I have developed a couple of websites using RapidWeaver and I have now started building a couple with Blocs. I have decided to build my own new website using Blocs, because I love the fact that all features I need are embedded in the app (and Bootstrap). I don’t want to be dependent on at least 5 other pieces of software, including a declining framework.
So, it came down to the blog. RapidWeaver has an integrated blog page, which is not useful for building websites for clients, but it is when building the website for yourself.
Do you have any recommendations for a blog tool ?
My only requirement is that I can write or paste (ideally upload directly on ftp) content in markdown format, because I want to use apps I enjoy writing content and I also do it offline
After reviewing the bricks / solutions Blocs offers, I believe the only blog option in Blocs is Volt CMS. I didn’t really like the demo they have here, and it seems like I am constrained writing content using their styled html editor.
Any ideas ?
P.S.
How great would it be if we could upload our blog entry in mywebsite.com/blog/entries using md format
and then a platform would aggregate this content into mywebsite.com/blog/index.html automagically and creating somekind of indexing / keyword aggregation etc.
To be fair, if you’re willing to let go of the FTP uploading part of your blog articles, you could go the WordPress route (combined with Blocs Plus). When combined with the Jetpack plugin, you can set the WordPress editor to accept markdown. Activate it in Jetpack > Settings > Writing. Under “Composing” you can activate it like this:
It has been several years since I last used the RW blog tool, however I recall it was terribly limited at the time and it always seemed like Realmac had no interest in developing it further.
Volt is more than capable of producing good blogs. For example, @casey1823 has his own photography blog built using Volt https://itsmytimephotography.com. The beauty of Volt is that it is easy to set up, reliable and made purely for Blocs. It also has great support with ongoing development and I think it can really grow if we see some improvements in the developer API.
You could also look at options like October CMS and @PeteSharp is the resident expert there, though I suspect you would find that more complex to set up and manage.
I suppose the other option is almost too obvious to mention. You could create a custom theme using Blocs, then run a blog using WordPress with zero cost beyond Blocs itself if you have the plus version. The only downside comes if you are not happy using WordPress.
The Volt demo on @Jannis page is designed just to show what Volt can do. He provides all the classes needed to style the blog. You can also add styles manually in Blocs for text and images.
The developer continues to improve Volt and I’m hoping to see some new features. @brechtryckaert is probably the one that knows the most about integrating Blocs and WordPress.
I’m sure WordPress can offer more features but for me, Volt does a good job. It’s easy to set up and update my Blog without opening Blocs.
I’d go even as far as saying Volt is perfect for Blocs users, but I only turned to WordPress since the author of the thread was adamant on using Markdown. Volt is far more interesting performance-wise than WordPress, even though I’m preaching against my choir here.
For reasons I won’t bore you with again, I use Eldar’s Blogger template. Simple to use and keep updated. Maybe somebody else who uses it can explain further.
