Install Plone in under 5 minutes on Codio.com

(update September 28, 2015)
Plone 5 was released today. Here are the instructions for installing the stable version of Plone 5.

(update: July 31, 2015)
I don't recommend this anymore. Instead try installing Plone on Cloud9 IDE.


I was introduced to Codio.com by +Rok Garbas. It turns out to be a very nice platform for developing Plone projects. So far what I like is that every Codio box pretty much ships with all the Plone dependencies while at the same time having a full suite of Node based tools (important for modern Javascript development), this is a great time saver on new projects.

These are still early days so I can't say much more about the platform but I do love that Codio.com offers unlimited projects. The system feels like a good cross between Nitrous.io and Cloud9 IDE.

Here's a script (based on my Plone Nitrous.io installer) that will get you up and running on Codio.com in less than 5 minutes.

Once you've opened an account at Codio.com do the following:

Step 1 - create a new blank project

Step 2 - Open the terminal and run the script

Open a terminal by going to "Tools" > "Terminal".

Then paste the following command into the terminal.

curl -L http://goo.gl/5gwGgo | bash

You will see output similar to this:

Step 3  - Customize your Codio Project

Next to the help menu you should see the "Configure" option, if you don't see it click the little arrow near the end and then select "Configure".

This opens a .codio file which you can customize. Replace the existing text with the text below:

{
// Configure your Run and Preview buttons here.
// Run button configuration
  "commands": {
       "Start Plone":"plone-start.sh",
       "Stop Plone":"plone-stop.sh",
       "Debug Plone":"plone-debug.sh",
      "Admin Password": "cat $HOME/workspace/zeocluster/adminPassword.txt"
  },
// Preview button configuration
  "preview": {
        "Dynamic Site": "http://{{domain}}:8080/",
        "Static Index (static)": "https://{{domain}}/{{index}}",
        "Current File (static)": "https://{{domain}}/{{filepath}}"
  }
}

Now you're all set, you can manage Plone from the Codio menu.

Start and Set up of Plone

You can start Plone using the Codio menu. You should now see options such as:

Start Plone, Stop Plone, Debug Plone and Admin Password. 

To setup your first site "Start Plone" and wait about 20 seconds, make a note of your "Admin Password" and then select the "Dynamic Site" menu entry and click "Create a new Plone site". 

You should be good from there.