Getting started

Installation

PageTree installs from the October CMS back-office, with no command line. This page covers the requirements, the installation and the initial configuration.

Requirements

Optional:

• RainLab.Translate: translated pages and slugs;
• October CMS multisite: hreflang tags rendered by the pageTreeSeo component.

License and October CMS project

PageTree is a paid plugin. Like every marketplace plugin, it is installed through a project of your octobercms.com account:

• a project groups the licenses of a website: the October CMS license and those of the plugins and themes you added to it;
• each project has a license key (XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX), shown on the project page, which binds your website to that project;
• a purchased plugin belongs to the project chosen at checkout: using it on another website (another project) requires another license.

Install from the back-office

Everything happens in your browser. Sign in to the back-office with an account allowed to perform updates, such as the superuser created when October CMS was installed.

1. Buy PageTree. On octobercms.com, open the PageTree listing and purchase the plugin for the project of your website.
2. Open the updates screen. In the back-office, go to Settings, System category, then Software Updates.
3. Attach the website to the project, if it is not attached yet:
   • click Register Software;
   • paste the project license key into the License Key field;
   • click Attach to Project.
   If the screen already shows a Project panel with the owner's name, the website is attached: go to the next step.
4. Install the project plugins. Click Install Packages, then Sync Project. October CMS downloads the project plugins and themes missing from the website, PageTree included, then updates the database. You can also click Install on the PageTree row, in the Project tab.
5. Open PageTree. When the installation is over, the page reloads and Block Pages appears in the back-office navigation.

If the installation fails from the back-office (for example on hosting that limits PHP memory or file writes), use the command line below or see Troubleshooting.

For developers: the command line

The same steps, from the website root:

1. Attach the website to the project with its license key. Skip this if the key was entered when October CMS was installed.

   php artisan project:set XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

2. Install the project plugins and themes, PageTree included. The command also runs the migrations.

   php artisan project:sync

3. To run the migrations on their own:

   php artisan october:migrate

The plugin is downloaded from the October CMS gateway by Composer, as the lucaspalomba/pagetree-plugin package, and installed in plugins/lucaspalomba/pagetree. It is not distributed outside the marketplace.

Deploying to several servers

The installation adds PageTree to the composer.json file of the website. The auth.json file, at the root, holds the project credentials that let Composer download paid plugins.

• Commit composer.json and composer.lock, but keep auth.json out of any public repository: copy it to each server, or create it again with php artisan project:set.
• On a server, install then migrate:

  composer install
  php artisan october:migrate

• An Invalid credentials (HTTP 403) error means that auth.json is missing or that the project license is no longer active. See Troubleshooting.

Grant permissions

Superusers have access to everything. To allow another role to use PageTree:

1. Go to Settings → Administrators, then open the role or the administrator.
2. In the permissions tab, in the PageTree section, check:
   • Manage block pages to create, edit and delete pages;
   • Manage block pages settings to edit the plugin settings.
3. Save.

Custom blocks are reserved for superusers: no permission can open them to another role. See Permissions and settings.

Check the settings

The settings are in Settings → Block Pages Settings (PageTree category). They let you, among other things:

• rename the menu entry (Navigation Label, "Block Pages" by default);
• choose the stylesheets and scripts of the preview when no layout is selected;
• set the default SEO values: site name, title template, robots, Twitter/X account, sharing image.

Each setting is described on the Permissions and settings page.

Next steps

• Check that your theme has a layout
• Create and publish your first page