Feedback on Automad and dahmen ⁄ automad-halfmoon theme

Hello Marc,

EDIT2: All problems solved, including point 3. (I have found it eventually – the text in the footer can be edited via /packages/dahmen/automad-halfmoon/elements/footer_menu.php.)

Which means you can completely ignore this post. (I'll keep it here just for the record.)

Long story short: Automad is great. Automad is the best. Thank you for the amazing CMS!

Take care,

Pavel

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EDIT: I have already solved everything! Spare yourself the time and don't read the post below. I admit it was an overkill. The last thing I needed to discover was that I have to apply the permissions recursively to all new files I have uploaded to the server. Now, everything is finally working as it should. Permissions, permissions, permissions… The only thing to keep in mind with Automad and everything is going to be fine.

One last thing anyway if I may ask: Point 3 still stands. I still have no idea where I could edit the text that's showing at the bottom of the page (© 2021 – Site Name). A hint from you would be appreciated.

Other than that, you can now ignore the below, crazy rant. I'm keeping it here, just for the record.

Thanks,

Pavel

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Initially, I thought I would have a bunch of questions but I have figured out how to solve most of the issues I ran into. So, this is going to be just feedback more than anything else. But you might still, and probably will, come up with better solutions to the things I’m going to write about. Actually, I do have 3 questions I'd like to know the answers to if possible (see points 1–3 below).
First of all, I have become a huge fan of Automad. I’m just a hobbyist, not a coder at all though I’m crazy enough to play around with things until I get what I want, no matter what it takes. Almost literally.
I was looking for some more lightweight alternatives, outside of WordPress, because my website is dead simple and doesn’t require database.
(Just as a side note, the current content of my WordPress website is about 1 GB in weight and pretty much the same amount of information is going to shrink to just about 7 MB for the website created by Automad.)
I tested out Hugo and Jekyll and used them to create some basic websites, learned how to sync the content with GitHub, etc., but after a couple of days, I was close to shut down my investigation with the conclusion that it’s simply not worth the hassle to migrate from WordPress. I wanted a convenient admin panel for dummies with the ability to log in at any time from anywhere and update the content however I please. I’ve given a try to Grav twice but the structure of the css / scss was so incredibly complex – not that you would have to compile the result, you could obviously update the compiled files directly, but because of a mysterious and unclear linkage with the parent framework – that it was virtually impossible (for me) to style or customize some of the basic template properties.
Out of the desperation, I took another look at the possibilities that are available on the internet and stumbled across Automad. I’ll tell you, I immediately fell in love with it. Not only is it so incredibly pure but it’s also intuitive and logical. I was skeptical and expected a whole host of bugs but ended up very pleasantly surprised at how well this is done and how it’s functional.
I just needed to learn how to adjust permissions on my hosting server, and from that point on, it was an exciting ride.

I know the introduction was quite lengthy but I wanted to share a bit of the background and also a couple of reasons I’m so thrilled with Automad.
Now, let me mention what I’m not so thrilled about though none of it is significant enough to be a deal breaker to me:

1./ I am unable to use the ‘Image’ tool in the Content Editor. Trying to wrap it into a Layout Section doesn’t help. As soon as I select an image, it falls back to the state of a broken link. Adding the size property or copy pasting a link doesn’t help either. I resorted to using the ‘Slideshow’ tool instead, so all the images on my website are inserted via the ‘Slideshow’ tool even though they are just static images. That feels clumsy and certainly not clean. If you can think of a better workaround, I’ll be happy to hear from you.

2./ Similar issues I have with the Favicon (and the Apple Touch Icon), it’s just that I didn’t find a workaround for that. And this is the main reason I’m seeking your advice. No matter what I select (or paste as a path to the file), the Favicon will not work. I’m on Windows, BTW. I tried to use different names of the files or a PNG instead, that didn’t help either. So my site has no working Favicon at the moment.

