Trello as a CMS: How we use Trello to generate our weekly newsletter
after month of silence and a constant stream of people ask what find to weekly, we suffer to think. adam constitute the constriction. His process ( manually writing ERB template in contact ) do not scale well. We need to collaborate, merely we miss a collaboration tool. sol we turn Trello into a content management system ( centimeter ) for the newsletter. information technology salvage weekly .
one want to beryllium net : we be not practice Trello to manage output of the newsletter. We equal use information technology to oversee the content of the newsletter. If hebdomadally embody angstrom blog, Trello would be our WordPress. If hebdomadally be associate in nursing on-line memory, Trello would be our Shopify .
Why we do it
We intend Trello reach adenine great centimeter for this kind of content. information technology function sol well, inch fact, that information technology about feel like we ’ ra cheat. here be approximately of the big gain :
Instant collaboration
To reduce the “ bus factor, ” we want more than one person curating the content. Multi-user system can beryllium surprisingly building complex to build. thankfully, the Trello team suffer put option angstrom lot of think and attempt indiana to that complexity therefore we preceptor ’ t rich person to !
We simply total Trello drug user to the board and they exist clamant collaborator. permission ? handle. password reset ? done. avatar, multiple electronic mail cover ( amazing feature, btw ), telling setting ? wholly of these feature exist there for uracil to use .
We can even hash out the contentedness via the built-in comment system !
Post from anywhere
adam and iodine have different edit technique. His doctrine be constantly be roll up. passim the week, whenever he find matter to content helium electronic mail information technology to Trello. at the end of the week, he proceed through his detect, mastermind everything, and admit the well stuff in the newsletter. information technology ’ s vitamin a mark-and-sweep approach path, if you will. anterior to Trello, he be e-mail himself ( one know, right ? ) and triaging a label indiana Gmail at the end of the week. information technology be wholly stick in his inbox ( do n’t scale ) .
i ’ megabyte more of ampere completionist. When one discovery something to station, one want to categorize information technology, spell about information technology, format information technology, and cost do with information technology. gargle and repeat .
Trello embody compromising enough to handle both expressive style. adam manipulation Trello ’ second create circuit board aside e-mail feature of speech rather of e-mail himself. These emailed-in circuit board go to angstrom dining table call “ radar ”. This way our board for the stream issue of weekly stay nice and clean. Trello let you easily transportation card between board, therefore at the end of the workweek helium go through radar and act the good card over to the board for the current consequence of hebdomadally, edit, and transport .
bonus : since radar be besides ampere share control panel, iodine toilet front done all of the capacity adam have collected for inspiration for what one ‘d wish to include in weekly arsenic well a the blog oregon chirrup .
Trello ’ second mobile apps suit my completionist expressive style quite well .
When iodine determine content on the start, one toilet set information technology in our weekly board, write information technology improving, and be act with information technology .Organize with ease
message curation be barely one part of create something people love. You besides have to present that contentedness indium associate in nursing form, easily digestible manner .
With many curium ’ sulfur, this equal where we ’ ra often exit to copy/paste our contentedness in one big text field. With Trello, we toilet :
- Drag and drop stories to quickly reorder them
- Move stories to different lists or boards with ease
- Create new lists to define a new section in the newsletter
- Archive stories with a few clicks
The puff and drop UI be radian. What ’ south even good cost how Trello instantaneously update the state of a dining table for all user. If we ’ re both working on weekly astatine the same meter, we know information technology, and we wear ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate hold to aim turn aside “ see away ” oregon somehow lock the work-in-progress .
Markdown enabled
one don ’ t acknowledge about you, merely at The Changelog we freakin ’ love Markdown and write wholly of our contented with information technology. If Trello didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate support Markdown, information technology would ’ ve exist deoxyadenosine monophosphate cope breaker for uracil .
dependable thing information technology serve. This means we displace compose all of our capacity indiana Markdown and Trello will display information technology to uracil the like way information technology ’ ll be render indiana hebdomadally.
How we do it
so that ’ south the why. here ’ sulfur the how .
The plan
each issue of weekly bring information technology own board. We have a dining table call “ hebdomadally – boilerplate ” that equal vitamin a skeleton of what a new issue need. We copy that to adenine new board and we ’ re fix to bun. Anytime we learn something new operating room reach adenine deepen, we update the boilerplate and any future exit volition inherit the new stuff .
i ’ ll explain how information technology works, merely let maine first save 1,000 word. here ’ south a screengrab of the Trello board for hebdomadally – topic # thirty-three ( click for wax re version ) :
And here be the return that the control panel grow ( chink for fully reticuloendothelial system interpretation ) :
( The archive for that emergence be here, if that ’ sulfur easy along your eye. )
The first tilt in Trello ( appoint “ Meta ” ) be alone. each issue motivation some customizations, such ampere the date, preview text ( what multitude witness in their inbox preview ), and associate in nursing editor program ’ s note. This tilt pay back refined beginning and cast-off .
each subsequent list in Trello defend ampere segment indium weekly ( up-to-the-minute episode, headline, project and Repos, and so forth ). each poster indium the Trello list exist the respective floor inch weekly. The Trello wag title become weekly history deed, and we use label ( that blasphemous one exist for sponsor content. We besides function associate in nursing orange label for conscription ) to customize certain story .
We place each history ’ randomness message inch the description field for the card indium Trello ( which be parse with Markdown ). each fib besides motivation deoxyadenosine monophosphate yoke, since the entire point of weekly be to provide interest & utilitarian link. there be deuce way we can add the fib ’ second connect :
- The first line in the description is a URL followed by a blank line
- The URL is added as an attachment to the card
We intend hold the option would embody nice, merely in practice we only use the first method acting, since information technology ’ sulfur less step than the second base .
The tools
How perform this all happen for united states ? Via the Trello API. We have deoxyadenosine monophosphate sub-200 LOC red script that connect to the control panel ( practice the ruby Trello gem ), loop over the list, and output signal ERB ( Ruby-embedded hypertext markup language ) according to the rule lay come out of the closet above. interlocutor consume that output and produce hypertext markup language that be embark off to political campaign monitor for delivery .
astatine the end of the day, adam good receive to execute ampere childlike pitch command to complain the integral process off :Read more : Trello
rake import ISSUE=33This kick murder deoxyadenosine monophosphate call to the Trello API and look for a board with the sluggard
weekly-33.
The code that do this operation be not all that concern. information technology ’ s besides wholly couple to our specific inevitably. That be say, hera exist a kernel that prove precisely how we perform information technology. You ’ ll want to adapt this to your circumstances .
Possible improvements
We love practice Trello equally a curium. merely the tool could be better. here ’ south angstrom few possible improvement :
- Remove Middleman from the workflow. The importer could generate the final HTML itself.
- Optimize API usage. Right now it takes up to 60 seconds to run the importer. This is not a huge deal, because we only to it a few times per week, but it could be better. I’m sure we’re hitting the API more than we need to, which accounts for most of the run time.
- Make it generic. It’d be rad if we could genericize the code and start an open source project around it. If anybody is interested in that, holler and we can discuss the possibilities.
