Documentation
Hosted websites
The VIGIL-MESH platform hosts websites: a space where you edit files, deploy a version, make it active, then wire in data, forms and, if needed, a shop. This page walks through the life of a site: creating it in the file-based mini-IDE, deploying it with an explicit activation step, connecting data and forms to it, and laying the groundwork for e-commerce. It stays honest about what remains ordinary editing work and what the platform takes care of.
Creating a site: the file-based mini-IDE
A site is built in a file-based mini-IDE: a file tree you edit directly in the platform. There you organize pages, stylesheets, scripts and assets just like in an ordinary web project. The IDE is where the source of the site lives; it imposes no particular generator and leaves you in charge of the structure.
- 1Create the siteA new site starts from an empty tree or a minimal starting point. It is the container that will receive its files and its deployments.
- 2Edit the filesPages, styles and scripts are written and modified in the mini-IDE. The source stays readable and you keep complete control over it.
- 3Preview before publishingYou check the site as it will be served, before deciding to put it online. Editing and going to production remain two distinct moments.
Deploying: deployments with activation
Editing puts nothing online. Publishing a site happens through a deployment: a frozen version of your files, ready to be served. A deployment is only visible to the public once activated — activation is the explicit step that switches traffic to that version. You can thus prepare a version, check it, then activate it when it is ready.
One deployment = one frozen version
Each deployment captures the state of the files at the moment it is created. Editing afterwards does not modify an already constituted deployment.
Activation switches the traffic
As long as a deployment is not activated, it serves no one. Activation is the decision that puts the version online for visitors.
Prepare, then publish
Separating deployment and activation lets you build a version ahead of time and only make it public at the right moment.
The public name under which the site is served belongs to domain management: ownership verification, DNS plan and web activation are described in /en/docs/plateforme-domaines.
Data and forms
A site is not always static. The platform lets you wire in data bindings: a site can read and write hosted data, so that its pages reflect living content rather than frozen HTML. The details of these data sources — their structure and their management — are covered in the databases documentation, at /en/docs/plateforme-bases.
Forms are the natural complement: they collect visitor input (contact, sign-up, request) and attach it to the site's data. A form submission feeds a data binding, which avoids receiving the input through a separate channel and re-entering it afterwards.
- A data binding connects a page to hosted content, for reading as well as writing.
- A form collects visitor input and records it in the data attached to the site.
- The structure and management of the underlying data are described in /en/docs/plateforme-bases.
E-commerce
Beyond the showcase, a site can carry an e-commerce dimension: presenting products, managing a cart and triggering an order. This building block rests on the same foundations as the rest of the site — data for the catalogue, forms for customer input, deployments with activation for going online.
- The catalogue relies on data bindings: products are hosted content, not frozen HTML.
- The purchase journey reuses forms and data to capture the cart and order information.
- Going online follows the same deploy-then-activate cycle as the rest of the site.