Installation in custom path with discussions separate from pages and future CMS

bavard

Hi, so I used freeflarum for a small project and now for my big project I purchased a shared hosting at infomaniak.ch

The server is installed as such:
.composer .config backups stats tmp web

If I understand the documentation properly, I should install Flarum in its own folder together with the folders listed above. And then move the content of /public inside of /web

However I want to achieve 3 things with this site :
1) access the discussions in /web/forum
2) access the pages (from Pages extension) in /web
3) if Pages ext becomes insufficient for my project, replace it by a CMS (but keep Flarum for the discussions)

Are 1) and 2) compatible ? if so how

P.S. I already ran the installation in a custom folder, can I just move it or should I erase and reinstall ?

luceos

bavard my suggestion would be this, starting at the directory you mentioned with web being the public accessible one:

install flarum under flarum
create a directory web/forum
move flarum/public/index.php to web/forum/

change web/forum/index.php to use the correct include path:

  $site = require '../../flarum/site.php';

Edit flarum/site.php:

return Flarum\Foundation\Site::fromPaths([
    'base' => __DIR__,
    'public' => __DIR__.'/../web/forum',
    'storage' => __DIR__.'/storage',
]);

I think that should be it 😉

bavard

luceos I don't follow.

luceos install flarum under flarum

Where is flarum ?

luceos move flarum/public/index.php to web/forum/

What about assets and .htaccess ?

There is no index.php in /web so how would it display Pages or anything ?

luceos

bavard Where is flarum ?

composer create-project flarum/flarum -s beta flarum

Assets and .htaccess need to be moved as well...

bavard There is no index.php in /web so how would it display Pages or anything ?

Oh right, I misread. Yeah that would not be possible. Changing paths is not an option right now.

You might then better move public files to web or better yet.. Removed web if it doesn't contain anything then symlink flarum/public to web.

bavard

luceos

Just to clarify :
Flarum should be installed in the server root (not web root) as such :

.composer
.config
backups
stats
tmp
web
flarum

Can it be moved there if it was installed elsewhere or should it be erased and reinstalled ?

Having discussions in a different folder than Pages is not possible (as below) ?

domain.com/p/1-index
domain.com/p/2-about
domain.com/p/3-contact
domain.com/forum/d-foo
domain.com/forum/d-bar

So if I later want to replaces Pages extension by a CMS I will have to move the files and it will change the URL of all discussions, correct ? Will this break links between discussions ?

What if I have 2 copies of the public files, one in web and the other in forum ?
Or perhaps I can edit a core file to add the URL segment forum that in the future will become a real folder.

clarkwinkelmann

I would suggest to install Flarum at the root of its domain using the official Flarum instructions, and take care of any future CMS change via redirects.

Unless you are super familiar with your hosting, I find Flarum is easier to manage if it's installed in its own domain (which could be a subdomain). That way you just need to create a Flarum folder somewhere under web, then edit the DocumentRoot in Infomaniak's management panel to point to the public folder of Flarum. No need to move any file around.

While what you describe is theoretically possible, it requires knowledge of the webserver, of Flarum's single page app system, and most likely requires a custom Flarum extension to perform as intended. It looks like premature optimization here, and the migration could easily be setup with permanent redirects in htaccess when the time comes.