Choose what you build

A FloCMS project can be a website, an admin panel, an API, or a mix. You choose once, when the project is created, and FloCMS installs only the packages that choice needs. There is no mode setting to keep in sync: what is installed is what the project does.

The five setups#

At the end of composer create-project, FloCMS asks:

  What are you building?
    [1] Website + admin panel
    [2] Website only
    [3] Admin panel only
    [4] API + admin panel
    [5] API only

Every setup keeps the skeleton's sign-in: the login page, the users table, roles and permissions, the php flo user:* commands and the small /admin page. The admin panel and the API both use it.

What setup does#

FloCMS shows every step before it runs it and asks "Go ahead?". For API + admin panel:

  API + admin panel:
    composer require hostkurd/flocms-admin:^0.39.3 hostkurd/flocms-api:^1.3
    php flo admin:install
    php flo api:install
    remove views/pages/index.html, templates/dark/layouts/default.html, public/themes/dark/css/style.css
    config/config.php: home = admin
    config/admin.php: site_link = false

• Packages are added with composer require, then each package's own installer runs: php flo admin:install and php flo api:install.
• The example pages (the welcome page and the dark example template) are removed for the admin-only and API setups, and only while they are still the skeleton's own files. A file you changed is kept, and setup names it.
• Two settings are written, both plain lines you can change later: home in config/config.php and, with the admin panel, site_link in config/admin.php.

Going back to a website, for example from admin panel only to website + admin panel, writes a simple views/pages/index.html when an earlier setup removed the welcome page.

If a command fails, setup stops and says so. Fix the problem and run php flo setup again: the installers only add what is missing.

Running setup yourself#

php flo setup                          # ask
php flo setup --as=admin               # site-admin, site, admin, api-admin or api
php flo setup --as=api-admin --dry-run # print the plan, change nothing

Without a terminal, for example composer create-project -n, a CI job or a host's one-click installer, setup changes nothing, so the project is website only. Run php flo setup later, or pass --as in your script.

commands/SetupCommand.php is part of your project. You can delete it once the project is set up.

The home page setting#

config/config.php decides what / does:

Config::set('home', 'site');   // 'site', 'admin' or 'api'

• site: the website. When flocms-admin's Pages has a home page, that page is shown.
• admin: a redirect to /admin, which shows the login page to visitors who aren't signed in.
• api: a short JSON welcome, {"name": "My site", "api": "https://example.com/api/v1"}.

Any other value means site, so a typo never hides your website.

The admin panel's website link#

config/admin.php decides where the panel's View site link goes:

'site_link' => true,                    // the site's address (the default)
'site_link' => false,                   // no link: the panel is the whole project
'site_link' => 'https://example.com',   // a website on another address

php flo admin:doctor warns when Pages are on while site_link is false, since Pages are website pages.

Add the admin panel later#

php flo setup --as=site-admin

or by hand:

composer require hostkurd/flocms-admin
php flo admin:install
php flo migrate

Add an API later#

composer require hostkurd/flocms-api
php flo api:install
php flo migrate

php flo api:install writes public/api.php, api/routes.php, two example controllers and a resource. It never changes a file that already exists, so it is safe to run again; --minimal writes only public/api.php and a routes file with the health check. The skeleton's public/.htaccess already sends /api/v1 to public/api.php, and its composer.json already loads App\Api\ from api/. See building an API.