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Getting Started#

Installing Volto#

Volto can be installed in any operating system assuming that this requirements are met:

Depending on the OS that you are using some of the following might change, they are assuming a MacOS/Linux machine:

Install nvm (NodeJS version manager)#

If you have a working nodejs development setup on your machine, this step is not required. But it's a good idea to integrate nvm for development, as it provides easy access to any Nodejs released version.

  1. Open a terminal console and type: 

    touch ~/.bash_profile
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash

  2. Close the terminal and open a new one or execute: 

    source ~/.bash_profile

  3. Test it: 

    nvm version

  4. Install any active LTS version of NodeJS (https://nodejs.org/en/about/releases/): 

    nvm install 14.15.1
nvm use 14.15.1

  5. Test NodeJS: 

    node -v

Note

If you're using the fish shell, you can use nvm.fish

Note

Volto supports all currently active NodeJS LTS versions based on NodeJS Releases page. On 2021-04-30 Volto will not support Node 10 as it will reach its end of life.

Yarn (NodeJS package manager)#

Install the Yarn Classic version (not the 2.x one!), of the popular node package manager.

  1. Open a terminal and type: 

    curl -o- -L https://yarnpkg.com/install.sh | bash

  2. Test it, running: 

    yarn -v

Tip

You can install yarn using several approaches too, depending on the platform you are on. Take a look at the original yarn documentation for a list of them.

Use or Install Docker#

In order to run the API backend, it's recommended to start run it in a container. For this getting started section we assume you are either using Linux, or Mac. Most modern Linux distributions have docker in their package manager available.

To install Docker desktop for Mac, here are the detailed instructions:

https://hub.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-desktop-mac

  1. Download the .dmg from:

    https://download.docker.com/mac/stable/Docker.dmg

  2. Install the package as any other Mac software, if required, follow instructions from:

    https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/install/

  3. Check that docker is installed correctly, open a new terminal and type:

docker ps

should not throw an error and show the current running containers.

Run a Volto ready Plone Docker container#

When you have installed Docker, you can run an standard Plone Docker container with the proper configuration for Volto using the kitconcept.volto add'on right away by issuing:

docker run -it --rm --name=plone \
  -p 8080:8080 -e SITE=Plone -e ADDONS="kitconcept.volto" \
  -e ZCML="kitconcept.volto.cors" \
  -e PROFILES="kitconcept.volto:default-homepage" \
  plone

Note

The example above does not persist yet any changes you make through Volto in the Plone docker container backend! For this you need to map the /data directory in the container properly. Check Docker storage documentation for more information.

As a quick example: if you add --mount type=bind,source="$(pwd)/plone-data",target=/data to the previous example. The local subdirectory plone-data relative to where you execute docker run will be use to persist the backend server data.

If you are somewhat familiar with Python development, you can also install Plone locally without using Docker. Check the backend configuration section. It also has more information on kitconcept.volto.

Install Volto#

Use the project generator helper utility.

  1. Open a terminal and execute: 

    npm init yo @plone/volto

  2. Answer to the prompted questions and provide the name of the new app (folder) to be created. For the sake of this documentation, provide myvoltoproject as project name then.

Info

This is the shortcut for using npm init command. It uses Yeoman (yo) and @plone/generator-volto and execute them without having to be installed globally. However, more advanced options for the generator are available, but you'll have to install it and run it without npm init:

$ npm install -g yo
$ npm install -g @plone/generator-volto
$ yo @plone/volto --help
take a look at the full README for more information.

  1. Change directory to the newly created folder myvoltoapp (or the one you've chosen): 
    cd myvoltoapp

Then start Volto with:

yarn start

This command will build an in-memory bundle and execute Volto in development mode. Open a browser to take a look at http://localhost:3000

!!! warning @plone/create-volto-app is deprecated It was deprecated from January 2021, in favor of @plone/generator-volto.

Build the production bundle#

In production environments, you should build an static version of your (Volto) app. The app should be run in a node process (because of the server side rendering part), but it also have a client part that is provided and deployed by the server side rendering process.

  1. Compile the app using the command: 

    yarn build
    The resultant build is available in the build folder.

  2. Run the Volto Nodejs process 

    yarn start:prod

to run the node process with the production build. You can also run it manually: 

NODE_ENV=production node build/server.js
Your production ready Volto will be available in http://localhost:3000