Next Js Blog Template with Advanced MDX Features

Next Js Blog Template with Advanced MDX Features is a game-changer for bloggers and developers. This template offers a robust set of features that make it easy to create and manage a blog.

With this template, you can create custom layouts and designs using MDX, a markup language that allows you to combine Markdown and JSX. This means you can add dynamic components and layouts to your blog without needing to write a single line of code.

MDX also enables you to create reusable components and layouts, making it easy to maintain and update your blog. This template takes advantage of this feature, allowing you to create a consistent look and feel across your entire blog.

By using this template, you can focus on creating high-quality content without worrying about the technical details.

To set up a Next.js blog template, start by creating a new project. This will give you a solid foundation to work with.

You'll want to create a file structure that's easy to navigate, with separate folders for your blog posts, images, and other assets. This will help keep your project organized.

Create a new file for your blog post, and give it a descriptive name that includes the date and title of the post. This will help you keep track of your content.

Here's a suggested file structure to get you started:

This will give you a good starting point for your Next.js blog template.

To set up your blog project, start by creating a new folder in your terminal called blog-strapi. This will be the main directory for all your project files.

Make sure to use Strapi version 4.10.4, as there's a known bug in later versions that can cause issues with file imports.

Next, add the following dependencies to your frontend Next app: @types/negotiator, negotiator, @types/qs, qs, classnames, react-icons, react-markdown, react-slideshow-image, remark-gfm, and @formatjs/intl-localematcher. These will come in handy later.

In your frontend/src/app directory, create a new directory named [lang] to handle locales defined in i18n-config.ts. This is made possible by Next.js' dynamic routes feature.

Create a new directory named utils inside frontend/src/app/[lang]. You can do this by executing a command in the root of your frontend folder.

To organize your project, consider the following file structure:

Now that you've set up your project folder, it's time to create a page for each category. This will be covered in the next step.

To set up middleware for your Next.js frontend app, you'll need to create a new file named middleware.ts in the frontend/src directory. This file will handle tasks like adding internationalization (i18n) support to your application.

The middleware.ts file imports NextRequest and NextResponse types to handle incoming requests and generate responses in Next.js. It also imports the i18n object from the i18n-config module to access the available locales.

In the middleware.ts file, you'll use the matchLocale function to determine the best-matched locale based on the request headers and available locales. This ensures that the URL contains a locale segment and redirects the user to the appropriate URL if a locale is missing.

To access both local and remote media sources while using the built-in Next.js Image Optimization API, you'll need to add a specific code to your next.config.js file in the frontend directory. This code allows you to use both local and remote media sources while still benefiting from Next.js's image optimization features.

GitHub offers a beautiful blog template that combines NextJS and TailwindCSS. This template is available on GitHub under the username Mohammad-Faisal.

The template is called nextjs-tailwindcss-beautiful-blog-template and can be found on GitHub's website. It's a great starting point for building a blog with a clean and modern design.

One of the benefits of using this template is that it can automatically kick off an Action that will build the website and add it to a new branch named gh-pages.

To create the blog structure, start by creating a simple blog in the src/app/page.tsx file, where you add a text-only entry page. Then, create a blog-posts folder within the src/ directory, and add two sample blog posts using MDX files, such as test-post.mdx and another-post.mdx.

The getPostBySlug function fetches the content of a blog post by its slug, constructs a file path, and reads the file content synchronously, compiling it into HTML while extracting frontmatter and post content. The getPostsMetaData function retrieves metadata for all blog posts by reading the list of files from the blog post directory, iterating through each file to fetch its metadata, and accumulating the metadata into an array.

To create a simple blog, we'll start by reformating the entry page of our application to include just a simple text only. This is done by adding a new line of code to the src/app/page.tsx file.

We'll then create two sample blog posts using MDX files, which are added to the src/ directory. Inside this new folder, we'll add two files named test-post.mdx and another-post.mdx. These files contain basic markdown, including metadata.

The getPostBySlug function is used to fetch the content of a blog post by its slug, construct a file path based on the slug, and read the file content synchronously. This function compiles the MDX content into HTML while extracting frontmatter and the post content.

The getPostsMetaData function retrieves metadata for all blog posts by reading the list of files from the blog post directory, iterating through each file to fetch its metadata using getPostBySlug, and accumulating the metadata into an array.

To render a list of blogs, we'll create a blog folder in the src/app/ directory and add a page.tsx file. This file imports and calls the getPostsMetaData utility function to get the metadata and render them as links on the new page.

When these links are clicked, they redirect to a dynamic route that renders the blog post’s content.

To create a category page, start by creating a folder named after the category inside the lang folder. This is where the magic happens for handling routes for each category dynamically.

The URL for each category will be based on its name, which is a great way to keep things organized.

Create a file called page.tsx in the category folder. This file contains the code that fetches and renders posts for a specific category.

The CategoryRoute function handles rendering content for a specific category by retrieving the category from the provided parameters. It then calls the fetchPostsByCategory function to fetch posts data for that category.

The category page should work and display a grid of posts related to the specific category.

You can customize the layout of the blog to create an organized site with easy-to-navigate menus or opt for a simpler design. This is made possible by the Next.js Blog Template's design for customization.

To tailor the features and structure of the site to your needs, you can choose different settings for colors, fonts, and background images or upload your own custom graphics and logos. This allows for a high degree of personalization.

Creating a website from scratch requires a lot of time and effort, but with the Next.js Blog Template, you can customize your website with ease.

You can create a personalized design with the Next.js Blog Template, making it easy to match your brand.

With this template, you can choose different settings for colors, fonts, and background images to give your blog a unique look.

You can upload your own custom graphics and logos to further personalize your blog's design.

Customizing the layout allows you to create an organized site with easy-to-navigate menus or opt for a simpler design that suits your needs.

The template is designed for customization, allowing you to tailor the features and structure of the site to suit your needs.

By customizing the Next.js Blog Template, you can save time and effort that would be required to create a website from scratch.

Customizing the look and feel of your blog is a crucial step in making it stand out. To style your MDX files, you need to map different components to each HTML element, allowing you to customize individual Markdown and MDX elements.

You can do this by updating the mdx-components.tsx file at the root level of the application. For example, you can map all h1 elements to an h1 element with additional styles.

Tailwind CSS provides a typography plugin that simplifies this process. By installing the @tailwindcss/typography package and adding the plugin to the tailwind.config.ts file, you can use a set of prose classes to add beautiful typographic defaults to your markdown.

Here are the steps to install the Tailwind plugin:

To use the plugin, you just need to wrap your MDX in an element with the prose class name. For example, you can update the src/app/test-page/page.mdx file to include a div element with the prose class.

By using the Tailwind plugin, you can improve the formatting of your markdown content and make it look more visually appealing.

Customizing the blog's appearance is a key part of making it your own. I've found that using a dark mode can be a great way to reduce eye strain and create a more immersive experience for readers.

For dark mode, I'm using next-themes, which exports a function called setTheme that allows me to toggle the theme. This function is used inside the Header component to switch between light and dark modes seamlessly.

Toggling the theme is as simple as calling the setTheme function, which makes it easy to experiment with different looks and feels.