How to setup a blog with Grav

dependencies needed:

sudo apt-get install php5 apache2 php5-curl php5-gd

I'm going to switch into the root account because it makes things a bit easier.

sudo -s
cd /var/www/html
git clone https://github.com/getgrav/grav.git

cd /var/www/html/grav
bin/grav install

The "grav [command]" has to be executed from the grav root directory othewise it wont work. Same goes for the "gpm [command]" in the next part.

Before you install the admin panel you have to execute:

bin/gpm selfupgrade -f

However this spit out an error for me. There seems to be a problem with the curl installation.

Installing these packages fixed the problem:

apt-get install curl libcurl3 libcurl3-dev php5-curl

now it's possible to install the admin panel with:

bin/gpm install admin

if everything goes as it should you will see a message similar to this at the end:

Clearing cache

Cleared:  cache/twig/*
Cleared:  cache/doctrine/*
Cleared:  cache/compiled/*

Touched: /var/www/html/user/config/system.yaml

next we need to add an admin user:

bin/grav newuser

Go trough the questions and answer them as you like.

To make it fully working edit the apache config in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

look for the block and copy it to a new line. Then add html/ to the end of var/www and change the line:

AllowOverride None

to:

AllowOverride All

Save the file and exit it. In addition enable the rewrite module of apache with:

a2enmod rewrite

Don't forget to restart the apache service:

service apache2 restart

Finally set the folder ownership to the www-data user.

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/grav

Now your grav installation should work and be reachable at yourdomain.url/grav The admin panel can be reached with yourdomain.url/grav/admin

Grav supports various plugins here you can find an overview: http://getgrav.org/downloads/plugins The installation is very easy. Open the admin panel and go to the menu item Plugins. There click on + Add and it will open a list. Each plugin comes with a description of it function simply click on the Install button and you're good to go. Some plugins offer options for tweaking. The ones which I tested worked all out of the box and didn't require any changes from my side to work.

For our blog we're currently using this plugins:

• Archive Plus
• Feed
• Pagination
• SimpleSearch
• Taxonomy List

After you've installed all the necessary plugins you have to change the main page to the blog layout. Go to the Pages Menu point then select Home now select the tab Advanced and change the settings to the following:

For our layout we don't use any content on the home page.

To make sure that all the plugins are working correctly we have to change some options each time we publish a post. Therefore make sure that the settings of your posts are matching this screenshots:

The text in the sidebar is hard coded however this is not really a problem and can be changed very easily. Login to your server and navigate to the grav installation root. The sidebar config is in user/themes/NAMEOFYOURTHEME/templates/partials/sidebar.html.twig Don't forget to open the file with sudo otherwise you want be able to save it. Look for this code:

<div class="sidebar-content">
<h4>About</h4>
<p>Lorem Ipsum etc...</p>

Now replace the Lorem Ipsum part with your text. The text will change as soon as you save the file.

The links in the navigation are same as the sidebar text hard coded and just as easy to modify. Navigate to the grav installation root. In there open the user/themes/NAMEOFYOURTHEME/templates/partials/navigation.html.twig file. Don't forget that it requires root rights to save the file. Look for this code block:

<ul class="navigation">
...
</ul>

Add your custom links right before the </ul> part. like this:

<li><a href="http://yourdomain.url">Example</a></li>

and make sure it's correctly intended in the end it should look like this:

<ul class="navigation">
...
<li><a href="http://yourdomain.url">Example</a></li>
</ul>

The links will appear as soon as you save the file.

Sites used to write this tutorial:

• http://learn.getgrav.org/
• https://muut.com/getgrav#!/general%23how-to-add-links-to-nav-bar
• http://learn.getgrav.org/