Introduction Last updated: 17. Sep 2023

Discover the ideas and guidelines for creating and extending Docly™.

About Docly™

> Express coding platform

Docly™ is built on and uses open standards. It provides an easy way to code and publish your websites and apps online. It builds on JavaScript, JSON and HTML. We run serverside JavaScript directly from JS files (API folder only) - and also with our #JS syntax, we are able to execute JS inline in your HTML, CSS, etc on server side.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <body>
        <h1>Some html</h1>
        #{
            // #JS example
            // Write javascript her
            // that runs on the server
            write("hello world!");
        }#
    </body>
</html>

This way you can display your Docly™ data in your custom templates with our rich library of functions. It makes Docly™ a super fast and easy to use document database in the cloud with builtin coding tools. We also bring some new ideas on how to easily reuse code and make generic reusable templates. 🚀

> A great "NO CMS" / headless alternative and more

There is a new trend as CMS tools are getting "too big and complicated to handle". And where the need for continious security and operational control is a constantly needed.

Docly™ lets you easily build websites and make a simple and tailored CMS/admin site for your clients exact need. This makes it easier for them to learn and admin their site and apps.

Docly™ is not a "NO CODE" platform. This is because we love code, and we know you either do or will too. Nothing beats the real power of code! 💪

Docly™ provides capabilities to create advanced responsive forms with drag and drop designers or code. And stores everything in a new super easy to learn JSON document database model. You can basically create anything.

The Docly™ programming model facilitates and makes it easy to create and meet the modern PWA design principles.

Read more about headless:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headless_content_management_system

> "Serverless" hosting model

Pricing and capacity on usage available. Docly™ has been built from the bottom focusing on keeping resource usage very low and scalable.

Docly can scale seamlessly over multiple servers or isolate certain accounts away from others. Solutions can be seperated away from the Docly cloud an later merged back if a cloud hosting model is at a later point desired again.

Read more about serverless:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serverless_computing

> Security 🔐

Docly™ was designed with security in focus from the very start. We provide:

  • Extensive monitoring
  • Secure 2FA login
  • Automated notifications and blocking

> Locations / GDPR

Docly™ is running in Microsoft Azure several sites around the world. You can also run Docly™ on your own server.

Coding and customizing

> Web standards

Docly™ uses the well known webstandards HTML, JSON and JavaScript for all customization and programming. This makes it easy for any developer to start building new or take over existing code.

Docly™ also uses JavaScript on the server side - developers can program their own websites, apps and API functions with this well known syntax. With our #JS syntax you can write server side script into any HTML, CSS, JSON or other text file.

> Overview of concepts

Docly™ brings a new unique mix of simple yet powerful concepts to "the table". Making prototyping and express development of small scale systems super fast and easy.

The main concepts of Docly™ for coding and extending web apps:

Concept Description
Docly™ schemas With document and folder schemas you can create the document structure and editor for your Docly™ files and folders. Code templates for sharing (downloading, sending or publishing) documents.
Published folders Folders can be published with their content with different builtin templates or custom made templates.
Published documents Documents and be supplied with templates for HTML or PDF generation to be published on an URL or downloaded/sent by email.
.hash files Code files (run Javascript inline) that can bind data to the page on server side. Outputs html, css, txt, etc.
Include directive <!--#include file="....
Master directive <!--#master file="....
Cache Docly™ forces caching on all pages except API functions. This means an architecture that requires very low amount of resources and facilitates for designing fast web apps.
# folder The code / template folder with schemas and defines default content for your application. Such as default index files for root and folders.
#/API folder The API folder where you can code your own dynamic JSON WEB API with JS files running server side.
Data (Files and folders) Any file/document or folder that contain data, configuration or content for your application.

Apply for developer access

To ensure high security on the Docly platform all developers have to apply for access to the development functions and agree to our terms and code of conduct.

Please go to this page to submit your application for developer access:
https://docly.net/Request-developer-access