If this is your first time using Hero, you're in for a treat. Hero is the fastest and most powerful content management system and web development platform on the market!

Take a look around this default Electric theme and see what Hero can do right out-of-the-box. If you like this design, you can hop into the control panel and begin managing your content types, content, store products, subscriptions, and anything else you need to put your project together.

If you aren't a big fan of this theme, there are other themes you can switch to at Design > Themes in the control panel. Or, you can take any theme and start customizing the HTML template files and CSS stylesheets to make it your own. You can edit the themes at Design > Theme Editor or via FTP (see the user guide for more information). If you go with this "custom theme" route, we recommend duplicating and renaming a theme folder (in /themes/) so you can upgrade to new releases of Hero without overwriting your custom theme folder.

Anyways, enough babbling - take a look around and enjoy Hero.

Filed under: Hero

This blog post serves two purposes: (1) provide some nice default content for you to enjoy, and (2) show off our {protected_link} template tag! This simple tag, placed in your template, will protect any URL or file from being downloaded by site members who are not in the proper member group(s).

Just feed it two parameters (e.g., "{protected_link url="uploads/my_file.pdf" groups="2"}") and it will automatically generate a protected link in your template. This allows you to make certain files subscribers- or members-only. And, when combined with another tag - {restricted} - you can now protect what users see on your site and what they can download, through simple template tags!

How about an example? This blog post has an attached download which will only be able to be downloaded by registered members. Can you download it?

You must be registered to access this download. Click here to register an account.

Filed under: Hero Technical

It seems like every new web app thinks it's a platform. What makes Hero . worthy of the title? Well, let's see:

1. Our file-based theme folders give you absolute control over every bit of HTML that is sent to your visitor's browser.
2. You can easily drop in totally independent module folders and add custom functionality, modifying the control panel, frontend, template plugins... anything!
3. We built Hero on other open-source platforms: CodeIgniter (a PHP framework) and Smarty (the most popular PHP template engine)! Hero uses unadulterated, cutting edge releases of both of these powerful platforms to make your development faster and easier than every before.
4. You can always upgrade to the latest release, simply by uploading the new files. It upgrades automatically in the background - foolproof every time!
5. There's nothing it can't do for you, most of the time right out-of-the-box, and always with some smart template customization and module building!

On that note, explore Hero and please replace this default content with your own!

Filed under: Hero