140 lines
5.7 KiB
Markdown
140 lines
5.7 KiB
Markdown
title: Hello Lektor!
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---
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summary:
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Welcome to Lektor, the static content management system that introduces a
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new paradigm for developing beautiful websites.
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---
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pub_date: 2015-12-21
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---
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author: Armin Ronacher
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---
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twitter_handle: mitsuhiko
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---
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body:
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#### banner ####
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image: banner.jpg
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----
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height: 500
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#### text-block ####
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text:
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About [25% of the Internet uses
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Wordpress](http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all) and
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it's estimated that about 50% of Wordpress installations out there are
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vulnerable to security problems because they have not been updated. This is a
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very high number.
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Because I know how much work it can be to keep software updated and my own
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terrible track record of spending time of updating everything I'm running
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I kept getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of software that would
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allow me to run a simple website in a secure manner without having to resort
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to all kinds of user-unfriendly hackery.
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While there are many static site generators none of them really matched what I
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actually wanted: a content management system that just happens to run
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on the client. Most static website generators are too “hacker focused” in the
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sense that they could not be used by people without programming experiences or
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they are full fledged content management systems that need a server to run on
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or require regular maintenance for security updates.
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There the hacker's favorite projects like
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[Pelican](https://github.com/getpelican/pelican) or
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[Jekyll](https://jekyllrb.com/) which support generating websites out of static
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files that are tracked through version control and there are CMS systems like
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[Statamic](http://statamic.com/) which store all of its data in flat files
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— but as mentioned — needs PHP.
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None of those were what I was looking for. Static file generators like Jekyll
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are nice in a way but not just end user unfriendly, but also very limited in
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what you can do with them. They are more suited for building blogs than
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more complex sites. I tried a bunch of them and built different things
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with them, but ultimately always felt like something was missing.
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After about two years of frustration with that situation I finally sat down
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and spend some time working on a system to solve this problem. May I
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introduce: Lektor.
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## What is Lektor?
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Lektor combines the experience of using a content management system like
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Wordpress with a static website generator like Jekyll and has some of the
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flexibility of a web development framework like Django. It can run locally
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on your computer and deploy to remote servers. All source assets are stored
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either in version control or Dropbox and when you are satisfied with the end
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results, you can push them online from the UI to a remote server.
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And this is what it roughly looks like when you look at the admin panel:
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<div class="screenshot-frame"><img src="admin.png"></div>
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## How do I use it?
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That depends on who you are. Lektor is based on the idea that there are
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two parties to a website: the web developers and the editors. The former
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create the design, layout, data layout and configures Lektor in general. The
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latter change the contents of the website according to the general setup.
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If you are a web developer you can install two versions of Lektor: you can
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use the command line client or if you are on a Mac, you can install the
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desktop version. Either version comes with a handy web interface that
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can be used to preview and edit all pages.
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Once you have configured Lektor to your liking you can put the project into
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version control (or just Dropbox) and let your users modify the contents. All
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they have to do is to install the Desktop version of Lektor, double click the
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project in their Dropbox and start changing it.
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If you just want to edit the contents of a project you can install the
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Desktop version or maybe in the future use a cloud hosted version.
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## Project Layout
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To get an idea how it works, you can have a look at the [github repository of
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this website](https://github.com/lektor/lektor-website/) which contains the
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project for this website and blog and have a look at the introduction
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documentation: [Getting Started :ref](../../../../docs/quickstart/). You can
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also find a screencast there.
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On a very basic level Lektor takes `.lr` files which are basic text files
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with a super simple format and generates out HTML files. The `.lr` files
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correspond to a previously set up data model. They are pure text format for
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key/value pairs. Each pair is separated by three dashes (`---`):
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```
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field_1: value
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-----
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field_2:
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a longer value
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```
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You can set up data models for simple things like blog posts but also more
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elaborate ones if you want to build portfolio sites. For instance you could
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set up models for your projects and then access that data in the templates.
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The content files are stored in folders in a tree like structure and at any
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level you can add other files as attachments:
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<div class="screenshot-frame"><img src="structure.png"></div>
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## An Open Source Project
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Lektor is available under [a BSD license](../../../../license/) and run as a
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community Open Source project [on github :ext](https://github.com/lektor/lektor/).
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The build system is written in Python, the UI in JavaScript with React and
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the GUI components use Electron.
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## Feedback Appreciated
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Lektor took two attempts to get into a usable application and I'm sure that
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there is more that needs to be done to scratch the needs of most users.
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However I also know that there is no point in delaying an initial release
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unnecessarily. What's being released today is the application as it exists
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today and I think it's in a good shape to build really cool websites with
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it. I welcome you to give it a try and give feedback on what you think
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about it.
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----
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class: default
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