Using Matrix as a blog engine (alongside the main site)

#1

Before anyone said it, I have searched this forum with keyword blog but I found most of them are from prior to 2010.

I am investigating to add a blog functionality to our site, run on Matrix and would like to hear success story as well as horror story from those who have attempted that. I think the issues would be around comment, especially because I would like to make the comment to be non-anonymous, but obviously also not a Matrix user.

Also if you can share link to the blog you have built on Matrix so that I can have a look. Thank you.

(Tbaatar) #2

One of the nicer use of Blog, Events and News implementation is by Royal Parks. https://www.royalparks.org.uk/whats-on

Not a massively complex on the front end but I imagine the editorial process is super tight and streamlined with workflow.

I have created Blog on Matrix for over 10 years and Matrix is pretty capable out of the box. It really depends on the editorial and workflow process which will be the main deal breaker as you will be handing over this process to someone else and personally I have found Matrix admin / Edit+ process to be a challenge for non techie users.

We manage all editorial content from Contentful and sync (SOAP) these to asset metadata in Matrix.

As for comments I’d stay clear of using Matrix, far better to create this using a plugin external service. You don’t wanna bloat your core system with spam comments.

#3

Hi @tbaatar, thank you for your response. I have checked out the link and from the front end it doesn’t seem too far away from what I have done on Matrix.

So when you said external plugin for commenting, do you mean something like Disqus? Or there is Matrix specific plugin?

A bit out of topic but I am really interested with your set up doing all editorial in Contentful and sync to asset in Matrix. Does it mean that you use Matrix only to serve content?

(Tbaatar) #4

Hi,

Yes, using external services such as Disgus.
As for Contentful x Matrix we have part of the core products/template and blogs setup through Contentful and served via Matrix and other parts of the system such as landing pages, forms and calendars, context built with Matrix.

So yeah bit of a hybrid system and it seems to give best of both worlds.

The only thing that is currently missing from our arsenal is dynamic SLUG creation for SEO.