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Nesta, a Ruby CMS

Nesta is a lightweight Content Management System, suitable for running small web sites or blogs. Nesta is written in Ruby using the Sinatra web framework.

Features

  1. Create your content in a text editor – publish by dropping the file into a folder on your server (or with Git).
  2. Write in plain text (Markdown or Textile) – Nesta automatically converts it into standards compliant HTML. The flexibility of HTML or Haml are there if you need them.
  3. There’s no database.
  4. It’s been designed to be easy to re-style and extend (just take a look at what topfunky has done with it on the PeepCode Blog).

Quick Start

These instructions assume that you’re using a Unix based operating system (such as a Mac or Linux). It may well work fine on Windows (if you try it please let us know how you get on).

Begin by using git to get a copy of Nesta:

$ git clone git://github.com/gma/nesta.git

To run it you’ll need Ruby (version 1.8 or 1.9), and a few Ruby libraries (which are called “gems”). Once you’ve installed Ruby you just need to install the bundler dependency management system, which takes care of everything else for you:

$ sudo gem install bundler
$ cd nesta
$ bundle install

You’ll need a config file and (optionally) some sample pages to admire:

$ cp config/config.yml.sample config/config.yml
$ bundle exec rake setup:sample_content
$ bundle exec shotgun app.rb

Now point your web browser at http://localhost:9393 and explore your new web site!

If you want to get really fancy, why not install a theme and then deploy your new site to the Internet with Heroku? It only takes about 10 minutes.

Support

It’s easy to keep track of what’s going on:

If you’ve got any questions or feedback please send us a tweet, or get in touch on the mailing list (send a blank message in order to join).

If you get stuck and want a quick hand, you may also be able to get real time help in the #nesta IRC channel on freenode.

Documentation

  1. Changing the Design

    Out of the box Nesta has a clean, simple look. You’ll probably want to change it, and Nesta makes it easy. This page tells you how to go about it.

    Continue reading

  2. Creating Themes

    Everything you need to know to design and release your own Nesta themes.

    Continue reading

  3. Creating Your Content

    How to create a new web page, set the page title and headings, add attachments – it’s all here. We also cover how what makes a blog post different to a normal page, how to organise pages in categories and explain how your site’s Atom feed works.

    Continue reading

  4. Deploying Nesta

    Once you’ve designed your site and written your first page of content you want to get it out there for all the world to see!

    Find out how to roll your site out

  5. Frequently Asked Questions

    Common (ahem) questions and answers about Nesta (or “stuff that didn’t fit anywhere else”). Got a problem? Check in here…

    Read the Nesta FAQ

  6. Markdown Cheat Sheet

    Markdown is a wonderfully simple approach to creating web pages, written by John Gruber of Daring Fireball. You get on with the business of writing (without any fancy code) and Markdown takes care of producing clean, web standards compliant HTML.

    Find out how to create a web page with Markdown

  7. Metadata reference

    A full list of the Nesta metadata, which allows you to organise your site into categories and convert simple web pages into blog posts.

    Continue reading

  8. Publishing Articles with Git

    This article will show you how to store the contents of your Nesta web site in a local Git repository, and publish changes by running a single git command. It’s not relevant if you’re deploying to Heroku.

    Continue reading

Articles on Nesta, a Ruby CMS

  1. Nesta gets a new design

    21 June 2010

    Before today I’d never been completely satisifed with the look of a freshly installed Nesta site. It wasn’t bad, but it was a bit rough and ready and the typography wasn’t that hot. The old default style is still available as a theme but moving forward Nesta has got a new look!

    Continue reading

  2. Merging categories and articles

    15 September 2009

    My developer friendly CMS (Nesta) has just undergone some really positive refactoring. Articles and categories are a great way to organise a blog; they’re user friendly and search engines love them. So nothing’s changed there; I still want articles and categories. However, I’ve been using Nesta on e-commerce sites recently and have been finding that Nesta, as a general purpose CMS, didn’t quite cut it.

    Read about the improvements