File structure

On this page, we’re going to look at the file structure of the CMS. As the CMS is a flat-file CMS, all content is saved in files, be it Markdown, HTML, or something else.

This is what we’ll cover:

  1. Where are files saved?
  2. How are models saved to files?
  3. Deleting models

Where are files saved?

Files are saved in the folder you specify in the config file (aloiacms.php) under the collections_path key: config('aloiacms.collections_path').

The default location where the files are saved is: storage_path('app/collections').

You can change this to any folder you prefer, for example: storage_path('app/content').

Each model is saved in its own folder.

If we assume that you’re saving the Article model, which at its most basic form looks like this:

namespace AloiaCms\Models;

class Article extends Model
{
    protected $folder = 'articles';
}

This model instance will be saved to storage/app/collections/articles/file-name.extension.

How are models saved to files?

When you’re saving your first model, these are the steps the base model goes through to persist your data to disk:

  1. A “PreModelSaved” event is dispatched
  2. Properties and body content are converted to markdown/html and front matter is added
  3. We verify if you’ve supplied a filename (ex. Article::find(‘filename-here’))
  4. We verify if you’ve supplied the required front matter (none by default)
  5. We get the filepath for the model. This creates the folder if it doesn’t already exist (ex. articles)
  6. The content + front matter is persisted to a file on the filepath (step 5)
  7. A “PostModelSaved” event is dispatched

When you update a model, it goes through these exact steps and skips steps where possible.

Deleting models

As Aloia is a flat-file CMS, deleting a model is nothing more than deleting a file. Before deleting the file, a “PreModelDeleted” event is dispatched. After deleting the file, a “PostModelDeleted” event is dispatched.

You can hook into these events to do any cleanup you might need to do.