NetlifyCMS: a quick way to setup a static blog with a web admin interface

I need to quickly set up a blog to help share some neighbourly information.

NetlifyCMS is my friend.

• Go to https://www.netlifycms.org/

• Click “Get Started”

• Choose to start with a Hugo Site Starter (since that’s what I’m familiar with); also available are Gatsby, Middleman and Preact.

• Click “Deploy to Netlify” (where I already have an account)

• Provide access to my Gitlab account

• A few minutes later, I have a deployed barebones site, with the content stored under version control in Gitlab.

• In Netlify, setup the custom domain I already own. Turn off proxying at CloudFlare so I can get the automatic HTTPS certificate that Netlify provides.

• In Gitlab, move the newly created repo to my group of netlify sites

• On local machine:

  • clone the Gitlab repo
  • create themes directory; cd themes; git clone ; git add .
  • move Netlify starter site into tmp place (don’t delete, you’ll need the admin directory from it)
  • copy my theme’s exampleSite in its place
  • copy the site/static/admin directory from the original
  • git push

• Create static/admin/index.html

  • Follow https://www.netlifycms.org/docs/add-to-your-site/
  • Create the basic index file, (“App File Structure”)
  • Then add the Identity script (“Add the Netlify Identity Widget”)

• Start adding posts…

Troubleshooting

• If you try to log in to /admin, and keep being redirected back to the login page, you haven’t set up the admin/index.html with identity correctly.