A CMS (or two) for Nikola: Dato CMS and Netlify CMS integration

Chris Warrick — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 19:15:00 GMT

One of the many complaints users have about static site generators is the fact that non-tech-savvy users who don’t understand the command line or don’t want to learn Markdown/reST can’t use SSGs. We’ve tried to solve this before with Coil CMS, but that project is now dead, and was hard to configure properly. The problem was not solved, until now.

Roberto Alsina and Chris Warrick independently built integrations for Dato CMS, Netlify CMS and Contentful. Here they are:

Both CMSes offer facilities for non-technical editors to write content, including a WYSIWYG editor.

Dato CMS may require a bit more work at first, but you can automate it (eg. with Travis CI, or Netlify). Our integration lets you deploy your site anywhere.

Netlify CMS can be deployed with one click (and a few configuration changes), and includes automation and hosting at Netlify (and GitHub). You can also use some other hosting service, but that will require some extra work on your side.

Contentful does not require a local install of Node to work, which makes it easier to use and automate, while leaving the hosting up to you.

Make sure to check them both out — have fun!

(Updated 2017-12-06 to add Contentful support)

Really Static Comments with Staticman

Roberto Alsina — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 12:51:07 GMT

Static sites have many advantages, we always say. But they also have at least one large inherent disadvantage: they are not dynamic. Not being dynamic means that forms that alter the content of the site itself are not possible without going outside the static side of things.

That's why for comments we all end up using something like Disqus or some other alternative service, or Isso if you prefer the annoyance of self-hosting instead of the annoyance of having your data be owned by someone else.

So... how about a service that lets you do forms, but:

You keep full control of your data
The service doesn't limit what you can do with the data
You can use it for most things a form is used for?
It's free!

That service is called Staticman and it's awesome.

This is how it works:

You put your site in GitHub (or soon, Gitlab!)
You do some configuration

And Staticman will take the form's data, convert it to JSON, YAML, or whatever, and put it back in your site's GitHub repo. You can choose whether it uses "moderation", and do that via a pull request, or not, in which case it just commits directly.

Nikola can then use those data files from its templates, like in this example which displays a form to post comments, and a list of previous comments.

Then, if you combine that with an autobuild system, like using Travis or Netlify or Gitlab that means a few seconds/minutes after the form is submitted, the data appears back in the site.

So, what do we end up with? A site with comments, where you own all the data, and not even need to use Javascript to display the comments!

You can see it in action in this demo site: staticman-demo.netlify.com

TODO: submit the form via Javascript instead, so it does it in the background instead of dumping JSON results on you.

Have fun, leave a comment :-)

Nikola (Posts about netlify)

A CMS (or two) for Nikola: Dato CMS and Netlify CMS integration

Really Static Comments with Staticman