Writing a blog post

File and folder setup

You write a .md file which stands for .markdown. Markdown is an established way to write with formatting. You can find instructions on how to write it on this page.

The name of the file has to be in the following syntax: **my-blog-post.md with dashes instead of spaces and in all lower-case. This ensures that we can link between pages optimally.

By following this guide, you have access to the file structure of the website. Here you will place your .md file in the in the /content/posts/ folder. Any content you wish to reference that is not online (like images and files) must be placed in the /static/posts/my-blog-post/ folder. Then you make references to them in your markdown text by writing the link as ../posts/my-blog-post/my-image.jpg (see an example of using images in your blog post on the markdown page).

Blog post settings

The blog post settings are important to show your blog post as you want it in The Attention Spotlight. You write them in the top of your .md blog post file. For example:

---
author: "Author name"
date: 2020-05-05
title: This is a blog post
next: /next-blog-post-file-name
prev: /previous-blog-post-file-name
categories: ['Category', 'Another Category']
tags: ['Tag', 'Another Tag']
bookHidden: true
---

Author, date, and title make good sense. The next and prev are the blog posts that get linked to at the bottom of this specific blog post. They are not necessary. The categories and tags are already mostly well-defined in the blog section (and are visible as filters on The Attention Spotlight). If you feel like we need to add another one, contact us. bookHidden means that the blog post will not show up in the left menu.

Finishing up

When you are finished writing the .md file, putting it in the correct directory, putting the associated files in the relevant directory in the static folder, and you are ready to share your post with the world, you can follow these instructions to create a pull request. Then your blog post will be reviewed and accepted in The Attention Spotlight.