Hosting
The desktop app
The Missionary Lane app for Mac and Windows sets up a self-hosted gallery and keeps it up to date. It's available to churches approved for self-hosting. Allow about 20 minutes, with a good internet connection.
On this page
Install it #
- Mac (macOS 11 or later): open the downloaded
.dmgfile and drag Missionary Lane into Applications. Then open it from Applications. - Windows: run the downloaded installer. It installs for your Windows account only.
Test builds: the unknown-developer warning #
Released downloads from your self-hosting page are signed, so your computer recognizes them. A test build that the Missionary Lane team sends you isn't signed, so your computer warns that it comes from an unknown developer. Only do this for a file you got from the Missionary Lane team.
- Mac: if it says Missionary Lane can't be opened, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down to the message about Missionary Lane, press Open Anyway, and confirm.
- Windows: if “Windows protected your PC” appears, choose More info, then Run anyway.
Test builds don't update themselves. Install the released version when it's available.
Enter your license key #
- Open the app and choose Set it up on our own accounts. (Host it for me opens the hosted sign-up page instead.)
- Paste your license key from your self-hosting page. It looks like
MLSH-ABCDE-FGHJK-LMNPQ-RSTUV; capital letters, spaces and dashes don't matter. - Press Check key.
- The app checks the license each time it starts, and before it updates or changes a gallery.
- Without internet it keeps working for 14 days after the last successful check.
- The licensee and church name show in the app's header.
What each setup screen asks #
| Screen | What you do |
|---|---|
| Supabase account | Create a free account at supabase.com. Open Access Tokens, generate a token named “Missionary Lane”, and paste it. It starts with sbp_ and is kept in your computer's keychain. |
| Choose a project | Create a new project (recommended): pick the organization, a name and the region closest to you. Save the database password somewhere safe and tick the box. Or use an empty project you already have. |
| Getting your project ready | Wait one to three minutes while Supabase starts the project. |
| Install the backend | Press Install now. It takes about a minute. If it stops, it's safe to try again: it carries on from where it stopped. |
| Tell us about your church | The church name, a short web name (lowercase letters, numbers and dashes), and your website if you'd like its colours, fonts and logo borrowed. |
| Make it yours | Check the preview, adjust four colours, upload a logo (PNG, JPG, SVG or WebP under 5 MB), and add an address, phone, giving link and plan-a-visit link. The text colour must be easy to read on white; Fix it for me darkens it. |
| Create the first administrator | An email address and a password of at least 10 characters that the meter rates at least Fair, typed twice. This person sets up two-step sign-in the first time they sign in to the admin. |
| AI and voice (optional) | Choose an AI service and a voice service and paste their keys, plus a CARTO key for the map. The keys go straight into your own Supabase project, never onto your computer. Skip for now if you don't have them yet. |
| Where should your gallery live? | Pick a host: Netlify (free and the simplest), Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, FTP, SFTP, S3-compatible storage, or a .zip you upload yourself. Fill in that host's details and press Publish now. |
| Add it to your church website | A menu link, the embed code, and how to use them on WordPress, Squarespace, Wix and others. |
| Done | Open admin opens the admin so you can sign in. Open gallery opens the public gallery. |
Notes on hosts #
- Cloudflare Pages: if publishing fails, the app offers a .zip to drag into the Cloudflare dashboard instead.
- S3-compatible storage (Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze, DigitalOcean Spaces, Wasabi): the bucket must already allow public reads with website hosting on. The app doesn't change bucket settings.
- GitHub Pages needs a public repository on GitHub's free plans.
- FTP uses an encrypted connection (FTPS) unless you choose plain FTP. SFTP remembers the server's fingerprint the first time and refuses to connect if it changes.
- Supabase's free plan allows two active projects, and free projects pause after a week without activity. The app tells you if your project is paused and how to restore it.
After setup #
The app's home screen lists your galleries. Each one has:
- Open gallery and Open admin.
- Update: after the app updates itself, this brings the gallery up to date. It applies new database changes, updates the server functions and republishes the web files to the saved host.
- Change hosting: publish the gallery somewhere else.
- Remove from this computer: deletes the saved keys from this computer only. The gallery stays online.
- Finish setup, if you stopped part way.
Released versions of the app update themselves while your license is valid. The admin's own settings, such as Run setup again, work the same as on hosted Missionary Lane.
Where your keys are kept #
- Your Supabase token, your project's secret key, hosting passwords and tokens, and your license key are kept in your computer's keychain, never in plain files or logs.
- AI and voice keys aren't kept on your computer at all. They go straight into your Supabase project's Vault.