Development Overview

This is an overview of how to develop a site in Pala. Developing a site in Pala is much easier than developing a site for a traditional CMS or site builder because Pala is designed from the ground up with developers in mind. Instead of going the way of most web-building tools today which obfuscate your site code behind clunky buttons and sliders (i.e. “no-code”), Pala gives you direct access to your code right from the CMS interface with an easy to use code editor. This means developers can quickly create tailored content and design fields to give content editors a powerful content management experience without having to worry about them, for example, picking their favorite font for the call to action button.

Pala leverages Svelte for component development & static site generation - a modern UI framework & language that simplifies reactive web development by building upon HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in an approachable and idiomatic way. Since Svelte JavaScript compiles to standard JavaScript, you can also use any JavaScript library in your Blocks.

Templating in Weave leverages Svelte's reactive template syntax, enabling developers to create dynamic, responsive blocks that seamlessly combine markup, styles, and logic. Each block is a self-contained Svelte component with scoped CSS and built-in access to a rich set of field types - from basic text and numbers to dynamic fields that can pull in data from the current page, other pages, or site-wide settings. The field system makes it easy to create custom field types that integrate directly with your templates, letting you build exactly the editing interface you need while maintaining clean separation between blocks. This component-based approach means you can use all of Svelte's templating features while keeping your blocks focused and maintainable.

Can I use VSCode instead of developing my site from Pala? 

At the moment, Pala is best suited for in-browser development, but you can develop your components locally by publishing them to npm and using Pala's code editor to integrate them with your fields (but note that this hasn’t been heavily tested). There are however plans to fully support local development.

Can content editors see the code editor?

No. When you invite someone to collaborate on a site, you can either invite them as a Developer or a Content Editor. Developers can modify fields and code, but they’re hidden for content editors.

Can I create restricted editing interfaces for content editors?

Currently, all invited content editors have full access to content management - including creating new pages, updating site, page, and block entries, and deploying site updates. In the future you’ll be able to restrict access to particular entry types, but robust ALC isn’t a near-term priority.

Is there a CLI or API available?

Not yet, but an API for headless development is one of the next things on the roadmap.

Does Pala support different environments (staging, production)?

Pala uses a simple publish/unpublish workflow rather than multiple environments. A preview feature for reviewing saved changes before publishing is coming soon, but full staging environments aren't currently on the roadmap.