We've added Blogging in Brizy Cloud

on 6 February 2021, by Dimi, in Blog, Cloud, FREE, Updates

As you may know, we've been working on Brizy Cloud blogging for the past months and we are excited to let you know that today we are bringing the Brizy Cloud CMS to life by adding the blogging functionality and dynamic content.

This was a huge undertaking because this is the foundation of what's to come in the next months and years (ACF, more dynamic elements, custom posts builder, and eventually shopping) and we needed to carefully take a lot of things into consideration.

As we worked on the foundation, we've also crafted a new UI for blogging that is seamlessly integrated with the Brizy builder. Our main goal on the UI/UX side was to let you access everything effortlessly directly in the builder and offer a cohesive experience when building your websites.

Besides the main blogging functionality, we are introducing a new way of working with templates for categories or single posts that we are excited about. From now on you'll be creating your pages and templates at the same time. We've merged them together.

We envision Brizy Cloud as a full-fledged cloud CMS with an Assets Builder (Custom Post Builder) and ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) functionality that will let you create complex dynamic projects. This together with our innovative approach on UI/UX will make Brizy Cloud CMS one of the best tools to create websites, blogs, and eventually online shops.

Only for new websites for now (Read This)

The Brizy Cloud blogging functionality entailed big, complex changes on how our data-bases work and also some changes and adjustments on the server-side. Because of this, we choose to instance the blogging functionality only for new websites for the time being.

That means that if you already have a Brizy Cloud website, you will not see the new blogging features inside the builder. You need to create a new project to get the blogging features.

We'll go like this for 2-3 months until we migrate all the current Brizy Cloud projects (over 80k) from the old Brizy Cloud (without blogging) to the new Brizy Cloud (with blogging). This migration will happen in stages a couple of thousand projects at a time as we carefully monitor for issues that might appear in the process.

Brizy Cloud blogging is FREE to use

This should not come as a big surprise since one of our missions is to create the first free Cloud CMS. Blogging is the core of any respectable CMS so, the main Brizy Cloud blogging functionality is FREE to use by everyone and will be included in all Brizy Cloud accounts: Free and PRO.

The more advanced features like ACF (Advanced Custom Fields), Assets Builder (Custom Post Builder) will be included PRO-only, but the main blogging functionality is Free to use.

The new UI/UX

When we started to work on the Brizy Cloud CMS we knew we needed to extend the UI in a way that is meaningful and fits perfectly with what's already there. Another important aspect was that we wanted to integrate the new UI (inside the builder) in a way that once you get into the builder you have everything at your fingertips. No back and forth between "an admin" and the builder.

A cohesive experience that is seamlessly integrated within the Brizy builder.

How to add blog posts

Adding new blog posts is very easy (we didn't reinvent the wheel here). You just add a new post and fill in the predefined default fields: Title, Featured Image, and Excerpt. You can change the permalink as well. Don't forget to publish the post and add it to some blog categories.

Once we'll add the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) functionality and the Asset Builder (Custom Post Builder) you'll be able to modify the Blog asset, add more fields or even create your custom asset.

How to create blog posts categories

Same for the blog categories, it doesn't get easier than this to add or modify categories. Once we'll have the ACF in (1-2 months), you'll be able to add fields or modify the categories the way you want.

In our Asset Builder, everything is an asset: Pages, Blog Posts, Categories, it doesn't matter. And the cherry on top is that you'll have full and total control over the fields you'll have there.

How to work with dynamic content

Dynamic content lets you bring your blog post fields dynamically on a page via dynamic elements and it's very useful when you want to handle multiple posts all at once by creating templates.

In this update we are introducing 4 dynamic Brizy elements:

Archive – used to create category post listings;

Posts – used to create related posts blocks;

Title – brings in the title of the asset you are working on be it post, custom post, or page;

Excerpt – displays the excerpt of the blog post or description of the page

Note that based on the page you are editing, some elements might not be displayed in the Elements panel. For example, if you are not working on a Category page, the Archive element will not appear since this element is tightly linked with blog categories.

(FYI: If you are familiar with our Brizy WordPress plugin, all the dynamic elements from there will come to Brizy Cloud when we'll introduce the ACF functionality)

Dynamic elements & single posts

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Archive element & blog categories

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How to create templates

The way you usually work with templates in most CMS's is you add the content somewhere (in the post) and set the templates somewhere else (a template section usually). This is most of the time hard to understand & manage. It's also hard to explain and introduces a disconnect between editing regular pages and working with dynamic content and templates.

Wouldn't be more natural to work on everything all at once? directly in the builder?

Creating Brizy Cloud blogging from scratch allowed us to reinvent how you create templates and the answer is dynamic content, global blocks & display conditions. This will enable you to work more naturally with the builder by creating pages and templates at the same time. Every page can be a template as well based on the blocks and conditions you have on that page.

We are treating all assets in Brizy Cloud (blog posts, custom posts, categories, pages) as regular pages. In other words, if you want to edit a blog category or blog post, you just go and edit it with Brizy and the same goes with any asset.

When you want to work in bulk (create a template), you just drag some dynamic elements in a block, set the block as global, and use the display conditions to put it across your other categories, or posts, or where you need it.

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What's coming next

We are working on a bunch of things for Brizy Cloud but in the next months we are preparing the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) and the Asset builder s (custom blog posts), a design update and web-hooks.

Great things ahead.

Article by Dimi

Co-founder & CEO of Brizy, Dimi has a passion for Web projects with cutting-edge tech & great usability. He's always happy to share and connect with others.