Today, we propose you to discover a CMS different from any other and aimed at integrators, meet Vapid!
Vapid, a CMS for integrators
Vapid is a very simple CMS that has the particularity of working backward: instead of creating new fields in the administration and then dynamizing the templates, the dashboard is built only around the fields you need.
This way, you can manage a complete administration to accurately manage any showcase site without having to leave your HTML and CSS files, the dream of any integrator.
In addition to this functionality, Vapid offers all the most modern features we can expect: liver loading (for active and HTML, but also for data entered into the database), the creation of miniaturized files for CSS and JS, the start of production in a straightforward operation.
Generate control panel from templates
Since this is the remarkable originality of Vapid, we will focus a little more on it.
The way it works in practice is effortless: imagine we are integrating a page of content, and we need a block of dynamic HTML content. Instead of going into the configuration of our theme, we insert the following lines into our HTML
<section> <p>{{intro type=html editor=markdown required=false}}</p></section>
From there, our control panel will manage by itself an “intro” field in the administration of our content page, with a rebate editor.
Finally, your client is not a Markdown fan and would you prefer a WYSIWYG editor? Change the HTML as follow:
<section> <p>{{intro type=html editor=wysiwyg required=false}}</p></section>
once on the board, a small message in the top right corner tells you that the files have changed and you need to regenerate the board, and a click later your board displays a WYSIWYG.
Installation and use
Installing Vapid and creating your first project is not particularly complicated, but a small error creating the command line tool can cause some problems.
First, let’s start with the base proposed by the documentation:
npm install -g vapid-clinew path/to/project/folder
Now that we are here don’t enter the line proposed by the console, and don’t follow the documentation, since this would result in a bad installation of some Javascript resources for your project (jQuery among others) which prevents the dashboard from working correctly (especially at the WYSIWYG level).
Do the following:
cd path/to/project/foldernpm installvapid start.
After the installation of about a minute and a few lines, your project begins, and you can find your site at http://localhost:3000/
The self-generated control panel is accessible at http://localhost:3000/dashboard.
Remember to visit the control panel once to create the administrator account!
To go further, create your types of tags and others, I will redirect you to the documentation.
Some minor criticisms
Despite its extreme simplicity, Vapid cannot be a static site generator natively, and I find it unfortunate. Because of this, we are forced to host it in support that allows us to run both js nodes and SQLite.
I hope this point can evolve over time and that the tool will ultimately propose a way to generate your HTML/CSS/JS files.
Conclusion
Vapid is undoubtedly the most exciting CMS project I have seen in a long time (since Grave in fact), and I see myself integrating it into our product range. Of course, the tool is in beta and lacks some small features that are important to me, but Vapid is also open source, and nothing prevents me from adding them myself.
To conclude, I advise all those who are not CLI-refractory to the last degree to try it, and others to wait for the release of a desktop version. I’m sure Vapid will be a tool we can trust in the future.
