Custom Pages and Files
Maybe you want to show more than just the feed of your website. Maybe you want other pages you control, with your own styling and functionality. This is where custom pages comes in! You may access this page from the main page, and then clicking on "Manage Custom Pages and Files."
All pages you make and files you upload here will be completely public! Just like all the other pages. Anyways, type in the name of the page you want to make in the dark textbox. You can add file paths to make pages nested in the static folder; just remember to end the file with the extension .html. Here's an example you can copy and paste in: nested/hello.html.
If you've done it correctly, it will show a new element at the bottom of the page, the "nested" directory that got created. Click on "Expand directory" to see your HTML file! If you then click on "Edit page" it will open up two more views at the top. The left textbox view is your HTML file where you can populate it with whatever you want. The right side shows how it will render on your webpage as you edit the file on the left. It will come with some template HTML code you can jump start with.
Not only can you create HTML files, but you can also create JS, CSS and TXT files! Just use the appropriate extensions in your file names in the text box and it will be created for you. Note that only created HTML files get the starting HTML text to work with. All other file types will start empty.
If you want to add more files with types other than HTML, JS, CSS, and TXT, you will have to use the upload file button and have a file ready to go on your computer. Any file is uploadable this way, just not editable in the browser. Using "Upload file to static folder" will upload your file to the static folder directly. Notice that any nested directory displayed here can also have a file uploading to it. This way not every file needs to be uploaded into the top level of the static folder.
Also notice that all the files have hyperlinks, and you can click on them to see what paths all the files resolve to!
Be careful about deleting directories, because when you delete a directory, everything inside it also gets deleted!
Okay, I guess I should talk about the scary looking red text with the checkbox next to it. As you may have guessed by now, the static folder already has a lot of important files in it to allow you to, well, see all these webpages and use the server API. Yes, this folder even includes the very page you are viewing this page on!
All of these files are automatically marked by the server as important to the project's functionality. If you accidentally delete one of these files, you may wipe out an image a web page uses, or the styling of everything, or even worse, a page that lets you use the project at all! Even if you export your data out before messing with all the files, if you delete the admin.html file for example, you just lost the ability to import your data back and undo your mistake! So yes, do not mess with these files unless you really know what you're doing.
The reason you are allowed to edit them anyway is because personalizing your website is one of the most important aspects of your blog. If you're an HTML guru you can change how the average user sees your site on the index.html page, you can change all the colors, positioning, and even add completely new pages that use the server API in different ways (only you can really use the API, because any visitor will not be authenticated). You could import your favorite JS libraries and use them, extend the Vue components, swap out Vue with something else, or some other crazy thing I haven't thought of.
There are only a few restrictions, and that is you are not allowed to edit the following folders:
- archive: Feed files are generated here that match the content of all your posts. Manual edits and deletions are pointless.
- posts: All of your posts are in here and you can already edit and manage them through other means.
- tmp: The server puts files here sometimes for operations, such as when you are making a post but it is not ready to be published yet.