Installing Unify is as simple as using it. First, you will want to make sure that your server is running php 5 (don’t worry, Unify will tell you if you’re not), and you may want to check the server settings to make sure everything will run smoothly once installed.
If you have not already downloaded Unify, go to the login page here on the Unify site and enter the Unify credentials that you recieved when you purchased Unify. You will use the same credentials here as you will use in your copy of Unify on your server. Once logged in, download the latest version of Unify for your site.
Next unzip the unifyX.X.X.zip file you downloaded, open up your favorite FTP client, and upload the “unify” folder to the root of your site. You may also want to check out readme.rtf at this time. Once the file has been uploaded, Unify has been successfully installed on your site.
You do not need to know PHP, nor do you need to write your code specifically for Unify. In order to create editable areas on your site, you only need to add “unify” classes to each element. That’s it.
There are some important things to note: Unify elements do not nest—meaning that you should not place Unify classes within other “unify” or “unifyRepeat” elements—but if you do nest them, Unify will only read the outer-most element. Also, Unify classes must only be applied to block-level elements. Please read this for more info about what is and what is not block-level.
Unify works well with PHP includes. There are only two things to remember: Unify cannot read nested includes—or includes within includes—and you cannot place an include within a Unify editable area.
Unify Repeatables are an all together different tool that allow you to rearrange and duplicate complex sets of elements. For example, say you have an element whose inner HTML is a little bit complicated, like so:
<div> <img class="fancy" src="images/fancyimg.jpg" alt="Fancy" /> <h4>Caption Header</h4> <p>Some more caption content goes here</p> </div>
If this element will need to be duplicated, you could just wrap it in a “unify” element and hope that your client is savvy enough to grab all the appropriate tags when copying. We know this is a scary thought to most developers, and this is why we created Unify Repeatables. Now you can create a “unifyRepeatArea” container, and make the original element a “unifyRepeat” element, like so:
<div class="unifyRepeatArea">
<div class="unifyRepeat">
<img class="fancy" src="images/fancyimg.jpg" alt="Fancy" />
<h4>Caption Header</h4>
<p>Some more caption content goes here</p>
</div>
</div>
The “unifyRepeatArea” defines a boundary. Within that boundary, “unifyRepeat” elements can be duplicated and rearranged. There can also be non-editable elements within the “unifyRepeatArea”, but these will be static, and will only be moved as nudged by other arrangeable content. “unifyRepeat” elements outside of “unifyRepeatArea” elements will be ignored by the UI and publishing functions.
Please visit our support forums for more info on Unify Repeatables.
Unify was not designed to be a complicated solution that would require a lengthy testing period or any development area. If you want to give it a test run, though, before deploying for a client or on your own site, we suggest one of these three options:
For Unify to work, it must be installed and running on a live, licensed domain or sub-domain. This means you will need a live connection to the Internet to use Unify. You can develop locally (provided you have an interet connection) by doing the following:
For more information, please see this article.