How to Create a Website for Free Using ImpressPages and Openshift

We’ve presented in previous posts how to create a website and even an online store for free using open source and free tools like WordPress, Joomla, Magento and many more. Though these tools are very simple but they might be overwhelming for some, and for those this post will present creating a website using ImpressPages which is a drag and drop content management system(CMS) which might appeal for many who find other CMS complicated.

This guide will present a step by step tutorial on how to create a website for free using ImpressPages and Openshift, the only skill you’ll need during the tutorial is your ability to use a web browser.

Requirements

1. A free Openshift account, just go to Openshift website and register using your email, no credit card is required.

 Steps

1. After registering; go to Openshift home page and click on the “MY APPS” on the top of the screen.
2. You’ll be directed to your log-in window and enter your credentials, you’ll be directed to a new window click on the blue “Create your first application now” link.
3. You’ll be directed to a window, select the “PHP 5.4” tab from the “PHP” menu.
4. You’ll be directed to a new window, in the public URL; type the name of the project/application name (e.g. ImpressPages, MyWebsite, etc.) in the first space and the domain name (it’s not your real domain name, just any identification name e.g. AwesomeGuy/AwesomeGal/YourName) in the second space.
5. Under the public URL, there’s the source code slot, just copy and paste the following  link “https://github.com/impresspages/ImpressPages.git” and it should look like the screenshot below.
6. Leave everything as it’s and click on “Create Application” tab at the end of the page.
7. It will take a while then you’ll be directed to a new window, just click on the blue “Not now continue” link.
8. You’ll be directed to a new window where you should add MySQL just by clicking the blue “Add MySQL” link.
9. You’ll be directed to a new window, just click on the “Add Cartridge” tab.
10. You shall be directed to anew window where you shall find all of your “MySQL” credentials.
11. Now you’ll need to add phpMyAdmin; click on the blue “Add phpMyAdmin” located at the bottom of the same window.
12. You’ll then be directed to a new window to confirm the addition of phpMyAdmin, just click on the “Add Cartridge” tab.
13. You’ll be directed to the main window again and it’s time to go to your ” website” and start the installation process, to do that simply click on the blue link at the top of the screen (that’s your URL).
14. You’ll be directed to the “ImpressPages” installation window, enter the required data and click on the “Next” tab.
15. You’ll be directed to a new window, where you should enter your some information like “password, database username, database password”, you can get this information from step “10”, leave the last field as default.
16. In that window,  you should provide your database credentials, there’s a small trick here which is getting your database Host IP, the easiest way to do so is to return to your application and click on the small arrow at the phpMyAdmin tab.
17. A new window will popup just copy the number shown in the below screenshot.
18. Paste that number in the database host slot in the ImpressPages installation, then fill in the rest of the  information from your database credentials that you can find in your application, then click next.
19. You’ll be directed to your ImpressPages website, a window will also popup with your admin username and password that you can change.

Now, you’ve a fully functional website that you can easily edit, it’s as simple as dragging and dropping.