django-blog-plus 1.0.0

Enhanced features for django-blog-lotus: CTAs, cover styling, webhooks, and more

Django Blog Plus

Enhanced features for django-blog-lotus, providing additional functionality for professional blogging.

Features

• Call to Action (CTA) Blocks: Create reusable CTA components and assign them to articles
• Article Cover Styling: Customize cover image backgrounds with preset or custom colors
• View Tracking: Track article views for popular/trending widgets
• Webhook API: Create and update articles programmatically via REST API
• Scheduled Publishing: Automatically publish draft articles at scheduled times
• RSS/Atom Feeds: Full syndication support with category feeds
• SEO Enhancements: Sitemaps, reading time, heading optimization
• Premium Templates: Modern, responsive blog templates

Installation

pip install django-blog-plus

Quick Start

1. Add to your INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    'lotus',  # django-blog-lotus
    'django_blog_plus',
    # ...
]

2. Configure settings (optional):

DJANGO_BLOG_PLUS = {
    'SITE_NAME': 'My Blog',
    'SITE_DESCRIPTION': 'A blog about interesting things',
    'WEBHOOK_SECRET': 'your-secret-key',
    'ARTICLE_PUBLISHED_WEBHOOK_URL': '',  # Optional Zapier/n8n webhook
    'BASE_TEMPLATE': 'base.html',  # Your project's base template
    'DEFAULT_COVER_BG_COLOR': '#f8f9fa',
}

3. Add URL patterns:

from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    # ...
    path('blog/', include('lotus.urls')),
    path('api/blog/', include('django_blog_plus.urls')),
    # ...
]

4. Run migrations:

python manage.py migrate django_blog_plus

5. Add context processor (for blog categories in templates):

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        # ...
        'OPTIONS': {
            'context_processors': [
                # ...
                'django_blog_plus.context_processors.blog_categories',
                'django_blog_plus.context_processors.django_blog_plus_config',
            ],
        },
    },
]

Configuration Reference

Setting	Default	Description
SITE_NAME	'Blog'	Site name for RSS feeds
SITE_DESCRIPTION	''	Site description for RSS feeds
WEBHOOK_SECRET	None	Bearer token for webhook API authentication
ARTICLE_PUBLISHED_WEBHOOK_URL	''	URL to call when articles are published
BASE_TEMPLATE	'base.html'	Base template that blog templates extend
DEFAULT_COVER_BG_COLOR	'#f8f9fa'	Default background color for article covers
COVER_BG_COLORS	(preset list)	Available background color choices

Webhook API

Create Article

curl -X POST https://yoursite.com/api/blog/webhook/ \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "title": "My Article",
    "content": "<h2>Hello</h2><p>World</p>",
    "category_slug": "news",
    "status": "published"
  }'

Update Article

curl -X PATCH https://yoursite.com/api/blog/webhook/update/ \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_SECRET" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "article_url": "/blog/2024/01/15/my-article/",
    "title": "Updated Title"
  }'

See /api/blog/webhook/info/ for full API documentation.

Template Tags

{% load django_blog_plus %}

{# Reading time #}
{% reading_time article.content %} min read

{# Previous/Next navigation #}
{% get_adjacent_articles article as nav %}
{% if nav.previous %}Previous: {{ nav.previous.title }}{% endif %}

{# Article CTA #}
{% get_article_cta article.id as cta %}
{% if cta %}{{ cta.title }}{% endif %}

{# Popular articles #}
{% get_popular_articles 5 as popular %}

{# Cover background color #}
{{ article|article_cover_bg }}

Management Commands

# Publish scheduled articles (run via cron)
python manage.py publish_scheduled_articles

# Clean up placeholder images
python manage.py remove_blog_placeholder_images --dry-run

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or pull request on GitHub.