Discussion Forum

YorkC

Member

Registered: November 19, 2019

Posts: 1

How to install web app into existing BigTree site for K-12 school?

Apologies.  I am new to this world.  I am the sole IT admin at a high school and we have a website using BigTree CMS.  The only thing I have done with it is to slightly alter text on web pages.

Some students have developed a web app we wanted to host on our website and until recently I thought BigTree did not support uploading files, or even using scripts or anything because all I can see is an overly simplified web-based wysiwyg type editor.  Where can I create new pages or simply upload a page that is already written in html?  Are there some kind of documents that might help me learn more about how this is set up?

I saw places mentioning "installing" BigTree.  Does this mean it can hosted locally?  Or is there a more robust editor where I can access the SQL database and use a cpanel style interface?

More importantly... if I were to "install" a local instance of BigTree, could content be uploaded to our website, which is currently cloud-hosted through BigTree (I cannot even sign in through BigTree, only by going to our_domain.org/admin can I access a sign in page to make edits or changes.

Under "Modules" all I see is options for:
- Content: Faculty, Events, Social Feed, and Alerts
- Blog: Posts, Authors, Categories
- Forms: Form Builder

Hopefully this information sticks out to someone and they can say something like, "Oh you must have a template already created and that is all you are able to access," or "There is an educational plan that has extremely limited features."  I feel comfortable around command lines and writing code, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to do a single thing through the BigTree web editor besides make minor changes to pictures and texts.  Please help!

timbuckingham

Administrator

From: Baltimore, MD

Registered: April 2, 2012

Posts: 978

Re: How to install web app into existing BigTree site for K-12 school?

Where can I create new pages or simply upload a page that is already written in html?

The /site/ folder is the web root of a BigTree project. If you want to insert HTML files that are outside the CMS, you can place them inside of that directory and they will not be routed through BigTree.

Are there some kind of documents that might help me learn more about how this is set up?

Developer documentation can be found here: https://www.bigtreecms.org/developers/d … tallation/

I saw places mentioning "installing" BigTree.  Does this mean it can hosted locally?  Or is there a more robust editor where I can access the SQL database and use a cpanel style interface?

You can (and should) run a local development environment for making updates to BigTree but it isn't a "push" CMS where you have a local install that then updates the remote site — each environment is separate. BigTree 4.4 allows for git based workflows to pass configuration changes (e.g. Templates, Modules, Callouts, etc) via a git deployment which is what I'd recommend. How you can access the MySQL database and cPanel depends entirely on your hosting platform and not BigTree.

Under "Modules" all I see is options for:
- Content: Faculty, Events, Social Feed, and Alerts
- Blog: Posts, Authors, Categories
- Forms: Form Builder

Hopefully this information sticks out to someone and they can say something like, "Oh you must have a template already created and that is all you are able to access," or "There is an educational plan that has extremely limited features."  I feel comfortable around command lines and writing code, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to do a single thing through the BigTree web editor besides make minor changes to pictures and texts.  Please help!

If you do not see the Developer tab (which is what you'd use to create new templates, modules, etc) then your user level is not high enough. You can adjust that in the bigtree_users table in the database (level 2 is a developer, level 1 is administrator, level 0 is normal user). Modules are usually custom to your implementation of BigTree (though it does look like you have some that are provided by Extensions such as Form Builder and Social Feed). There are no "plans" for BigTree as it's an open source platform and there is no official cloud hosted solution. It sounds like you need access to your host's MySQL and SFTP information which according to the footer of your website is likely https://www.fxdesigns.net/ — they'd also have more information about how they built the website.