Introducing Stacey: the Lightweight CMS Alternative – New on Premium
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Introducing Stacey: the Lightweight CMS Alternative – New on Premium

on Nov 8th 2012 with 11 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Estimated completion time: 2 hours
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
  • Topic: CMS
Demo View It Online

In today’s Premium tutorial, I’m going to set you up with Stacey; a CMS where there’s no database involved, no admin interface, just a small collection of php files. Throw the application folder onto a php server and you’re good to go.


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Quick Preview

Check out the demo. Yes, it’s tomatoey, but it’s also a fun little dynamic blog, without even a trace of a database.


The German Johnny Knoxville

The prototype

The structure

The 404

What’s Covered in This Tutorial?

Glad you asked.

  • HTML and CSS build.
  • CMS download and setup.
  • Working with YAML and Markdown.
  • Twig templating.
  • 3rd party services (Disqus).
  • .htaccess, friendly urls and custom 404 pages.
  • Atom feeds.
  • Handling media.

At the end of this tutorial you’ll have a fully functional, lightweight blog which you can edit and scale exactly how you please.

Tuts+ Premium

The recently re-launched Tuts+ Premium is a service that provides top-tier training in a variety of creative fields. Whether you prefer books, visual training, or in depth tutorials, we have you covered. While we unfortunately can’t afford to provide the service for free, it’s only $19 a month – less than you’d spend on dinner.

We hope you’ll consider checking it out! In addition to learning a huge variety of new skills, it’s also a fantastic way to say thank you to Webdesigntuts+.

 
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Hi there! My name's Ian Yates. Welcome to Webdesigntuts+ :)  

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  • Alex Silber

    I’d hardly call this a CMS alternative when it completely avoids the point of a CMS — to simply manage content.

    • ianyates

      But you *are* managing content – by means of files and directories instead of database entries. And, however unintuitive it might at first seem, once you’ve played with it you realise how manageable it actually is..

    • http://www.demogar.com demogar

      It is still a CMS, since you can actually control and manage your contents: maybe in a different way. Instead of databases, you have plain files.

  • Johan Hallenberg

    You sure do love the tomatoo color Ian!

    • ianyates

      That’s the last time – I promise :)

  • http://twitter.com/forgetfulvet forgetful vet

    the simplicity of that demo is awesome. Good job. And you can just change the color to f09609 for a good orange color.

  • http://www.facebook.com/auct.uz.ua Дмитро Тарас

    sry but no.

  • Henry

    I see no CMS alternative here, sorry…

    PS: googlecode is not made for productive use, also do not include from trunk

    • ianyates

      re. using repository to link to shiv: fair point..

  • Reynolds Digital

    When I saw Stacey in the list of tuts I must admit I was actually quite looking forward to learning how to use it since a majority of my sites on http://www.reynoldsdigital.com are built using WordPress, which is great but always good to have alternatives. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like much of a CMS to me. Although I can see the significant benefit it keeping everything in files and directories rather than database entries it’s not too taxing and unmanageable. It might be faster so I’ll give it a shot and report back.

    • ianyates

      Best of luck – I look forward to hearing your findings!