Archived 07.06.2023

We have integrated the blog into our documentation site.

You can find and contribute to this repo here https://github.com/statelyai/docs.

Official Stately.ai blog

A Next.js project bootstrapped with create-next-app.

• Install
• Run locally
• Create a new blog post
• Writing style guide
• Shortcodes

Install

1. Clone the blog repository to your machine:
   $ git clone git@github.com:statelyai/blog.git
2. Navigate into the blog folder:
   $ cd blog
3. Install yarn package manager globally if you don’t already have yarn installed on your machine:
   $ npm install -g yarn
4. Install the dependencies for this project:
   $ yarn
5. You’re ready to run the blog

Run locally

1. Run the development server to spawn a local server on port 3000:
   $ yarn dev
2. Visit http://localhost:3000/ to find your server running.

Create a new blog post

Blog posts are stored inside content/posts.

1. Create and checkout a new Git branch for your blog post:
   $ git checkout -b my-blog-post-branch-name
2. Use yarn post:create to create a blog post following the CLI (command-line interface) prompts:
   $ yarn post:create
3. Find your new blog post inside content/posts and write your blog post content using markdown format.
4. Save your file to live refresh the local server and preview your post at http://localhost:3000/. If your changes aren”t visible, you may need to stop and restart the local server to trigger a rebuild:
   $ ^C
$ yarn dev
5. Commit and push your Git branch to the blog repository:
   $ git commit -am "Add new blog post"
$ git push origin my-blog-post-branch-name
6. Create a pull request on GitHub for your Git branch to the blog repository to request that the post is published to the live site.

Edit existing post

Use yarn post:edit to update an existing blog post’s updatedAt frontmatter field. Follow the CLI prompts to choose an existing blog post from the list.

Blog post frontmatter options

property	description
title	post title
description	post description that shows on blog list view
tags	tags relevant to the blog post
author	post author
publishedAt	date the post was first published
updatedAt	date the post was last updated
originalURL	original post URL if post has been copied from another platform
ogImage	absolute URL for the post’s open graph image

Open Graph images

By default, a post will use the blog’s default open graph image (/public/og-image.png) for the social media meta elements.

Images must be in .png file format. Use the open graph templates in Canva, or ask @laurakalbag to create an image for you.

To override the default image with a new image:

1. Save your image in the /public folder with the same filename as its corresponding blog post. Note: the corresponding filename is not necessary for the functioning of the open graph images, but improves the maintainability of the public folder.
2. Add the ogImage field to the frontmatter of the blog post using the absolute URL:

  ogImage: "https://stately.ai/blog/2019-11-13-no-disabling-a-button-is-not-app-logic.png"

Creating your own image using Figma

We have a Figma file containing the images used for the blog posts. You can use this as a template to create your custom image. To create an image, you need to:

1. Install our desktop font from the assets repo.
2. Install Figma Desktop on your machine (this needs to run on your device at least once for Figma to pick up the font you installed in step 1).
3. Open our Figma file and look under the "Open Graph" page.
4. Clone an existing image, adjust it to your liking and export it as a png file. See example:

how-to-create-custom-blog-post-image.mp4

Test meta tags and Open Graph locally

1. Run the development server to spawn a local server on port 3000:
   $ yarn dev
2. In another terminal tab, run yarn test:meta to spawn an instance of localtunnel listening to the same port as the development server:
   $ yarn test:meta
3. The localtunnel process will show a URL in the terminal for a temporary deployment of the development server: your url is: https://exampleurl.com
4. Use this URL with the social media platforms (or any other platform using Open Graph) below to test how they’d preview the home page or any post page meta information:

• Twitter card validator
• LinkedIn post inspector
• Facebook Sharing Debugger (requires Facebook login)

Writing style guide

Below is a summary of the most useful best practices for writing on the Stately blog. These are not exhaustive! If you’re unsure and want an opinion or further guidance, let Laura know on the Stately Discord!

Use US English

As we’re a company founded in the US.

Example:

👍 Do: Visualizer
👎 Don’t: Visualiser

Plain English

Write clear and concise sentences. Use as few words as possible, but enough so people can easily understand your message the first time through.

• Be inclusive, and avoid jargon only certain audiences would understand.
• Organize text into small sections separated by headings and subheadings.
• Use short, simple sentences.
• Use bulleted or numbered lists to organize information.

Avoid unclear words: thing, it, this, those, these

Avoid unclear words that could be replaced by more specific words that clarify the meaning.