EDIT: I assume that it has something to do with the path to the file, the path should obviously be /shared/favicon.png but when I inspect the Elements in Chromium (Brave), it says: /domains/lightflavor.new/shared/favicon.png Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403 (Forbidden)... So it's apparently trying to go from the actual (www) root on my server, not from the Automad installation that is within the lightflavor.new subfolder. It's weird because the path in my General Default Template Settings is correct = /shared/favicon.png. Maybe it can be solved by adjusting something in the .htaccess file?
The same problem seems to be with the custom.js:1 script: Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 403 (Forbidden).

3./ Another thing, I could not, for the life of me, find out where the text from the very bottom of the page is actually defined. I mean the © 2021 — Site Name. I assume it’s generated automatically but I would expect that a user could change that somewhere, preferably in the admin panel, or at least, say, by editing a value in the /shared/data.txt file or anywhere else. I would personally prefer something like © 2021, Built with <heart> and Automad by My Name, or something along those lines. I wouldn’t mind at all if a link to automad.org was baked into the system as a mandatory inclusion. But I would love to have an option to edit this piece of text in some way. Can you please direct me to the right place in that regard?

Now, the following details are more of a suggestion or just my point of view:

4./ It took me a while to figure out how to style the buttons. I am using the automad-halfmoon theme and you can imagine that the list of the halfmoon framework variables has become my nightly read. You need both the .btn and .btn-primary classes for the bloody button to finally turn blue and that’s not exactly intuitive. I thought I would just customize the colors and everything via the Button tool in the Content Editor but you can’t style the button unless you assign some class to it. A common user would expect that when you choose a color or whatever in the user interface, it would just work. Why would the options be there in the first place? But nah, you must assign a class before it actually starts working. So, a quick fix, I’d say, would be to assign one of the classes to the Button Selector by default.

5./ Also, I had an issue with the .card class assigned to a block. The alignment was off on my mobile (Nokia 6.1, 1080x1920 px). The following properties added to the given class have luckily fixed that:

position: relative;
top: 1em;
margin: auto;
display: block;

Perhaps it would do no harm if they are added to the .card class (not just to the given @media size) by default to avoid the issues on smaller screens but I appreciate that this is something that’s been inherited from the halfmoon framework and can actually be none of your business ‘cause the cards generated by your Page List tool are working fine. I’m only talking about the other, standalone elements in the Content Editor that a user would like to style as a card.

6./ I know, this post is getting crazy long but I’ll nevertheless try to complete everything I wanted to say. I’m not sure if anyone is going to have the nerve to actually read this through. Next up, the dark mode. As a user who has chosen the halfmoon theme I expect it to be dark because there’s a nice, dark thumbnail shown in the overview of the packages on the Automad website, right? I mean, dark by default. Or even more specifically, dark at the first visit to my website. But this thing is tricky and requires quite a lot of study involving things like cookies or even GDPR. 🙂 What I was trying to achieve is that the dark mode is served to the user at his first visit regardless of any other conditions. Then, if he/she switches the mode, let his/her preference get remembered in the cookies, no problem with that. Looking into the custom.js will reveal, if I get it right, that it’s actually supposed to be set that way, only that there’s one more condition because the script is checking for the user system setting and will serve the dark mode only if the user shows an inclination to ‘dark side’ already. But I want to turn all the visitors to the dark side right at the start no matter what their inclinations are. So I thought I would secure that by removing that additional ‘matching’ condition from the script and shoving the ‘dark-mode’ into their browser cookies right away without asking them. But it turns out that the custom.js is actually not being loaded at all, am I right in that? And adding the following markup <script src="/packages/dahmen/automad-halfmoon/js/custom.js"></script> to the Items Footer in General Default Template Settings doesn’t seem to have any effect.
I’ve ended up putting this in the General Custom Properties and I’m happy:

<body class="dark-mode">

But I don’t think it’s the cleanest way to go about this.
It would be nice if this was somehow covered in the documentation for the theme in terms of a short explanation as to how to actually force a certain mode as a default state. BTW, the documentation could use more examples of the styling to help users figure out how to deal with the basic customization.

