Customizing HiTechCloud Interface (Branding and White-Label)

Everything in HiTechCloud is modular and can easily be modified or disabled without breaking the rest of the functionalities.

To customize HiTechCloud, you have the following options:

• Display personalized message per user
• Enable/disable features and pages from the HiTechCloud interface
• Set pre-installed services for users
• Customize Default, Suspended User and Suspended Domain pages
• Localize the interface
• Set custom branding
• Set a custom color scheme
• Replace How-to articles with your knowledge base
• Customize any page
• Customize login page
• Add custom CSS or JS code to the interface
• Create a custom module for HiTechCloud
• Self-hosted temporary links for SiteManager
• Self-hosted screenshots for SiteManager

Personalized messages​

Administrators can set a custom message to be displayed for any HiTechCloud user by creating/editing file /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/core/users/USERNAME/custom_message.html file. Both plain text and HTML code are accepted:

Enable/disable features​

Administrators have the ability to enable or disable each feature (page) in the HiTechCloud interface. To activate a feature, navigate to HiTechAdmin > Settings > HiTechCloud and select service name in the "Enable Features" section and click save.

Once enabled, the feature becomes instantly available to all users, appearing in the HiTechCloud interface sidebar, search results, and dashboard icons.

Set pre-installed services​

HiTechCloud uses docker images as the base for each hosting plan. Based on the docker image, different services can be set per plan/user. For examples, we provide 2 docker images, one that has nginx pre-installed and another that uses apache. By creating a custom docker image, you can set in that image what to be pre-installed when you create a new user, for example, set mariadb instead of mysql or install php ioncube loader extension.

To add a custom service pre-installed for users:

• Create a custom docker image
• Create a new hosting plan with that docker image
• Create a new user on that plan

Localize the interface​

HiTechCloud is localization ready and can easily be translated into any language.

HiTechCloud is shipped with the EN locale, additional locales can be installed by the Administrator.

To install additional locales (replace de-de with your locale):

hitechcloudcli locale de-de

To translate HiTechCloud to another language follow these steps:

1. Fork this repository.
2. Copy en_us to your locale e.g. es_es
3. Translate the messages.pot file
4. Send a pull request

Set custom branding​

Custom brand name and logo can be set from HiTechAdmin > Settings > HiTechCloud page.

To set a custom name visible in the HiTechCloud sidebar and on login pages, enter the desired name in the "Brand name" option. Alternatively, to display a logo instead, provide the URL in the "Logo image" field and save the changes.

Customize Templates​

You can customize all templates that are displayed to users:

• Domain VHost Template
• Default Landing Page
• Suspended User Template
• Suspended Domain Template
• Error Pages

Create HiTechCloud Module​

To create a custom module (plugin) for HiTechCloud follow this guide: Example Module

Set a custom color scheme​

To set a custom color-scheme for HiTechCloud interface, edit the /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/custom.css file and in it set your preferred color scheme.

nano /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/custom.css

Set the custom css code, save and restart hitechcloud to apply changes:

cd /root && docker compose up -d hitechcloud

Example:

Replace How-to articles with your knowledge base​

HiTechCloud Dashboard page displays How-to articles from the HiTechCloud Docs, however these can be changed to display your knowledgebase articles instead.

Edit the file /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/conf/knowledge_base_articles.json and in it set your links:

{
    "how_to_topics": [
        {"title": "How to install WordPress", "link": "https://hitechcloud.org/docs/panel/applications/wordpress#install-wordpress"},
        {"title": "Publishing a Python Application", "link": "https://hitechcloud.org/docs/panel/applications/pm2#python-applications"},
        {"title": "How to edit Nginx / Apache configuration", "link": "https://hitechcloud.org/docs/panel/advanced/server_settings#nginx--apache-settings"},
        {"title": "How to create a new MySQL database", "link": "https://hitechcloud.org/docs/panel/databases/#create-a-mysql-database"},
        {"title": "How to add a Cronjob", "link": "https://hitechcloud.org/docs/panel/advanced/cronjobs#add-a-cronjob"},
        {"title": "How to change server TimeZone", "link": "https://hitechcloud.org/docs/panel/advanced/server_settings#server-time"}
    ],
    "knowledge_base_link": "https://hitechcloud.org/docs/panel/intro/?source=hitechcloud_server"
}

Edit any page template​

Each HiTechCloud template code is open and can easily be edited by just editing the HTML code.

Templates are located inside a Docker container named hitechcloud, so you first need to find the template that has the code that you want to edit.

For example, to edit the sidebar and hide the HiTechCloud logo, follow these steps:

1. Create a new folder/file locally for your modified code.

   mkdir /root/custom_template/
   

2. Copy the existing template code.

   docker cp hitechcloud:/usr/local/panel/templates/partials/sidebar.html /root/custom_template/sidebar.html
   

3. Edit the code.

4. Configure HiTechCloud to use your template. Edit the /root/docker-compose.yml file and in it set your file to overwrite the original template:

   nano /root/docker-compose.yml
   

   and in the file under hitechcloud > volumes set local path and original:

   - /root/custom_theme/sidebar.html:/usr/local/panel/templates/partials/sidebar.html
   

5. Restart HiTechCloud to apply the new template.

   cd /root && docker compose up -d hitechcloud
   

Customize login page​

HiTechCloud login page template code is located at /usr/local/panel/templates/user/login.html inside the docker container.

To edit the login page:

1. Create a new folder/file locally for your modified code.

   mkdir /root/custom_template/
   

2. Copy the existing template code.

   docker cp hitechcloud:/usr/local/panel/templates/user/login.html /root/custom_template/login.html
   

3. Edit the code.

4. Configure HiTechCloud to use your template. Edit the /root/docker-compose.yml file and in it set your file to overwrite the original template:

   nano /root/docker-compose.yml
   

   and in the file under hitechcloud > volumes set local path and original:

   - /root/custom_theme/login.html:/usr/local/panel/templates/user/login.html
   

5. Restart HiTechCloud to apply the new login template.

   cd /root && docker compose up -d hitechcloud
   

Add custom CSS or JS code​

To add custom CSS code to the HiTechCloud interface, edit the file /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/custom.css:

nano /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/custom.css

To add custom JavaScript code to the HiTechCloud interface, edit the file /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/custom.js:

nano /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/custom.js

To insert custom code within the <head> tag of the HiTechCloud interface, modify the content of the file located at /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/in_header.html and include your custom code within it:

nano /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/in_header.html

To insert custom code within the <footer> tag of the HiTechCloud interface, modify the content of the file located at /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/in_footer.html and include your custom code within it:

nano /etc/hitechcloud/hitechcloud/custom_code/in_footer.html