Example:

👍 Do: … when you create a machine. Create a machine by adding…
👎 Don’t: … when you create a machine. Create it by adding…

Avoid presumptuous language.

Avoid phrases the following words and phrases that make assumptions about the reader’s knowledge and make them feel bad if they don’t understand.

• Just
• Simply
• Of course
• Naturally
• Obviously
• Clearly

Writing good alternative text

• When you use a graphic with legible text, the alt text must contain the graphic’s exact text.
• Don’t include the words “image of” or “graphic of” as screenreaders will already provide that information to the user.
  • Sometimes, it’s appropriate to say that a graphic is a drawing, caricature, photograph, diagram, if it’s relevant to its context.
• Except for acronyms, avoid typing your alt text in all caps. All caps causes some screenreaders to spell the letters instead of speaking them as words.
• Try to describe the image within the context it’s being used. Describe what’s notable inside the image. If the image is accompanied by text, don’t repeat information already used in the text.
• Use a period “.” at the end of the alternative text. Many screenreaders will use this to identify the end of the text and give a natural pause before moving on to the next content.

Example:

👍 Do: Statechart for a new viz machine with an initial state of preview transitioning to a release/open to public state.
👎 Don’t: Image of a statechart

Punctuation

Speech marks and apostrophes

• Use curly quotes for speech marks in text and straight quotes for quotes in code.
• When using speech marks for whole sentences, the closing speech mark follows the sentence’s closing period, question mark or exclamation mark.

Example of curly quotes:

👍 Do: “This quote’s apostrophe is also curly, as well as the quote marks either side.”
👎 Don’t: "This quote's apostrophe is straight, as well as the quote marks either side".

Example of quote marks in code:

👍 Do: <img alt="fluffy dog wearing a top hat"/>
👎 Don’t: <img alt=“fluffy dog wearing a top hat”/>

Structuring content

Headings

Capitalize only the first word in a heading or title, unless it’s a name. Avoiding the overuse of capitals will aid readability and help readers distinguish between names and general terms.

Example:

👍 Do: Delayed events and transitions
👎 Don’t: Delayed Events And Transitions

Italics, bold , strong and emphasized text

Avoid using italics, bold, strong and emphasized text unless absolutely necessary. A page with too much textual highlighting becomes confusing and annoying.

Link text

When including links in text, be sure the linked text is descriptive of its destination and/or purpose. Use unique link titles for each link destination. Never use “click here.”

👍 Do: Finite-state machine article on Wikipedia.
👎 Don’t: For the Finite-state machine article on Wikipedia, click here.
👎 Don’t: Finite-state machine article on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite-state_machine.
👎 Don’t: Finite-state machine article on Wikipedia.
👎 Don’t: Finite-state machine article on Wikipedia.

Shortcodes

There are a few shortcodes you can use to embed content in markdown.

Tweets

Use the tweet id for the id attribute. For example, in https://twitter.com/statelyai/status/1461727317429043201, 1461727317429043201 is the ID.

<Tweet id="1461727317429043201" />

YouTube

Use the YouTube ID for the id attribute. For example in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6aGu0N8z9Q, y6aGu0N8z9Q is the ID.

<Youtube id="y6aGu0N8z9Q" />

Visualizer

Use the Visualizer ID for the id attribute. For example in https://stately.ai/viz/5c325385-a0f4-4eaa-b215-712424369cc2, 5c325385-a0f4-4eaa-b215-712424369cc2 is the ID.

A title is also required to describe your visualization for accessibility and testing purposes:

<Viz id="7c0ec648-09d6-46fe-a912-fc0e46da5094" title="Data fetching modeled as a statechart." />

Configure how the visualization embed displays by passing the options below.

1 is show, 0 is hide:

Option	Default value	Available values
mode	"viz"	"viz", "full", "panels"
panel	"code"	"code", "state", "events", "actors"
showOriginalLink	1	1, 0
readOnly	1	1, 0
pan	0	1, 0
zoom	0	1, 0
controls	1	1, 0

// Display in visualization mode
<Viz id="5c325385-a0f4-4eaa-b215-712424369cc2" title="Data fetching modeled as a statechart." />

// Display in panels mode showing the state panel without the link to the visualizer
<Viz id="7c0ec648-09d6-46fe-a912-fc0e46da5094" title="Data fetching modeled as a statechart." mode="panels" panels="state" showOriginalLink="0" />

// Display in visualization mode without any controls
<Viz id="5c325385-a0f4-4eaa-b215-712424369cc2" title="Data fetching modeled as a statechart." controls="0" />