NewsCMS — News & Magazine CMS

Thank you for purchasing NewsCMS! This guide walks you from a fresh hosting account to a fully branded, running news site. No programming knowledge is required for installation — if you can use cPanel, you can install NewsCMS.

1. Server requirements

The installer checks every requirement automatically before it lets you continue — you don't need to verify these by hand.

2. Installation

APP_URL=https://your-domain.com
DB_DATABASE=your_database_name
DB_USERNAME=your_database_user
DB_PASSWORD=your_database_password

The installer locks itself after a successful run (storage/installed.lock). It cannot be re-run, and it returns a 404 afterwards — this is intentional, for your security.

Installing without the web installer (developers)

composer install
cp .env.example .env && php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate --seed   # prints a one-time admin password to the console
npm install && npm run build  # optional — a prebuilt copy ships in public/build

3. License activation

Each purchase includes one license key valid for one domain. After signing in to the admin panel you are taken to Admin → License:

1. Paste the license key you received with your purchase.
2. Click Activate. The site contacts the license server once and stores a signed offline token — after that it only re-checks periodically (with a 7-day offline grace period, so a license-server outage never takes your site down).
3. Moving to a new domain? Click Deactivate first, then activate on the new domain with the same key.

localhost, 127.0.0.1 and *.test domains never require activation — develop and stage freely.

4. First-time setup checklist

1. Settings → General — site name, tagline, description, contact details.
2. Settings → Appearance — logo upload, brand colors, site font, dark mode accent. The whole frontend (and the PWA icon) follows these.
3. Settings → Homepage — choose which sections appear and in what order; assign categories to each block.
4. Categories — create your sections (with menu visibility and colors).
5. Staff & Roles — invite editors and journalists. Roles ship preconfigured: Super Admin, Editor (publishes), Journalist (submits for review).
6. Menus — build header/footer menus.
7. Settings → SEO & Ads — meta defaults, Google Analytics ID, AdSense client ID, ads.txt.

5. Admin panel guide

6. AI Studio setup (optional)

All AI features are optional and bring-your-own-key:

1. Go to AI Studio → Settings.
2. Add a provider: any OpenAI-compatible API, Anthropic (Claude) or Google Gemini, with your API key.
3. Map tasks (writing, headlines, SEO meta, tags, radar, chat answers, embeddings) to a provider/model. Leave a task unmapped to disable it.

No key configured = the AI buttons simply hide. The product is fully functional without any AI provider.

7. Integrations

8. Languages & timezone

• UI language: set site locale in Settings. UI strings live in lang/en.json and lang/bn.json (English and Bangla ship in the box). To add a language, copy lang/en.json to e.g. lang/es.json and translate the values.
• Content languages: manage under Admin → Languages; categories and posts belong to a language.
• Timezone: set APP_TIMEZONE in .env (e.g. Asia/Dhaka, Europe/London). Default is UTC.
• The bn locale automatically localizes digits and dates.

9. Demo content (optional)

To showcase the theme with realistic content, run from a terminal:

php artisan db:seed --class=BanglaDemoSeeder     # categories + articles + ads + events
php artisan db:seed --class=PortalExtrasSeeder   # geo data, videos, galleries, jobs

BanglaDemoSeeder wipes existing posts, categories, tags and ads — only use it on a fresh site. All demo images are generated placeholders (picsum.photos or SVG); no copyrighted press photos are included or downloaded.

10. Updating

1. Take a backup (Admin → Settings → Backups, or your hosting backup).
2. Upload the new release over the old files (your .env, storage/ and uploads are never part of the package).
3. Visit /admin — pending database migrations run via php artisan migrate --force if shell access is available, or use the update instructions in the release notes.

Every release documents its changes in CHANGELOG.md.

11. FAQ / troubleshooting

The homepage shows a plain error page

Check storage/logs/laravel.log. The most common cause is wrong DB_* credentials in .env. Never set APP_DEBUG=true on a live site.

Images don't appear

The installer links public/storage automatically. If images 404, run php artisan storage:link or create the symlink in cPanel.

CSS looks broken after moving the site

Make sure the public/build/ folder uploaded completely and APP_URL matches your domain.

I forgot my admin password

Use the "Forgot password" link on the admin login (requires mail settings in .env), or reset it via database.

Can I remove the license system?

The license client protects the author's distribution rights and stays. It never phones home more than a periodic heartbeat and has a 7-day offline grace.

12. Credits & third-party licenses

13. Support

Support covers bugs, usage questions and included third-party asset questions per the marketplace item support policy. It does not cover installation service, hosting issues or customization work. Please include your Laravel log excerpt and PHP version when reporting a bug.