October 7, 2021

Quill update - Plugin, plugin, and plugin!

Hello everyone, today I'm going to share a bit of work I've done recently.

Quill basically helps you publish your Craft documents in a form of website. At first, it was 1:1 mapping in my mind. One Craft document becomes one web page. That's simple.

However, in real life, it's not true. Most websites have header, sidebar, main content, and footer. You don't necessarily need all of them, but you may want to. How can Quill solve this?

1. Header, Sidebar, and Footer

Quill lets you combine many documents into one page. You just copy Secret Link from Craft and paste into Quill.

2. Post List

If you have a blog, the first page might include a list of posts you've written. Whenever you write a new post, then your first page needs to be refreshed to include that one. That's somewhat obvious, but also not, in terms of converting Craft document into webpage.

In order to automate this, you just need to add this special code block in your first page:

quill-pages

If you want to list specific pages?

quill-pages

[include]
/post/*

I'm not sure if you already noticed this from the previous screenshot:

3. Embedding HTML

If you need an absolute control and must embed some html snippet, then Quill will provide an escape hatch.

quill-html

<!-- convertkit subscription form -->
<script async data-uid="1234567" src="https://test-subscription-form.ck.page/1234567/index.js"></script>

This will let you include email subscription forms like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, etc.

4. Last, but not least

If you have such links in your Craft document, Quill will automatically embed the real contents. Of course, it's not magic. I am picking a couple of popular services, and will render them differently for you.

What do you think? What's the first thing that came up in your mind after reading this? Or do you have a website in mind that you wish to build with Quill?

Hit "Reply" button and let me know. You can write me a wall of text, or just a sentence. Any feedback is welcome.

p.s.

There's a cat in my neighborhood. I live on the ground floor, and this guy comes and goes in my balcony as if it's his place. Anyway, I took these photos some days ago, while I was in a meeting. He was passing by, noticed me working, came closer, and gave me that look. I had to share 😂

By the way, I'm working hard to get this out as a public beta. Keep your eye on me!

You can find me on Twitter @eunjae_lee, or @quill_web