Volt CMS questions :)

[flips]

Hi! I’m seriously considering getting the Volt CMS, it looks quite cool! (It’s a bit expensive for my current foreseeable use/plans, and lack of income , but it seems cool, and I could use it for my personal blogs.)

I do have a couple of questions, and I hope asking them here is better than using official support channel, as more people can answer. (I tried searching, hope I didn’t overlook some of the answers. Posting fresh topic in case derailing/necroing old topics is considered rude.)

From the product description, it says that Volt:

• Automatically downscale uploaded images

That sounds very nice!
Question: I assume I’ll have to fix aspect etc. before uploading, but I can effectively leave downscaling and compressing/optimization to the CMS/plugin?

As far as I could figure out, Volt has categories, but tags will/might appear in the future(?).

Backup and restore seems quite simple/easy.

How about performance? How well does this flat file CMS perform? (Let’s say I have 50-100 posts, 1-4 images per post. If I understood correctly, JS is utilized to serve. My typical setup not using blocs, would be Wordpress with Divi theme or similar and LSCache.)
Any idea how Volt would perform in comparison? Could/should I plan on utilizing some cache/CDN? (First project would probably be to replace a static page generated blog.)

Also wondering about versioning:
If I buy Volt CMS now, I but version 1.x? And then when version 2.x is released, I’d have to purchase an upgrade to get that? Any idea when v. 2 would be released/how often one should expect major version upgrades?

As for the upgrading procedure itself, I would have to replace the core bric, blog bric, recent posts bric and so on, in my Blocs project?

[Flashman]

@flips

• Automatically downscale uploaded images

That sounds very nice!
Question: I assume I’ll have to fix aspect etc. before uploading, but I can effectively leave downscaling and compressing/optimization to the CMS/plugin?

The aspect ratio of the original image is maintained as far as I can tell. You just set whatever you want as the longest side. In my case I set say 1000px for both height and width, allowing Volt to sort it out.

@flips

How about performance ? How well does this flat file CMS perform?

I have never actually used the blog part, but Volt is generally about as fast as any static website. Perhaps others can help more here but I cannot see why you would need a CDN unless you really want one. A flat file CMS is light and fast be design without the need of all those plugins and complication.

@flips

Also wondering about versioning:
If I buy Volt CMS now, I but version 1.x? And then when version 2.x is released, I’d have to purchase an upgrade to get that? Any idea when v. 2 would be released/how often one should expect major version upgrades?

I think @Jannis will have to answer that one. My guess is that major updates will be charged, but everything in between is free.

This was a one page website I threw up quickly as a practice demo for myself when Volt was first released and it has improved significantly since then.

https://liubliu.co.uk

[Jannis]

Hi @flips

@flips

Question: I assume I’ll have to fix aspect etc. before uploading, but I can effectively leave downscaling and compressing/optimization to the CMS/plugin?

Correct.

@flips

but tags will/might appear in the future(?).

Tags will appear in v2.

@flips

How about performance ? How well does this flat file CMS perform? (Let’s say I have 50-100 posts, 1-4 images per post. If I understood correctly, JS is utilized to serve.

Depends on the server. 50-100 posts should be served instantly.
The blog is served server side via PHP. Other content areas are still served via JavaScript.

@flips

Could/should I plan on utilizing some cache/CDN?

I don’t think so.

@flips

Any idea when v. 2 would be released/how often one should expect major version upgrades?

Minor 1.x upgrades are free. Mayor x. upgrades aren’t. Please understand I am not able to tell you when 2.x will be released.

@flips

As for the upgrading procedure itself, I would have to replace the core bric, blog bric, recent posts bric and so on, in my Blocs project?

Upgrade from where?

Cheers!

[flips]

@Jannis

Minor 1.x upgrades are free. Mayor x. upgrades aren’t. Please understand I am not able to tell you when 2.x will be released.

I understand that. And I love the fact that it’s not a subscription (most subs are too expensive for stuff that I don’t make any money using). I guess I’m only trying to figure out if you plan on releasing new major versions often, or if current version would last a bit … (I also understand it might be hard to answer.)

@Jannis

@flips

As for the upgrading procedure itself, I would have to replace the core bric, blog bric, recent posts bric and so on, in my Blocs project?

Upgrade from where?

I mean, when there is a new version of Volt CMS released, and I want to update my published website, I’d have to open my project in Blocs, update the Volt CMS brics/blocs somehow, then remove the brics and re-add them inside the project?
Or is there an easier way?

(Hope my English is understandable, not being a native English speaker.)

