Saturday, November 19, 2011
Flatpress for Dummies
This article shows you how you can start your own blog in a matter of minutes using FlatPress.
Basic guide to getting started
What is FlatPress?
FlatPress is a great piece of software and I use it a lot to rapidly develop websites, just like this blog. Basically FlatPress is a content management system (you can either create and edit pages using the built-in web interface, or by using other methods) which doesn’t need a database so you can install it on most web servers which have PHP installed which covers the vast majority of web servers out there in internetland and some of them are completely free to use (as is FlatPress) so getting your own “home” on the web has never been easier.
How does it work
The name “FlatPress” is derived from the fact that it uses “flat files” (i.e. ordinary text files) in order to operate, in contrast to WordPress (one of the most popular blogging platforms in use today) which is powered by a database. Nothing wrong in either case - but flat files are easier for the layman to comprehend so it’s little wonder that a regular flow of new users are popping up on the FlatPress support forum.
Hard statistics for the number of people using FlatPress are difficult to measure but the phrase “powered by FlatPress” currently returns over 430,000 results in a Google search, which sounds like a healthy number to me. However FlatPress can probably never hope to emulate the popularity of WordPress (about 1,740,000,000 results!) but don’t let the relatively small number of users put you off deter you from trying it out.
Basic guide to getting started
Getting your own blog up and running is a simple 3-step process:
- Download the latest version of FlatPress
- Find somewhere to upload it
- Go to your new blog and have fun!
Get your own web space
You don’t need to worry about getting your own domain name, getting confused by all the different web hosting packages available (unless you want to?). All you need is a web hosting company which offers you free web space with PHP installed on it. Like this one (there are others but I’m trying to make this easy for you):
Please note that I have no affiliation with this company - I just got tired of another free host I’d been using (they had reliability issues) and decided to try someone new. This was the first company I found and they seem ok, so far.
Simply click on the sign up and follow the instructions. You’ll need to choose a name for your new address on the web - that’s about the hardest part of it.
Once you’ve signed up you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to upload your FlatPress files - you can either do this using an FTP program or, if you don’t know what one of those are, you can simply use the web-based file manager on your new website.
Now, the single FlatPress file you’ll have stored on your computer is a compressed file, like a filing cabinet with lots of smaller files inside it. If you know how you can just upload this to the server first and then extract all the files there, or you can extract the files on your own machine first and then upload them - this is much easier if you use an FTP program, otherwise just stick with the first method (which is actually much quicker - I just prefer to do it the long way for reasons known only to myself).
Installing FlatPress
Installing FlatPress is dead easy - once you’ve uploaded the FlatPress files you just need to got to your new web address and follow the instructions.
There IS one folder which you’ll need to make “writable” (so the whole thing works). The FlatPress setup procedure will prompt you to do this, if you haven’t already done so, here’s how to do it:
If you use an FTP program you can just right-click on the “fp-content” folder and choose properties then either check all the boxes or enter “777” if such a field for this type of input is shown instead.
If you use the web interface then there’s a file manager in the control panel where you can make this change - simply check the box to the left of the folder you want to change the permissions on then clock the “Chmod” button on the right hand side of the toolbar at the top.
The rest of the setup process is extremely easy - simply answer a couple of questions and you’re done. Once you’ve done this a few times you can flash through this in a matter of seconds - it’s that quick!
Administration basics
Once you’ve completed the setup you’ll want to give your blog a name and maybe change the theme. Start by logging then go to the FlatPress control panel.
First of all click on the “Options” button (second from the right on the Administration Area toolbar) and choose a name and a subtitle for your blog. This will change the main heading & sub-heading on your website. Remember to save your changes when you’re done.
If you want to change the theme then click on “Themes” on the toolbar. There is one theme included with the default installation, but this has two styles to choose from. You can download additional themes from the FlatPress Wiki.
As the popularity of FlatPress has grown, so too has the number of themes but there is still room for a great deal of improvement in the number of themes available. To install a new theme simply download it from the Wiki and then upload it to the fp-interface/themes folder on your website.
Any themes which you’ve installed in that folder should appear in the admin area Themes Panel, and you can just click on one to change it right there and then. Some themes (like the default theme) may have different styles so you need to click on “Styles” in the Themes Panel in order to view and choose which one you want.
And that’s about it! This was a very rough guide to getting up and running with FlatPress. The program itself is quite intuitive and fun to learn how to use. You can either create static pages (like an “About” page) which you can either show as the main page or have this displayed in the side bar - in fact ANY “static” page can be made to display in the side bar, as I’ve done with my begging bowl, or you can create regular blog posts (called “Entries” in the admin panel - you can think of these as your news bulletins).
After installation you’ll see an example “blog post” which teaches you the basics of how to write and maintain you content.
If you get stuck then the FlatPress forum is a great place to visit - no question is a stupid question so, if you don’t know, please ask and you’ll find lots of people coming to your rescue.
