How to install Fast Edit Mini (or Fast Edit Micro)
With a small amount of restructuring, Fast Edit Mini can be installed on any existing website.
It would of course be easiest to download Fast Edit Mini first and then build your site around it using the included example as reference, but as that's not always feasible, please follow the steps below to get your installation of Fast Edit Mini up and running as quickly as possible.
- Also see, how to install Fast Edit v1.0
- Also see, compare all version of Fast Edit
- Also see, help me choose the right version of Fast Edit
Warning: Please make a backup of your existing website before installing Fast Edit Mini, otherwise websites with an "index.php" page at their root will have their home page overwritten!
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First you need to download the Fast Edit Mini zip package, so give the link in the "Previous Versions" panel (on the left) a click and save it somewhere on your computer.
The desktop is a convenient place.
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After you've unzipped the Fast Edit Mini package, browse to the "fast_edit/fast_edit_config.php" file and enter your settings.
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Using an FTP client (FileZilla is a good one and it's FREE),
upload the entire Fast Edit Mini package to the root of your website. Be sure to upload it to the root of your website
and not in any sub-folders otherwise some of the scripts won't work. Also be careful to preserve the file structure for the same reason.
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CHMOD the "fast_edit/" folder, plus all of its contents, to 755.
(At this point, you should be able to view Fast Edit Mini in your browser and login to see it in action.)
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Fast Edit Mini works on web pages with the .php extension so if your website pages don't end with that already, rename them all now.
Don't worry, on a php enabled server, .php web pages containing all your usual HTML will still look the same but they will now be able to
run php scripts, such as Fast Edit Mini.
You may need to update your hyperlinks though so that's something to check over later down the line.
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Now you need to pull out all of the editable content (the stuff you want to edit via Fast Edit Mini) from each web page and save it in the
"fast_edit/_content/" folder, in individual .txt files.
Create one .txt file per page and name it exactly the same thing as the parent .php page, except with the .txt extension. So, if the parent page at the root of your website is called "my_pet_cat.php", the editable content file for that page must be called "my_pet_cat.txt".
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In place of the editable content that you've just removed from the parent .php pages, add the following lines of code:
<div class="editable">
<?php include($contentpage);?>
</div> -
If your web pages are laid out logically, everything that's above this freshly inserted code (from above) should form your "header.html" file
and everything below forms your "footer.html" file. You should extract and save your header and footer information to the similarly named files
already provided in the "includes/" folder. You'll be left with a set of pretty sparce .php pages at the root
of your website but this is actually correct for now.
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Next, you need to add some more code snippets to your site's header and footer files.
The code that must be present comes as part of the download pack but is also supplied below:
header.html
In the "includes/header.html" file - right at the start, before any other content:<?php session_start();?>
<?php require('fast_edit/fast_edit_login.php');?>
In the "includes/header.html" file - between the <head> </head> tags:<title><?php echo $dynamic_title ;?> : <?php echo $website_title ;?></title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="fast_edit/editable_site_styles.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="fast_edit/styles/fast_edit.css" />
<!--[if IE]><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="fast_edit/styles/fast_edit_ie.css" /><![endif]-->
<script type="text/javascript" src="fast_edit/tinymce_3_3_7/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/tiny_mce.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="fast_edit/js/fast_edit_toolbar.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="fast_edit/js/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="fast_edit/js/jquery.cookie.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="fast_edit/js/fast_edit_functions.js"></script>
In the "includes/header.html" file - right after the opening <body> tag:<div class="admin-login">
Admin Login: <img src="fast_edit/images/lock.png" alt="Admin Login" class="login">
<div class="login-box">
<form method="post" action="<?php echo $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];?>?action=login">
Username:<br/><input type="text" name="name" size="15"/><br/>
Password:<br/><input type="password" name="pass" size="15"/><br/>
<input type="image" src="fast_edit/images/login.gif" name="submit_login" value="Login" title="Login" class="login-submit"/>
</form>
</div>
</div>
Optional - In the "includes/header.html" file - this is for the menu HTML so put it somewhere in your header content, where you want the menu to appear:<?php include('includes/menu.html');?>
Please note, you will need to code the HTML for the menu yourself.
footer.html
In the "includes/footer.html" file - this is to include Fast Edit Mini so put it right at the bottom of your editable content. Above the closing </body> tag would be a good place:<?php include('fast_edit/fast_edit.php');?>
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Once you're done preparing all of the header and footer information, you should expand slightly on the code supplied in step 7,
to include reference to these two very important files. The only content in the parent .php pages at the root of your website should now be:
<?php include('includes/header.html');?>
Notice that the only difference is the addition of the first and last line which point to the header and footer files for your site.
<div class="editable">
<?php include($contentpage);?>
</div>
<?php include('includes/footer.html');?>
That should be it! Now when you view your site in a web browser, you should see the admin login link in the top right corner. Log in and away you go...
Get rid of the login icon from every page and use a special admin login page instead
So you want to stop visitors from clicking on your login icon? This is very easy to fix and you'll find instructions on how to make a dedicated admin login page in the Questions & Answers section. (See the very first question)Any problems setting up Fast Edit Mini?
If you experience any problems setting up your installation of Fast Edit Mini and you can't find a troubleshooting answer in the Questions & Answers page, please tell me all about it via the online contact form. I'll try and work through things with you, and document the findings on this website. Ultimately your feedback can help future others in a similar situation, so please take a moment to share.
Some other stuff worth noting (not applicable to Fast Edit Micro)
- If you would like to customise the editor WYSIWYG toolbar, you can do so in the "fast_edit/js/fast_edit_toolbar.js" file.
Please refer to the TinyMCE examples page
for all available options.
- "h1.title" and "h2.sub-title" are custom classes assigned by the [Title] and [Sub-Title] buttons in the editor's WYSIWYG toolbar. Styling for these two classes must be included in your default site stylesheet, otherwise the end-user won't be able to create main or sub-titles/headings in their web page content.
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