[Jannis]

@flips

I guess I’m only trying to figure out if you plan on releasing new major versions often

No, I am not planning so. I released Volt CMS in December 2019:

Volt CMS - Blocs 5 Support

Dear community, as some of you already know, I am developing a CMS for Blocs App - Volt CMS. It’s dedicated especially for Blocs App and targeting the market of a simple to use and inline editing CMS system. It comes without the bells and whistles of Wordpress for example. You are currently not able to create a blog with it. Depending on user feedback, this might come later. It contains just basic text content and styling, image uploads, and photo galleries. There is a clear separation betwe…

@flips

I mean, when there is a new version of Volt CMS released, and I want to update my published website

Just update the Brics via the Blocs extension manager, and you should be fine.

[Brocky120]

Hi @Jannis,

Any idea how you change the colour of the Blog Post titles, I have used: volt-blog-item-title (list and detail), but they only work when you click on the actual blog post.

Any idea how to change the colour when it’s in the column view, image attached below:

[Jannis]

volt-blog-item-title-link

See “styling” here:

Blog Setup

[Brocky120]

Thanks @Jannis, I have tried to add a gallery to the Blog and whilst it has been successful, I can’t get carousel etc to work, it just puts them into small squares 4 columns long, I’m obviously doing something wrong but can’t figure out what!

I have added the Volt Blog Gallery in Blocs.

This is what shows when I edit the blog:

This is how it looks like:

[Jannis]

Save the post and log out again.

[Brocky120]

Legend! Thanks @Jannis much appreciated.

[flips]

How much control of the URL’s will I have in Volt?
If I’m migrating my old blog, keeping search engine history/continuity would be nice.
If recreating the exact same hierarchy/naming turns out to be hard, I guess I’d need some redirects. I guess that would be regular .htaccess entries …

(Would have to do some redirecting no matter what, as I have some tags/taxonomy pages linked as menu entries.)

[Jannis]

@flips

How much control of the URL’s will I have in Volt?

Not much. See above link for a htaccess example.

[flips]

Since I set text color to white in project settings for Object All, which class should I add modify to make the blog post editor get black text?
(It’s now white on white.)

I guess I could figure it out by digging, but also that @Jannis would know how to best/easiest target this. Maybe add a CSS filter somehow?

[Jerry]

@flips

I guess I could figure it out by digging,

That would not be a bad idea but I assume you got a coconut tree and fancy cocktails with little umbrellas in your garden like me. It makes you lazy.
Technically the editor is a form which you can style by editing the .form-control class

[flips]

I did some digging …
Looks like .volt-blog-modal is the post editor background, so I can just change that to dark. .form-control seems to be the fields inside …

My plan was to use the classes documented in the nice Blog Setup guide, but it seems those are for presenting the blog.

[Jannis]

@flips

My plan was to use the classes documented in the nice Blog Setup guide, but it seems those are for presenting the blog.

Correct, these are for presenting the blog.

@flips

Looks like .volt-blog-modal is the post editor background, so I can just change that to dark. .form-control seems to be the fields inside …

You’re also able to change the background color of the modal blog editor directly.

[flips]

@Jannis

You’re also able to change the background color of the modal blog editor directly.

Oh … … … That was too easy and obvious.

A different thing: As I understood it, it’s a bug in Bloc that makes issue with local export/MAMP. I set the export directory of my Project to the dir specified as site dir in MAMP.
Every time I do a quick export (⌘+E), I loose everything in the _cms subfolders, so all content is gone.
… But I guess, as long as I only do copying when I upload to my webhost (and don’t try fancy two-way sync or anything), I should be safe, right?

[flips]

Question about deploying and homepage URL:
What role does the defined URL in Project settings play?

While developing, I’d use https://some_subdomain.myotherdomain.tld/,
then when it’s ready, it’d deploy it to https://mydomain.tld/.

Should I set it to the first URL first, while developing, then change it later, when deploying?
(I guess that would be for previewing etc in while working Blocs?)

Or should I set it directly to https://mydomain.tld/ at once?
(Is anything of the defined URL recorded in content stored in the _cms folder?)

[Jannis]

@flips

Should I set it to the first URL first, while developing, then change it later, when deploying?
(I guess that would be for previewing etc in while working Blocs?)

This.

@flips

As I understood it, it’s a bug in Bloc that makes issue with local export/MAMP. I set the export directory of my Project to the dir specified as site dir in MAMP.

Let’s say inconvenience

I would export to a dedicated export folder, and from there on copy to the MAMP folder.

[flips]

Can I use the Volt Blog Editor Gallery for all kinds of posts, or will that only work for making galleries?