections the CMS should be able to edit
- name: "post" # Used in routes, ie.: /admin/collections/:slug/edit
label: "Post" # Used in the UI, ie.: "New Post"
folder: "_posts" # The path to the folder where the documents are stored
create: true # Allow users to create new documents in this collection
fields: # The fields each document in this collection have
- {label: "Title", name: "title", widget: "string", tagname: "h1"}
- {label: "Body", name: "body", widget: "markdown"}
- {label: "Foo", name: "foo", widget: "foo"}
- {label: "Publish Date", name: "date", widget: "datetime"}
- name: "settings"
label: "Settings"
files:
- name: "general"
label: "General settings"
file: "_settings/general.json"
fields:
- {label: "Main site title", name: "site_title", widget: "string"}
- {label: "Number of fronpage posts", name: "post_count", widget: "number"}
- {label: "Site cover image", name: "cover", widget: "image"}Netlify CMS works with the concept of collections of documents that a user can edit.
Collections basically comes in three forms:
- A
folder. Set thefolderattribute on the collection. Each document will be a file in this folder. Each document will have the same format, fields and meta fields. - A list of
files. Set thefilesattribute on the collection. You can set fields that all files in the folder shares directly on the collection, and set specific fields for each file. This is great when you have files with a different structure. - A
file. Warning, not implemented yet. This is a collection stored in a single file. Typically a YAML file or a CSV with an array of items.
Each collection has a list of fields (or files with their individual fields). Each field has a label, a name and a widget.
Setting up the right collections is the main part of integrating netlify CMS with your site. It's where you decide exactly what content editors can work with, and what widgets should be used to edit each field of your various files or content types.
The default Github-based authenticator integrates with Netlify's Authentication Provider feature and the repository backend integrates directly with Github's API.
To get everything hooked up, setup continuous deployment from Github to Netlify and then follow the documentation to setup Github as an authentication provider.
That's it, now you should be able to go to the /admin section of your site and
log in.
Most static file generators, except from Jekyll, don't keep the files that'll be copied into the build folder when generating in their root folder.
This can create a problem for image and file paths when uploaded through the CMS.
Use the public_folder setting in config.yml to tell the CMS where the public
folder is located in the sources. A typical Middleman setup would look like this:
media_folder: "source/uploads" # Media files will be stored in the repo under source/uploads
public_folder: "source" # CMS now knows 'source' is the public folder and will strip this from the pathActual content editing happens with a side by side view where each widget has
a control for editing and a preview to give the content editor an idea of how the
content will look in the context of the published site.
Currently these widgets are built-in:
- string A basic string input
- text A text area input
- markdown A markdown editor (both visual and raw mode)
- datetime A date and time input
- image An uploaded image
- number An integer input
- object A compound object, must have an inner
fieldsattribute with more fields - list A list of items. Can have an inner
fieldsattribute if each element is an object - hidden Hidden element - typically only useful with a
defaultattribute
The Netlify CMS exposes an window.CMS global object that you can use to register custom widgets, previews and editor plugins. The available methods are:
- registerPreviewStyle Register a custom stylesheet to use on the preview pane.
- registerPreviewTemplate Registers a template for a collection.
- registerWidget lets you register a custom widget.
- registerEditorComponent lets you add a block component to the Markdown editor
Writing React Components inline
Both registerPreviewTemplate and registerWidget requires you to provide a React component. If you have a build process in place for your project, it is possible to integrate webpack and Babel for a complete React build flow.
Although possible, it may be cumbersome or even impractical to add a React build phase. For this reason, Netlify CMS exposes two React constructs globally to allow you to create components inline: ‘createClass’ and ‘h’ (alias for React.createElement).
Register a custom stylesheet to use on the preview pane.
CMS.registerPreviewStyle(file);
Params:
- file: css file path.
Example:
CMS.registerPreviewStyle("/example.css");
Registers a template for a collection.
CMS.registerPreviewTemplate(collection, react_component);
Params:
- collection: The name of the collection which this preview component will be used for.
- react_component: A React component that renders the collection data. Three props will be passed to your component during render:
- entry: Immutable collection containing the entry data.
- widgetFor: Returns the appropriate widget preview component for a given field.
- getMedia: Returns the correct filePath or in-memory preview for uploaded images.
Example:
<script>
var PostPreview = createClass({
render: function() {
var entry = this.props.entry;
var image = entry.getIn(['data', 'image']);
var bg = this.props.getMedia(image);
return h('div', {},
h('h1', {}, entry.getIn(['data', 'title'])),
h('img', {src: bg.toString()}),
h('div', {"className": "text"}, this.props.widgetFor('body'))
);
}
});
CMS.registerPreviewTemplate("posts", PostPreview);
</script>lets you register a custom widget.
CMS.registerWidget(field, control, [preview])
Params:
- field: The field type which this widget will be used for.
- control: A React component that renders the editing interface for this field. Two props will be passed:
- value: The current value for this field.
- onChange: Callback function to update the field value.
- preview (optional): A React component that renders the preview of how the content will look. A
valueprop will be passed to this component.
Example:
<script>
var CategoriesControl = createClass({
handleChange: function(e) {
this.props.onChange(e.target.value.split(',').map((e) => e.trim()));
},
render: function() {
var value = this.props.value;
return h('input', { type: 'text', value: value ? value.join(', ') : '', onChange: this.handleChange });
}
});
CMS.registerWidget('categories', CategoriesControl);
</script>lets your register a block level component for the Markdown editor
CMS.registerEditorComponent(definition)
Params
- definition: The component definition, must specify: id, label, fields, patterns, fromBlock, toBlock, toPreview
Example:
CMS.registerEditorComponent({
// Internal id of the component
id: "youtube",
// Visible label
label: "Youtube",
// Fields the user need to fill out when adding an instance of the component
fields: [{name: 'id', label: 'Youtube Video ID', widget: 'string'}],
// Pattern to identify a block as being an instance of this component
pattern: /^{{<\s?youtube (\S+)\s?>}}/,
// Function to extract data elements from the regexp match
fromBlock: function(match) {
return {
id: match[1]
};
},
// Function to create a text block from an instance of this component
toBlock: function(obj) {
return '{{< youtube ' + obj.id + ' >}}';
},
// Preview output for this component. Can either be a string or a React component
// (Component gives better render performance)
toPreview: function(obj) {
return (
'<img src="http://img.youtube.com/vi/' + obj.id + '/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="Youtube Video"/>'
);
}
});