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neoan

Posted on Nov 13, 2021

Tech-blogging the easy way

#webdev #javascript #showdev

Lately I have seen a lot of posts here about how to set up your own blog. It's not a surprise that a regular Wordpress-installation doesn't really scream developer. On my personal blog neoan.us/blog, I use blua.blue and if you are a follower you will notice that many of my dev.to contributions originate from there as well (whenever I want to publish to multiple sites/services). However, knowing that the PHP-crowd here is miniscule I decided to provide you with 2 repositories you can start with that do not require the use of the blua.blue-API (because they are webhook-based) and allow you to simply design your blog using the means of your choice.

Description Repo

serverless framework

Description	Repo
serverless framework	sroehrl / serverless-blog blua.blue Serverless Framework Node Express API on AWS This POC is based on the serverless node/express/api template with added support for s3 bucket storage and rendering. Setup Create a bucket and ensure that your AWS cli AIM has the required permissions to read & write to this bucket. Change line 8 of handler.js accordingly: `const bucketName = 'my-article-storage-bucket'`; Usage Deployment Install dependencies with: `npm install` and then deploy with: `serverless deploy` Enhance The current setup is a POC to ease local development (when using serverless-local). Ultimately, you may want to set up your bucket as a website and permanently render what is now done in `app.get('/:slug?)` to HTML files (pug.compileFile) to enjoy a static blog. View on GitHub
file-based (mono-repo node & PHP)	sroehrl / minimal-blog minimal-blog blua.blue webhook POC This little repo can be run either with node or PHP and serves as a proof of concept for blua.blue based blogs without using the API or SDKs. Both the PHP-version and the node-version are based on a total of less than 75 lines of code. The PHP version is even completely free of dependencies. The goal of this project is was to create the easiest possible setup to host your own blog. See it here: https://equinox-vivacious-havarti.glitch.me/ How to use If you don't have an account, sign up at blua.blue Clone, fork or download this repo and host it depending on your needs* Set up webhooks on blua.blue PHP-endpoint: `https://your-site.com/receive.php` node-endpoint: `https://your-site.com/receive` *Be careful of hosting via services like heroku: many of these services delete files written to the file-system after some idle time That's it. Enjoy View on GitHub

sroehrl / serverless-blog

blua.blue Serverless Framework Node Express API on AWS

This POC is based on the serverless node/express/api template with added support for s3 bucket storage and rendering.

Setup

Create a bucket and ensure that your AWS cli AIM has the required permissions to read & write to this bucket.
Change line 8 of handler.js accordingly: const bucketName = 'my-article-storage-bucket';

Usage

Deployment

Install dependencies with:

npm install

and then deploy with:

serverless deploy

Enhance

The current setup is a POC to ease local development (when using serverless-local). Ultimately, you may want to set up your bucket as a website and permanently render what is now done in app.get('/:slug?) to HTML files (pug.compileFile) to enjoy a static blog.

View on GitHub

file-based (mono-repo node & PHP)

sroehrl / minimal-blog

minimal-blog

blua.blue webhook POC

This little repo can be run either with node or PHP and serves as a proof of concept for blua.blue based blogs without using the API or SDKs. Both the PHP-version and the node-version are based on a total of less than 75 lines of code. The PHP version is even completely free of dependencies.

The goal of this project is was to create the easiest possible setup to host your own blog.

See it here: https://equinox-vivacious-havarti.glitch.me/

How to use

If you don't have an account, sign up at blua.blue
Clone, fork or download this repo and host it depending on your needs*
Set up webhooks on blua.blue

PHP-endpoint: https://your-site.com/receive.php
node-endpoint: https://your-site.com/receive

*Be careful of hosting via services like heroku: many of these services delete files written to the file-system after some idle time

That's it. Enjoy

View on GitHub

How to use them

After deploying one of these versions, sign up with blua.blue and navigate to your profile. You will find the tab "Webhooks". With both repositories, you will want to generate a webhook to https://your-endpoint.tld/receive. There is no need for a token as we check for allowed origins, but ultimately you will want to set one of your choice and then verify the source of the payload (sent through authorization header as bearer token) in order to prevent other blua.blue-users to post on your behalf.

That's it

Lastly, please be aware of two things:

These repos are very basic and meant to be a boilerplate rather than a final solution. I am happy to accept pull-requests
Share! If you built something beautiful, let everyone know in the comments!