7./ The external links were already discussed in forum so I can only second that I would like to see them being opened in a new tab by default. Not a big deal, however, this can easily be solved either by adding a markup right in the Editor or by the script in the General Items Footer as you suggested in your answer.

8./ One little thing that annoys me is the dash (–) leading the second line in the ‘Quote’ selector in Content Editor because I can’t seem to remove it. That’s a shame because the Quote could otherwise be useful as an additional formatting style for, say, tips or anything of that sort. Now, I’m forced to choose whether that little piece of wisdom was said by – Genghis Khan, – Tutankhamun or perhaps ‘– by Me’… But I don’t get the chance to opt out of that dash at the beginning.

9./ One slight suggestion regarding the layout of the dashboard. It would help (me) a lot if the headings of the main sections in the main panel (Page Settings, Content – X, Template Settings – X and Unused Variables) were a lot more distinct ‘cause once you have rolled them out and then start scrolling, you’ll get lost easily. Perhaps just make them at least bold or something.

10./ Funny thing, I didn’t know that I could delete multiple items (or paragraphs) in Content Editor until I discovered that I needed to hit Backspace in order to ditch the selection. I was deleting them one by one because hitting Delete didn’t do anything. I think that many users can experience the same problem. So I would definitely prefer that the Delete key was granted the same permission.

OK, I guess that’s more than enough for a single post…

Let me stress that I absolutely love the program and I sincerely believe that it has the potential to become the strongest WordPress competitor if it goes viral down the road. While I was getting familiar with the environment, many times I was like: ‘This is wonderful! This is great!’ It really fits into my way of thinking perfectly.
Apart from the aforementioned details, I think it already has everything one might need to create a beautiful, clean website and manage its content. And it definitely feels like a high-quality product. I can see it become top-notch in the future. If Automad was a company I wouldn’t hesitate to bet on it. It deserves support. If there’s anything I can give a hand with, let me know.

This is what I have so far, (the text is not yet formatted for the most part but the skeleton is ready):
http://284103.w3.wedos.ws/domains/lightflavor.new
When I’m done, it’s going to replace my current website run by WordPress at https://lightflavor.com.

Thank you!

Pavel

Automad Version: 1.8.7
Operating System: Linux / 5.4.0-67-generic
Server Software: Apache
PHP: 7.4.14 / fpm-fcgi
[UPDATED:] PHP: 8.0.1 / fpm-fcgi

pavel Hey Pavel 👏, thanks a lot! So happy to read this! Also happy that have resolved your issues!

Articles like yours are so important for small independent projects like this! Writing about it and spreading the word is the biggest support you can give as a user!

It would be great you would keep on doing it! 🙂

Hi Marc,
Haha, thanks, I'm happy you didn't mind such a long talk. I will quite certainly come back later with more things and keep on supporting the project and spreading the word.

EDIT3: OK, all problems solved now. I have moved the entire website to the root 'www' folder on my hosting server. I will still not be able to update Automad (nor the theme I'm using) because of the permissions' issues but, other than that, I have managed to do everything exactly as I wanted to the very last bit so the mission is completed for now. Website is up and running here: https://lightflavor.com/

BTW, this could well be used as an advertisement for Automad:
https://gtmetrix.com/reports/lightflavor.com/kHSZeRCF/

If I am to sum up some feedback, I'd say that, from a former WordPress user's perspective, these are the main outstanding issues that would need to be solved for Automad to become a fully functional CMS that provides an outstanding user experience:

