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Customize Your Project – Plone Deployment

Customize Your Project

Customize Your Project#

Plone offers a wealth of features right out of the box. You can extend these capabilities using TTW modifications, such as creating new content types, altering the default workflow, or configuring the top-level navigation. For additional functionalities not covered by Plone, you can either develop your own solutions or integrate existing add-ons.

Integrating Add-ons#

Both Plone Frontend and Backend in your project support add-on integration. Add-ons can be specific to either the Frontend or Backend, or they can be collaborative packages enhancing both components.

  • Plone Backend Add-ons: These are Python packages available on PyPI. Awesome Plone offers a curated list of these add-ons.

  • Plone Frontend Add-ons: Written in JavaScript or TypeScript, these are released as NPM packages. Check out Awesome Volto for a collection of Frontend add-ons.

Adding a New Block to the Frontend#

We’ll illustrate the process of integrating a Frontend add-on, @plonegovbr/volto-code-block, which renders highlighted source code blocks. We’ll centralize all modifications within our project's add-on, volto-ploneconf2023, to streamline future Volto version upgrades.

Incorporating a New Dependency#

Edit frontend/src/addons/volto-ploneconf2023/package.json and append @plonegovbr/volto-code-block to the addons and dependencies sections, as shown below:

"addons": [
  ...,
  "@plonegovbr/volto-code-block"
],
"dependencies": {
  ...,
  "@plonegovbr/volto-code-block": "*"
}

Reinstalling the Project#

Execute make install-frontend from the repository root to install the new add-on and update frontend/yarn.lock.

Restarting the Project#

Start your project with make start-backend and make start-frontend in different shells. Navigate to http://localhost:3000. After authentication, the new block becomes available on the content edit page.

Committing Changes#

Format your codebase with make format, then commit and push the changes:

git add frontend/src/addons/volto-ploneconf2023/package.json frontend/yarn.lock
git commit -m "Add @plonegovbr/volto-code-block"
git push

Implementing OAuth Support with GitHub#

We’ll now add GitHub OAuth authentication, involving both Backend and Frontend add-ons and GitHub OAuth application creation.

Creating a GitHub OAuth Application#

Follow GitHub's guide on Creating an OAuth App, using the following configurations:

  • Application Name: plone-conference-local

  • Homepage URL: http://ploneconf2023.localhost

  • Application Description: Plone Conference 2023

  • Authorization Callback URL: http://ploneconf2023.localhost/login-authomatic/github

Backend: Installing pas.plugins.authomatic#

Modify backend/src/ploneconf2023/setup.py to include pas.plugins.authomatic in install_requires. Also, update backend/src/ploneconf2023/src/ploneconf2023/dependencies.zcml to load the package configuration during Plone Backend startup.

Frontend: Installing volto-authomatic#

Add @plone-collective/volto-authomatic to the addons and dependencies sections of frontend/src/addons/volto-ploneconf2023/package.json. Run make install-frontend to update the dependencies.

Activating and Configuring the Add-on#

Start the Docker Compose stack with make stack-start. Navigate to http://ploneconf2023.localhost/ClassicUI/login and authenticate.

Install pas.plugins.authomatic from the Add-ons control panel and configure it with the following JSON configuration, replacing KEYHERE and SECRETHERE with your GitHub OAuth application’s client ID and secret.

{
  "github": {
    "display": {
      "title": "Github",
      "cssclasses": {
        "button": "btn btn-default",
        "icon": "glypicon glyphicon-github"
      },
      "as_form": false
    },
    "propertymap": {
      "email": "email",
      "link": "home_page",
      "location": "location",
      "name": "fullname",
      "picture": "avatar_url"
    },
    "class_": "authomatic.providers.oauth2.GitHub",
    "consumer_key": "KEYHERE",
    "consumer_secret": "SECRETHERE",
    "access_headers": {
      "User-Agent": "Plone (pas.plugins.authomatic)"
    }
  }
}

Authenticating with GitHub#

Visit http://ploneconf2023.localhost/login and log in using GitHub.

Configure the OAuth user permissions#

By default, pas.plugins.authomatic will not assign any role or group to an user authenticated with GitHub, but you can, using an existing user (i.e. admin), assign the OAuthed user to groups and grant permissions.

Back in the tab you are using to access the ClassicUI, visit the control panel Users > Users. For the User name row, check appropriate permissions. For the purpose of this training, check Manager, then click Apply changes.

Warning

If you need to authenticate bypassing OAuth, there are fallback login forms:

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