In the second of our 60 seconds of magic series, Ryan takes you through the Drag + Drop functionality in the Edditt file manager.

So you’ve decided to use Edditt. Great! This post will walk you through everything you need to know about webspace and database setup, and a few things you may not be aware of in Edditt itself. 

First things first; make sure that your database is setup, accessible, and configured to allow remote connections. It’s also important to ensure that the Edditt webservice will be able to write to the filesystem and create folders – if this isn’t done, you’ll not able to complete the set–up. More information on system requirements can be in the documentation. 

Edditt creates a number of tables in your database. These are life blood of Edditt and contain everything that the system needs to run. In addition, Edditt will create a cmsfiles folder in the root of your webspace where all files in the ‘local’ area of the file manager will be located. 

Now that you know what’s going to happen, you’re ready to add your site. Login to your Edditt instance, go to Account and then click Add a site. 

First up, you’ll be asked to enter a couple of URLs. The site URL is the address of the site you want to setup and the development URL is the temporary URL of the site while it’s being developed. If you’re not intending to use a development URL, you can leave it blank. Neither URL fields should contain http:// or trailing slashes. 

If you’re using a development URL set In development to yes. Edditt will then attempt to connect to the webservice on the Development URL rather than the Site URL. 

The next stage in the process is setting up the web service. Without this, Edditt can’t operate. 

In terms of the Path to the webservice, you’re free to use whatever path you want, e.g. edditt/ws.php. We also recommend downloading the webservice every time you add a site. There’s a couple of reasons behind this. The most important reason behind this is that we regularly update the service with bug fixes and system–level improvements. Secondly, we pre–fill the webservice with your subdomain and custom URL details. 

Auth–code is the password used to authenticate your site to Edditt. Again, you can use your own code, but to make it easier just click on the generate button which will add a random and long winded code to the auth–code field. Saves you having to think of one! 

You can change this later if you wish however, please make sure to update Edditt if you change the webservice–config in the future. 

The penultimate step in the process is setting up your database connection and if you have all your details to hand and your database is setup correctly, this should be pretty straight–forward! 

Database Server refers to the address your database is hosted at. You can use either a URL or IP address for this. Generally this will be the same as your domain name, however some hosts provide databases on separate servers. 

Insert the Name, Username and Password associated with your database and then choose your Database Type. At the moment, MySQL functionality is available. We are open to others and can add more when needed; so let us know!  

Table Prefix refers to the prefix we add to all the tables that Edditt creates to run. This can be customised to be whatever you want to be. We’d recommend that you get Edditt to setup these tables for you. However you may also decide that you don’t need to create these tables. Be careful! If you don’t set these up correctly, Edditt won’t work! 

So with that all done, everything should be in place to add your site to Edditt.  All that remains is for you to Deploy and your site will be added to Edditt. 

If Edditt has encountered a problem in the setup process, you’ll be told and you’re able to go back and review your settings before deploying again. 

So there we have it, you’ve added a site to Edditt. Here’s to many more!

In the first of our 60 seconds of magic series, Ryan shows you how easy it is to integrate Edditt with a 3rd party service.

At long last, Edditt is here! 

After months of long days filled with documentation–writing, coding and re–coding, improving and streamlining, we have got to the point where we stop talking and start listening. There were times when it felt like we would never get there, but now we’re so happy to be able to let you loose and see what you think.

We are immensely proud of this not–so–little system. We know that it frees you to develop in a way that no other system does, giving you all the tools and hooks you need to code the way you want to.

Over the coming days and weeks we’ll be blogging and tweeting about all the amazing things that Edditt has to offer: features galore, solid infrastructure, and a beautiful interface. But now is not the time for that. Now is the time for you to explore and enjoy. 

The revolution is here.
The revolution is now.

Join the liberation front.
Join Edditt. 

Edditt is packed with all the gear – or modules in Edditt speak – for facilitating different views and ways of interacting with your database; listing items in a table, adding and editing items, importing, exporting and much more besides. 

As if that’s not enough, each module itself has configurable options and features that you can turn on or off, giving you the ability to completely tailor it to the requirements of the site you are building. 

But what about that one specialist function that might not be in the box. Worry not; if you need functionality that the base module doesn’t, then look no further than Web Hooks.

Every module allows you specify a web hook – a page that receives key bits of information when an item is saved, added or updated. This gives you the ability to run any further processing on the data that you want – whether it be image resizing, PDF generation, text processing or goodness knows what else. And because Edditt only uses standard HTTP methods and JSON objects, you can write the web hook in whatever language you like. 

The crux of it is: Edditt likes to get out of the way and let you do the job you enjoy – developing sites. We’ve developed the system to give you everything you need and more to make any website content managed, without having to jump through hoops to do it. 

Right now, we are putting the finishing touches to the Edditt website, along with the documentation needed to support a system this flexible. That means we’ll be launching soon! To be amongst the first to know, follow us on Twitter or sign up for updates.