1./ Permissions. Every time a new file is uploaded to the server (in my case Apache), the permissions need to be granted in an extra step using the ftp client. That obviously also applies to all images or files that have been updated locally and then reuploaded to the server. This, I'm afraid, makes Automad (as of yet) a tough choice for less skilled people who would like to rely solely on using the dashboard. It's worth noting at this point that the ability to manage everything via dashboard was one of the main reasons why I initially decided to go with Automad. Also, the problems with permissions prevent me from installing packages via dashboard. Even if I grant full access to the whole 'www' directory, the package will never finish installing. So I must do this locally via Composer and only then upload the package, or whatever I might need, to the server. It appears that I won't be able to update Automad, nor the theme I'm using, at any later point, at least not via the dashboard. I strongly believe that, once this is solved, nothing will stand in the way of Automad's widespread usage and I'll be recommending it wholeheartedly wherever I go because THEN, it will arguably become the cleanest, most lightweight and simply the best choice for everyone who doesn't need MySQL database to run his/her website. And I believe there may be millions and millions of those who don't even realize that it's actually not needed for the type of website they're trying to create. I'm a big fan already and dealt with everything because I fell in love with Automad and wanted badly enough to build a website on it. But I'm afraid most people won't be as dedicated as I was when they run into the issues with the permissions.

2./ Another major problem is the missing option to set the base URL for the Automad directory. It's great that Automad is portable by default in that it will always work no matter where you put it. But many people will need to have an option to set the base URL independently of the actual site URL, especially if the webhosting company recommends that you put your CMS to a certain subdirectory. So, for instance, if I was to have more than one domain with the same host, I would have to put Automad into the subdirectory that looks like this:
https://lightflavor.com/domains/lightflavor.com/
Now, it's actually working if I do that but I don't have the option to fix the long paths that are showing in the browser even though it's automatically set by my host (via their default .htaccess rules) the way that the example.com/domains/example.com = example.com without any additional care. This is because they have a system to deal with multiple domains and subdomains that way.
In WordPress, you have the option to set the Site URL and WordPress URL independently. If Automad offers the same option, be it by editing the config.php or whatever, that would be great.
I didn't succeeded in doing that so I made things simple and just moved everything to the root 'www' because, luckily, I don't have multiple domains with this host.

3./ One last thing I will mention is not crucial at all, it's just a little thing that, however, annoys me a lot. When you need to select a long portion of text / content in Content Editor and you get to the bottom of the page, you're stuck, it will not start scrolling down. You need to stop there, grab what you've got and interrupt whatever you were trying to achieve. You can't use Shift to add to the selection either.
A typical example would be copy pasting large amount of content between pages. Or say that you have simply created a new page by duplicating an old one – BTW, it's perfect that you can duplicate pages or move them around – and you now want to get rid of the content (because the main reason you had duplicated it was just to inherit its settings). If there's a lot of content, you can zoom out your screen as much as you can and try to grab as longest chunk of the content as possible but that may still not be enough to grab everything, especially if it's some kind of documentation or so. So you need to it in multiple steps which is not very convenient.
Long story short, it would help tremendously, if the page starts scrolling in the Content Editor once you reach its bottom.

And that's it. I don't have any major objections aside from what I have described above. If these issues are addressed, count me in. I'll be happy to participate in this project if there's anything I could do. I can't think of much that could be done my side but still, perhaps there will be one day. I can help with Czech translation, for example or whatever of that sort.

Again, thanks for your hard work and the already amazing CMS. And for the willingness to read through the long rants of mine.

Take care and best,

Pavel

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EDIT2: Website temporarily moved to:
https://lightflavor.com/subdom/backup/

I am trying to start from scratch with Automad, this time in my root 'www' directory on my hosting server. I was unable to set up the paths the way I wanted to / in a natural way / to get rid of the long paths (when the Automad is not located in the root 'www' folder on my hosting server).

What I'm not happy about is that persisting problems with permissions prevent me from installing packages from the dashboard. I assume the same problem will be with any updates. When doing everything manually, via ftp, and then changing the permissions to each and every file I have touched or uploaded, I'm able to get it to work. But my user experience when working from the dashboard is limited due to this problem.

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EDIT: Main problem solved! The site is back up and running. It was, again, the damn permissions. Any time I touch / edit a file, I must adjust its permissions afterwards.

