Creating a new Blog

Welcome to the Part II of the series, Creating a new blog post (individual & series)

Individual Blogs

to create a new blog, create a folder with the slug you want and create a page.md file. the slug will act as the blog url which will be /blog/[slug]

here's the tree view of the folder structure

		├── about
├── posts
│   ├── authjs-sveltekit-prisma <!-- slug --->
│   │   └── page.md
│   ├── dimensionality-reduction-using-auto-encoders <!-- slug --->
│   │   ├── banner.png
│   │   └── page.md
│   └── getting-started <!-- slug --->
│       ├── PDF_Assistant.png
│       └── page.md
├── series
├── src
├── static 
├── svelte.config.js
├── tailwind.config.js
├── biome.json
├── components.json
├── mdsvex.config.js
├── package.json
├── pnpm-lock.yaml
├── postcss.config.cjs
├── tsconfig.json
├── README.md
└── vite.config.ts

Note: Do not add any spaces, separate the name using -

Frontmatter

Frontmatter allows you to specify metadata and options. Included in frontmatter are things like the document or project title, what thumbnail to use for site or content previews, authors that contributed to the work etc,

for this template the frontmatter is

		---
title:
description:
date: '2023-11-26'
tags:
  - SvelteKit
  - MDsveX
image: url or a pathname
draft: false
---

tags is an array so if you want to declare multiple tags just add a new tag below it.

Writing Series Blogs

To understand Series Blogs, you need to understand the folder structure first.

		├── about
├── posts
├── series
│   └── guide-markdown-blog <!-- cover folder (will be a part of the slug) --->
│       ├── config.md <!-- Blog post --->
│       ├── create-new-blog.md <!-- Blog post --->
│       ├── page.md <!-- not a part of the post but holds information about the series, cover image for the series, tags etc. --->
│       └── setup.md <!-- Blog post --->
├── src
├── static 
├── svelte.config.js
├── tailwind.config.js
├── biome.json
├── components.json
├── mdsvex.config.js
├── package.json
├── pnpm-lock.yaml
├── postcss.config.cjs
├── tsconfig.json
├── README.md
└── vite.config.ts

Frontmatter (for series)

for page.md

		---
title: Guide on how to use this blog template
description: A guide on how to use this sveltekit + markdown blog.
date: '2023-12-20'
tags:
  - SvelteKit
  - MDsveX
image: https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--YFzS8yLr--/c_imagga_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,h_720,q_auto,w_1280/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/w9o5387e8s37g7r4i6dy.png
draft: false
---

this is same as the one for individual blog posts and for actual posts in the series, the frontmatter is little different.

		---
title: Creating a new Blog
description: Let's look at how to create a new Blog (Indivdual & Series)
date: '2023-12-20'
order: 2
image: https://res.cloudinary.com/practicaldev/image/fetch/s--YFzS8yLr--/c_imagga_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,h_720,q_auto,w_1280/https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/w9o5387e8s37g7r4i6dy.png
draft: false
---

We have a new property called order, which indicates the order of the particular post in that series. Additionally, image and tags are completely optional. If you do not specify them, the values from the cover folder (page.md) are used. However, if you do specify them, the specified values are used instead. When it comes to tags, if you specify them, the tags from the specific post are combined with the tags declared in page.md. This is particularly useful when you're writing a long series and each post is on a different topic. For example, if you're writing a Machine Learning Series, at some point, you're writing a post on Clustering algorithms, so that specific post should have its own tag.

for series blogs, the slug will be cover folder + a unique identifier + name of the .md file

Code Blocks

This blog uses rehype-pretty-code and shiki for syntax highlighting with two different themes for light and dark mode. To configure code blocks to your style, take a look at mdsvex.config.js, pre.svelte and markdown.postcss files.

You can create fenced code blocks by placing triple backticks ``` before and after the code block. Place a blank line before and after code blocks to make the raw formatting easier to read.

		console.log("Hello")

To display triple backticks in a fenced code block, wrap them inside quadruple backticks.

		```py
print("Hello from Python 🐍")
```

Adding Title

if you provide a title with an extension, the code block will look like

hello.ts Language

		console.log("Hello from TS")

for rendering icons, it grabs the extension and maps it to the icon for that language. Again, you can totally change this behaviour in pre.svelte which is a custom component.

Inline Syntax Highlighting

you can also do inline syntax highlighting. To use that

		System.out.println("This is a example of Inline Syntax Highlighting"){:java}

this will become

System.out.println("This is a example of Inline Syntax Highlighting")

Word Highlighting

you can highlight individual words in your code with different colors.

		```py /fibonacci/1-2#rb {2-3}
def fibonacci(n):
    if n <= 1: # base case
        return n
    else:
        return fibonacci(n - 2) + fibonacci(n - 3) # --del
        return fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2) # ++add
```

this will become

		def fibonacci(n):
    if n <= 1:
        return n
    else:
        return fibonacci(n - 2) + fibonacci(n - 3)
        return fibonacci(n - 1) + fibonacci(n - 2)

for other languages, like js or ts

		```js title="code-diff.js"
export function foo() {
  console.log('hewwo') // --del // this should be hello
  console.log('hello') // ++add
}
```

this will become

code-diff.js Language

		export function foo() {
  console.log('hewwo') // this should be hello
  console.log('hello') 
}

Math Blocks

for rendering math equations, i gave a detailed explanation here . Earlier it wasn't possible to add inline equations without using an external component but I created a plugin that allows you to insert inline math equations.

here's the plugin

		const katex_inline = () => (tree) => {
    visit(tree, 'text', (node, index, parent) => {
        const regex = /$$(.*?)$$/g;
        let match;
 
        while ((match = regex.exec(node.value)) !== null) {
            const equation = match[1].trim();
 
            // Replace double backslashes with single backslashes
            const cleanedEquation = equation.replace(/\\/g, '\');
 
            const str = katex.renderToString(cleanedEquation, {
                throwOnError: true,
                errorColor: '#cc0000',
                strict: 'warn',
                output: 'htmlAndMathml',
                trust: false,
                macros: { '\f': '#1f(#2)' }
            });
 
            // Escape the HTML for Svelte
            const escapedHTML = escapeSvelte(str);
 
            // Replace the matched portion with the escaped HTML
            const before = node.value.slice(0, match.index);
            const after = node.value.slice(match.index + match[0].length);
            const renderedEquation = '<span class="text-base">{@html `' + escapedHTML + '`}</span>';
 
            // Create a new 'raw' node with the rendered equation
            const rawNode = {
                type: 'raw',
                value: renderedEquation
            };
 
            // Insert the 'raw' node into the parent's children array
            parent.children.splice(
                index,
                1,
                ...[{ type: 'text', value: before }, rawNode, { type: 'text', value: after }]
            );
        }
    });
};

to write inline equations use $$ $$ and wrap your KaTeX inside.

		$$(a+b)^2 = a^2 + b^2 + 2ab$$

this becomes (a+b)2=a2+b2+2ab(a+b)^2 = a^2 + b^2 + 2ab

for block equations

math.md Language

		```math
\nabla \times \mathbf{B} = \mu_0 \left(\mathbf{J} + \varepsilon_0 \frac{\partial \mathbf{E}}{\partial t}\right)
```

this becomes

∇×B=μ0(J+ε0∂E∂t) abla imes mathbf{B} = mu_0 left(mathbf{J} + arepsilon_0 rac{partial mathbf{E}}{partial t} ight)

in the next part, we'll look at other configurations.