Firebase Content Management

With PushTable content management system and the Firebase API, businesses can significantly simplify their development process. Data in stored in Firebase DB can easily connect to multiple platforms and used to build static web pages, drive mobile application data, configure settings for their single page applications and more.

One key advantage of using a CMS powered by Firebase is the ability to build applications using a serverless architecture. The combination of Firebase's ability to be queried directly from the browser, Firebase Cloud Functions and Firebase Web Hosting allows developers to easily build their application without having to worry about maintaining server environments.

In this guide, we'll look at some typical use cases and how developers can use PushTable to create an effective content management solution.

Managing Application Data

Firebase supports many popular programming languages through its official SDK and community written libraries. For the purpose of accessing data in a CMS workflow, in most cases you will only want to use the simpler REST API. We've listed the relevant libraries below, for more, please see official list of Firebase SDKs, frameworks and utilities.

Platform Documentation
Android Android SDK Reference
iOS - Swift Swift SDK reference
iOS - Objective C Objective C SDK reference
Web Javascript SDK reference
Python Python SDK reference
Go Go SDK reference
Java Java SDK reference
REST REST HTTP SDK reference

Static Sites

A static page or flat file website is one where the content delivered to the user is exactly what is stored. In contrast to dynamic web pages where the content is generated by a web server. However, a static site does not mean that it is less capable than a dynamic site. A static site can still render dynamic content but it does so on the browser using javascript instead of using a server-side scripting language.

Static sites are fast becoming popular again amongst developers. Building a webpage as a static site means that you don't have to use a server. If you can build a website or application without the use of a server It allows for much better performance and security. It enables you distribute your website across a global CDN and can ensure that anyone in the world can access your content quickly. Additionally if you are an agency or a company with many websites it saves a lot of maintenance effort to not have to worry about all the different server environments.

Hosting with Firebase

Firebase offers a hosting solution for static websites and enables developers to quickly and easily deploy web apps and static content to a global content-delivery network (CDN). It offers a generous free storage capacity, support custom domain and rewrite rules and will automatically generate an SSL certificate for you.

Simply download the command line tool, go to your project directory and run:

firebase init

Now you can add your files that you want to deploy and run:

firebase deploy

Instantly you'll have live website running. Please see the full documentation to customize hosting behavior.

Data Templates

To see an example of how to setup a data model in PushTable, import one of our data templates. You can find the templates by opening a project in the PushTable dashboard, going to the data model tab. Near the bottom of the page you'll find a list of templates that we offer to help you explore the capabilities of the CMS.

If you import the static site template it will add some data into your database with the following fields and corresponding input types:

title <string>
content <richtext>
published <boolean>,
tag <selection>, 
date <datetime>,
file <fileupload>

Limitations

When you first create a new project in Firebase you'll start on the free tier (Spark Plan) while this is quite generous we recommend users to upgrade to the pay as you go plan (Blaze) for production use. Often the costs are minimal and you will not have limits to database connections or storage. Additionally, the free tier can experience longer than expected latencies.

https://firebase.google.com/pricing/

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