Website (site-builder) — user manual

The Website module lets you build standalone websites inside nGage and publish them to your own hosting as a static site. It works on a bare nGage (just login + this module) and gets richer automatically when other modules (like Gigs) are installed.

Overview

Pages → blocks. A website is a set of pages. Each page is built from content blocks (text, image, video, gallery, form, embed) and optional module content blocks (e.g. an upcoming-gigs agenda).
Portable content. Everything you enter is stored as one portable document per site, so a whole website is easy to back up or copy.
Publish as a static site. Publishing renders your site to plain HTML + assets and (optionally) pushes the bundle to your own hosting through a small, secured proxy. Visitors then get a fast static site with no dependency on nGage.

First steps

Open Websites from the menu.
Click New website, enter a name, pick a template, and submit.
You land in the editor.

Templates

When you create a website you choose a template — a ready-made, fixed layout. You fill its editable text and image regions; the layout itself stays consistent.

Default — a clean one-page layout: a header image with a title and tagline, an "about" section, and sections for upcoming shows, band members and contact details.
Band — a richer, artist-page-inspired one-page band site: a hero, an about block with a photo, upcoming shows, the line-up, a photo gallery and a contact section. It comes pre-filled with demo text and demo photos so you immediately see a finished-looking site; just replace the demo content with your own.

The module-backed sections (upcoming shows, line-up, contact) fill themselves automatically from your other modules (Gigs and Bands) when those are installed and have data. If a module is missing, disabled or empty, that section simply stays empty and the rest of the page still works.

The editor

The editor shows the template with its editable areas highlighted. There is no separate "blocks" panel — you edit the page directly:

Editing text

Click any highlighted text to edit it in place (bold, italics, lists and links are available). Click outside the text when you are done.

Editing images

Every editable image has a clear Change image button in its top-right corner (empty image areas show an Add image placeholder). Click the image or that button to open the Edit image dialog, choose a picture with Upload, see a preview, and click Save to apply it. Images are automatically resized and optimised, stored with your site, and included when you publish.

Preview, publish, settings

Preview opens your website in a new tab exactly as visitors would see it.
Publish saves your work, builds the static site and (if a deploy target is set) pushes it to your hosting.
Settings (gear icon) opens website settings.

Settings

Website name and publish mode. Static export pushes files to your own hosting; Live managed serves the site directly from our server on your own domain (see "Live managed hosting" below).
Theme slug (optional) — link to a Theme Generator theme for colours/typography.
Static deploy target — the HTTPS URL of the deploy.php proxy on your own hosting plus the allowed server IP. Leave empty to only build a local bundle (for testing or manual download).
Publish history — a log of recent publish runs.
Danger zone — permanently delete the website.

Publishing to your own hosting (static export)

On your hosting, install the provided deploy.php + .htaccess (see the technical documentation) in a private folder, set the shared secret, allowed IP and target web-root, and make sure it is reachable over HTTPS.
In Settings → Static deploy target, enter the proxy URL and allowed IP and save. nGage stores a per-site secret for you.
Click Publish. nGage builds the site, signs the bundle and pushes it; the proxy verifies the signature and swaps it into place atomically.

If you do not configure a deploy target, Publish still builds a local bundle on the nGage server (handy for testing).

Live managed hosting (your own domain)

Instead of exporting files, you can let your website be served live from our server on your own domain:

Set Publish mode to Live managed and save.
Open Manage domains (from Settings) and add your domain (e.g. www.example.com).
Point your domain at our server: create an A record to the IP shown, or a CNAME to app.ngage.band.
Prove you own the domain with either a DNS TXT record at _ngage-verify.<your domain> or a file at /.well-known/ngage-site-verification.txt containing the shown token, then click Verify.
Once verified, a TLS (HTTPS) certificate is issued for your domain during cutover and your site goes live. Click Publish to (re)build the live pages.

You can connect several domains and choose which one is primary.

Forms

Form blocks post to a public endpoint that is protected with a honeypot, a timing check and per-IP rate limiting. Submissions are now e-mailed to the recipients you configure under Settings → Form delivery:

Recipient e-mail addresses — one or more addresses (comma/newline separated).
Sending method — use the built-in mailer, or your own SMTP server (host/port/encryption/username/password/from address) for a standalone install.
The visitor's e-mail becomes the Reply-To, so you can reply directly; the From stays on the sending domain so delivery (SPF/DKIM) keeps working.

If no recipients are set, submissions are only logged (no mail is sent).

FAQ

Do I need other modules? No. The module is fully standalone. Installing modules like Gigs simply adds extra module content blocks automatically.

Where are my images? Uploaded images are stored with your site and included in the published static bundle.

Can I have multiple websites? Yes. Each is independent with its own pages, content and settings.