Existing site integration (Perch)

[compositor]

Hi,

I use a CMS called Perch (also of British fame) and am endeared to it very much where at least one client is concerned and would not really want to consider using anything else for anyone bar myself however as I have read in various places to do with Blesta, integration with popular platforms such as Wordpress and Joomla presents problems so I am wondering if anyone has any experience with that (perch) platform and integrating it with Blesta billing software.

Perch is designed to work with existing sites, with pages being able to be created with no interference from the CMS; using as little or as much code as you like, which is its' primary strength but of course I'd need another license were I to start a new website for myself hence my exploration of the Blesta CMS plugin.

Ongoing charges as far as Blesta is concerned aren't really the problem, it is how to get a full website front-end up and running, which consequently I have not developed so while I could use many of the templates I have already made in Perch; starting off on the right foot in this instance is paramount.

I was thinking of using something like Get Simple but again if Blesta will cut it in this regard, why would I bother?

Thanks for any information

[Paul]

My suggestion for integrating with websites is pretty simple. We suggest keeping Blesta separate, and simply updating the templates to match your website. They will be independent, but look seamless.

~/app/views/client/bootstrap/structure.pdt contains the header and footer of the client area and front facing pages. Usually all you have to do is modify this file, and sometimes add a new overrides.css file with your CSS changes to overwrite any styles you need to.

We recommend running Blesta on a server by itself if possible, at a subdomain like my.domain.com, or account.domain.com, billing.domain.com, etc. This way, if there is a vulnerability in your website, it won't affect your customer data.