The other two, previously mentioned issues, still stand, however:

1./ How can I set the base URL in Aututomad? I need to set it up like this:

Site URL: https://lightflavor.com/
Automad URL: https://lightflavor.com/domains/lightflavor.com/

It would be perfect if I had the ability to set these values / paths somehow through config.php or something…

2./ Where have all the line spaces (between paragraphs) gone? This doesn't make any sense to me. Again, I didn't make any changes to the content of the website itself. I just renamed the Automad root folder on my server and set up DNS when switching from testing to live mode. And, as far as I know from the Inspect > Elements in my browser, none of the CSS is missing.

I'll be curious about your ideas.

Thanks a lot,

Pavel

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But now, it seems I have messed something up terribly and I could really use some help please. Here's where I'm at:

1./ I finished the new website for the most part and asked my hosting provider to put it live. They referred me to a couple of articles and basically told me to do it by myself. So I did it. I renamed the old domain name in the administration to lightflavor.abc and the new – which was just a testing one until then – to the actual lightflavor.com. I needed to activate my HTTPS certificate for the 'new' one. All OK so far. (The twist is that the new site is running on a different server because they couldn't update the PHP version on my old hosting, but that's not a problem at all.)

2./ Everything was fine, except that one very strange issue occurred, namely that the spaces between paragraphs were suddenly gone so all the texts looked extremely cramped. Completely mysterious to me 'cause I didn't intervene in the files themselves. The new site made with Automad had been built on the new server from the very start. So there was no actual 'migration' or movement per se, all was done merely by changing the names and DNS servers in my hosting administration (+ on my Cloudflare). Also, assuming from the Inspect > Elements in my browser (Brave), all the CSS and everything was loading properly with no errors. (And Although I would like to solve the line spacing issue as well later on, it's not why I'm writing this story.) The website was at least working. Up until a moment ago.

3./ Since I didn't like the long paths in the address bar - my provider recommends that I keep the website within the www/domains/lightflavor.com subdirectory, not it the www root - so the actual path you would see in your browser is not just lightflavor.com but https://lightflavor.com/domains/lightflavor.com. However, the folder structure was the same with my old website and it worked well, meaning I didn't see the long paths in the address bar… So, I'm now asking my webhost if it's possible to fix that and the guy from the support tells me that it's a WordPress 🙂 issue and refers me, traditionally, to an article where it's explained how to fix this in WordPress settings. And I think to myself: OK, I'll figure that out, I'll find out where the root folder is set in Automad and I'll change that. So I've read the comments in the Automad's .htaccess about 10 times but I still can't wrap my head around how exactly I could do that. And a bunch of examples from stackoverflow.com didn't help either.

4./ Then, I came up with a 'great' idea and started messing us with the sitemap.xml. Those are apparently paths to my pages, right? I guess those are generated automatically and the strange fact is that they were pointing the internal addresses that were only used during the testing, e.g.:
http://284103.w3.wedos.ws/domains/lightflavor.com
So, I started to put in new paths there, like, e.g.: https://lightflavor.com/domains/lightflavor.com … but I apparently shouldn't have done that. I had a backup of the original sitemap.xml so I have resumed the original state but the entire website is already dead and can't seem to be resurrected:
https://lightflavor.com/

Any ideas on how to get out of this trouble will be hugely appreciated.

Many thanks,

Pavel

pavel Hi, thanks for all the feedback. I quickly would like to add something to the first two points:

1. The permissions are handled by the server, not the CMS. Also Wordpress can't do that. It is related to the Apache and PHP settings. Those things can not and should not be changed by an application for obvious reasons. I personally have never seen an installation where permissions have been an issue.

2. The base URL works actually different. To get the short URL you have to define your document root accordingly in the settings of your hosting service. If the server points to the wrong directory, the application can not change it since it will simply never be accessed. Normally when a hosting service allows you put your site in a subdirectory, they of course also allow the configuration of the public directory. All URLs will then be automatically resolved to the cofigured server's document root.

mad Hi, Thanks for clarifying that. Makes sense.