CMS visual builder (config.yml generator)

[hdoro]

- Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?
Feature: a visual CMS builder that generates your config.yml to speed up development process and make it easier for newcomers to use NetlifyCMS.

- What is the current behavior?
We have to write 50k+ mostly repetitive characters of config.yml and lose our heads when changes need to be made. Validation is also non-satisfactory and almost led me to abandon the CMS at first - and this is a thing the CMS generator could easily help.

- The plan
The idea is building a standalone generator at first, test it and make it work for most use cases, then, eventually, integrate it into the docs for beginners to use.

I've already started the project in this repo and laid out the foundations for it. The code is far from optimized/good and you might get lost in it a little bit, but I believe the architecture and planned features are on the right track.

You can take a look at it and its basic functionalities here, although you won't be able to do anything special here. Any specific discussion about the generator should happen inside the current repo to avoid flooding this topic :)

- You can help!
In order to get this ready before the end of April (I won't be able to put in many hours this month 😢), we need your help, be it with testing for bugs, auditing the code or writing new functionalities! This project can be a huge step up for NetlifyCMS as we'll be able to reach even those who are crude with the JAMstack, grow its popularity and, therefore, make it more solid. Let's do it! 😄

[loremipson]

It doesn't look like the functionality link is currently working, so I'm curious -- Is the goal of this issue specific to the config.yml? Or is it intending to be a widget type that can be used in multiple collections? Something like what #1169 is aiming to solve?

[erquhart]

The goal of this issue is a standalone configuration generator that outputs YAML for use in config.yml.

[erquhart]

@talves assigned you as your soon-to-be-released configurator will satisfy this issue.

[hdoro]

Hello, y'all! Sorry for vanishing for such a long time, my life was drained out of me by this project (2origins.com) - the backend dev dipped on me, had to learn a bit of node, was crude to react before... wasn't pretty - but now I'm back! @talves wanna get together to lay down the foundations of how this app should be built? Or are you already doing something related to it?

[talves]

@hcavalieri I had already started but did not have time to push it until lately. Mine is a private repo project that I found the time and have in the finishing stages. I did a quick presentation today in the bi-weekly dev meeting. If all goes well, I may have a first cut of it released this weekend.

[erquhart]

Note: the more we think and discuss on this, the better we understand how a Config UI should work. There can (and likely will) be more than one in the wild.

[erlend-sh]

@hcavalieri
https://cms-generator.netlify.com/ is not currently operational. I assume it’s on hiatus?

[hdoro]

Hey there, @erlend-sh ! Unfortunately, for now, I've been forced to choose another CMS and I have been quite busy and anxious trying to juggle everything that has been going on, but eventually I intend to come back at this, as now I have the knowledge to pull this project off! 😄 (no timeframe for this, tho!)

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[Kinark]

I don't know if this helps someone, but I've made an external tool to edit the config file.

Here it is, hope this helps someone :)
https://netlify-config-builder.marcossi.com/

It's an open source project hosted on https://github.com/Kinark/netlify-config-builder

[zabatonni]

@Kinark , it looks really nice. I'm on phone right now, but will definitely test it further. Thank you.

[zabatonni]

Hi @Kinark , found out that it's not working with list field that uses types

here is a little preview:

      - label: Blocks
        name: blocks
        widget: list
        collapsed: true
        typeKey: template
        types:
          - label: background
            name: background
            widget: object
            fields:
              - label: background
                name: background
                widget: image
                required: false

[zabatonni]

and one more thing: When I close modal, it scrolls me to the top. In long definitions its not usable.

[Kinark]

Hi @Kinark , found out that it's not working with list field that uses types

here is a little preview:

      - label: Blocks
        name: blocks
        widget: list
        collapsed: true
        typeKey: template
        types:
          - label: background
            name: background
            widget: object
            fields:
              - label: background
                name: background
                widget: image
                required: false

It seems like types is a beta feature of widget list, since it can't be found in the official docs: https://www.netlifycms.org/docs/widgets/#list but it can be found in the beta docs https://www.netlifycms.org/docs/beta-features/#list-widget-variable-types

Right now I'll try to stick with the stable version of NetlifyCMS, so I'll add the types as soon as the beta is released :)

You can create issues in my repo as well, so we won't flood this issue :)

[Kinark]

and one more thing: When I close modal, it scrolls me to the top. In long definitions its not usable.

I'm working on it, will fix it! Thanks :D

[detarkende]

Any changes on this feature? This would be huge! If possible, can I help a little?