Getting Started

Warning

This chapter of the documentation has been superseded by the official Plone 6 Documentation chapter Install. This chapter contains some legacy information that may be useful to Plone 5.2 development.

Installing Volto

Volto can be installed in any operating system assuming that the following pre-requisites are met:

• Node.js LTS (18.x)

• Python - See below for specific versions.

• Docker (if using the Plone docker images)

The versions of Python that are supported in Volto depend on the version of Plone that you use.

Plone	Python	Volto
5.2	2.7, 3.6-3.8	15.0
6.0	3.8-3.10	16.0

Depending on the operating system that you are using, some of the following pre-requisites might change. They assume you have a macOS/Linux machine.

Components / Processes running

There are three processes continuously running when you have a working Volto website:

1. A frontend web application running in your browser (JavaScript)

2. A Node.js server process that delivers the JavaScript to the client and does server-side rendering (SSR) of your pages on first request (JavaScript, the Razzle package is used for SSR)

3. A Plone server process that stores and delivers all content through a REST API (Python)

When you start with Volto most of the first customisations you will want to make (or maybe ever need to make) are in the JavaScript code used in the browser and Razzle process. Therefore this getting started chapter will focus on installing a Node.js/JavaScript environment locally and suggest you start the API backend using a container.

Install nvm (Node.js version manager)

If you have a working Node.js JavaScript development already set up on your machine or you prefer another management tool to install/maintain Node.js this step is not needed. If you have less experience with setting up JavaScript, it's a good idea to integrate nvm for development, as it provides easy access to any Node.js released version.

1. Open a terminal console and type:

   touch ~/.bash_profile
   curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/creationix/nvm/v0.39.1/install.sh | bash
   

   (Please check the latest available version of nvm on the main README

2. Close the terminal and open a new one or execute:

   source ~/.bash_profile
   

3. Test it:

   nvm version
   

4. Install any active LTS version of Node.js (https://github.com/nodejs/release#release-schedule):

   nvm install 18
   nvm use 18
   

5. Test Node.js :

   node -v
   

   Note

   If you're using the fish shell, you can use nvm.fish

   Note

   Volto supports currently active Node.js LTS versions based on Node.js Releases page, starting with Node.js 16 LTS.

Yeoman

Install Yeoman, a scaffolding tool.

npm install -g yo

Yarn (Node.js package manager)

Install the Yarn Classic version (not the 2.x one!), of the popular Node.js package manager.

1. Open a terminal and type:

   curl -o- -L https://yarnpkg.com/install.sh | bash
   

2. Test it, running:

   yarn -v
   

   Tip

   As alternative, you can install yarn using several approaches too, depending on the platform you are on. Take a look at the original yarn documentation for a list of them.

Use or Install Docker

In order to run the API backend, it's recommended to start run it in a container. For this getting started section we assume you are either using Linux, or Mac. Most modern Linux distributions have docker in their package manager available.

To install Docker desktop for Mac, here are the detailed instructions:

https://hub.docker.com/editions/community/docker-ce-desktop-mac

1. Download the appropriate .dmg for your Intel or Apple chip.

2. Install the package as any other Mac software, if required, follow instructions from:

   https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/mac-install/

3. Check that docker is installed correctly, open a new terminal and type:

   docker ps
   

   should not throw an error and show the current running containers.

Run a Volto ready Plone Docker container

When you have installed Docker, you can use the official Plone Docker container with the proper configuration for Volto using the plone.volto add'on right away by issuing:

docker run -it --rm --name=plone \
  -p 8080:8080 -e SITE=Plone -e \
  ADDONS="plone.restapi==8.18.0 plone.app.iterate==4.0.2 plone.rest==2.0.0a1 plone.app.vocabularies==4.3.0 plone.volto==3.1.0a8" \
  -e PROFILES="plone.volto:default-homepage" \
  plone/plone-backend

Tip

This setup is meant only for demonstration and quick testing purposes, since it destroys the container on exit (--rm). In case you need production-ready deployment, check the latest Plone Deployment Training.

Note

The example above does not persist yet any changes you make through Volto in the Plone docker container backend! For this you need to map the /data directory in the container properly. Check Docker storage documentation for more information.

As a quick example: if you add --mount type=bind,source="$(pwd)/plone-data",target=/data to the previous example. The local subdirectory plone-data relative to where you execute docker run will be use to persist the backend server data.

If you are somewhat familiar with Python development, you can also install Plone locally without using Docker. Check the backend configuration section. It also has more information on plone.volto.

Install Volto

Use the project generator helper utility. The latest stable release of Volto will be installed by default. You may choose to install the canary version, which is the latest alpha release, using the --canary flag.

1. Open a terminal and execute:

   npm install -g yo @plone/generator-volto
   # install latest stable release
   yo @plone/volto
   # or install latest alpha release
   yo @plone/volto --canary
   

   See Creating a new Volto project for more advanced options that can be passed to the generator.

2. Answer the questions when prompted, and provide the name of the new app (folder) to be created. For the sake of this documentation, provide myvoltoproject as the project name.

   Note

   You can run the generator with parameters to tailor your requirements.

   yo @plone/volto --help
   

   or take a look at the README for more information.

3. Change directory to the newly created folder myvoltoapp (or the one you've chosen):

   cd myvoltoapp
   

   Then start Volto with:

   yarn start
   

   This command will build an in-memory bundle and execute Volto in development mode. Open a browser to take a look at http://localhost:3000

   Danger

   create-volto-app was deprecated from January 2021, in favor of @plone/generator-volto.

Build the production bundle

In production environments, you should build an static version of your (Volto) app. The app should be run in a Node.js process (because of the server-side rendering part), but it also have a client part that is provided and deployed by the server side rendering process.

1. Compile the app using the command:

   yarn build
   

   The resultant build is available in the build folder.

2. Run the Volto Node.js process

   yarn start:prod
   

   to run the Node.js process with the production build. You can also run it manually:

   NODE_ENV=production node build/server.js
   

   Your production ready Volto will be available in http://localhost:3000