GRAPHQL
Gatsby (graphql)
This guide will help you get started using Netlify CMS and Gatsby.
To get up and running with Gatsby, you’ll need to have Node.js installed on your computer. Note: Gatsby's minimum supported Node.js version is Node 8.
Create a new Gatsby site
Let's create a new site using the default Gatsby Starter Blog. Run the following commands in the terminal, in the folder where you'd like to create the blog:
Get to know Gatsby
In your favorite code editor, open up the code generated for your "Gatsby Starter Blog" site, and take a look at the content
directory.
You will see that there are multiple Markdown files that represent blog posts. Open one .md
file and you will see something like this:
We can see above that each blog post has a title, a date, a description and a body. Now, let's recreate this using Netlify CMS.
Add Netlify CMS to your site
First let's install some dependencies. We'll need netlify-cms-app
and gatsby-plugin-netlify-cms
. Run the following command in the terminal at the root of your site:
Configuration
For the purpose of this guide we will deploy to Netlify from a GitHub repository which requires the minimum configuration.
Create a config.yml
file in the directory structure you see below:
In your config.yml
file paste the following configuration:
Note: The above configuration allows assets to be stored relative to their content. Therefore posts would be stored in the format below as it is in gatsby-starter-blog
.
Finally, add the plugin to your gatsby-config.js
.
Push to GitHub
It's now time to commit your changes and push to GitHub. The Gatsby starter initializes Git automatically for you, so you only need to do:
Add your repo to Netlify
Go to Netlify and select 'New Site from Git'. Select GitHub and the repository you just pushed to. Click Configure Netlify on GitHub and give access to your repository. Finish the setup by clicking Deploy Site. Netlify will begin reading your repository and starting building your project.
Enable Identity and Git Gateway
Netlify's Identity and Git Gateway services allow you to manage CMS admin users for your site without requiring them to have an account with your Git host or commit access on your repo. From your site dashboard on Netlify:
Go to Settings > Identity, and select Enable Identity service.
Under Registration preferences, select Open or Invite only. In most cases, you want only invited users to access your CMS, but if you're just experimenting, you can leave it open for convenience.
If you'd like to allow one-click login with services like Google and GitHub, check the boxes next to the services you'd like to use, under External providers.
Scroll down to Services > Git Gateway, and click Enable Git Gateway. This authenticates with your Git host and generates an API access token. In this case, we're leaving the Roles field blank, which means any logged in user may access the CMS. For information on changing this, check the Netlify Identity documentation.
Start publishing
It's time to create your first blog post. Login to your site's /admin/
page and create a new post by clicking New Blog. Add a title, a date and some text. When you click Publish, a new commit will be created in your GitHub repo with this format Create Blog “year-month-date-title”
.
Then Netlify will detect that there was a commit in your repo, and will start rebuilding your project. When your project is deployed you'll be able to see the post you created.
Cleanup
It is now safe to remove the default Gatsby blog posts.
About the GraphQL API
The GitHub GraphQL API offers flexibility and the ability to define precisely the data you want to fetch.
Overview
Here are some quick links to get you up and running with the GraphQL API v4:
About GraphQL
The GraphQL data query language is:
A specification. The spec determines the validity of the schema on the API server. The schema determines the validity of client calls.
Strongly typed. The schema defines an API's type system and all object relationships.
Introspective. A client can query the schema for details about the schema.
Hierarchical. The shape of a GraphQL call mirrors the shape of the JSON data it returns. Nested fields let you query for and receive only the data you specify in a single round trip.
An application layer. GraphQL is not a storage model or a database query language. The graph refers to graph structures defined in the schema, where nodes define objects and edges define relationships between objects. The API traverses and returns application data based on the schema definitions, independent of how the data is stored.
Why GitHub is using GraphQL
GitHub chose GraphQL for our API v4 because it offers significantly more flexibility for our integrators. The ability to define precisely the data you want—and only the data you want—is a powerful advantage over the REST API v3 endpoints. GraphQL lets you replace multiple REST requests with a single call to fetch the data you specify.
For more details about why GitHub has moved to GraphQL, see the original announcement blog post.
About the GraphQL schema reference
The docs in the sidebar are generated from the GitHub GraphQL schema. All calls are validated and executed against the schema. Use these docs to find out what data you can call:
Schema-defined types: scalars, objects, enums, interfaces, unions, and input objects.
You can access this same content via the Explorer Docs sidebar. Note that you may need to rely on both the docs and the schema validation to successfully call the GraphQL API.
For other information, such as authentication and rate limit details, check out the guides.
Requesting support
For questions, bug reports, and discussions about GitHub Apps, OAuth Apps, and API development, explore the GitHub API Development and Support Forum. The forum is moderated and maintained by GitHub staff, but questions posted to the forum are not guaranteed to receive a reply from GitHub staff.
Consider reaching out to GitHub Support directly using the contact form for:
guaranteed response from GitHub staff
support requests involving sensitive data or private concerns
feature requests
feedback about GitHub products
Overview
A backend is JavaScript code that allows Netlify CMS to communicate with a service that stores content - typically a Git host like GitHub or GitLab. It provides functions that Netlify CMS can use to do things like read and update files using API's provided by the service.
Backend Configuration
Individual backends should provide their own configuration documentation, but there are some configuration options that are common to multiple backends. A full reference is below. Note that these are properties of the backend
field, and should be nested under that field.
Field | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
| none | Required for |
|
| The branch where published content is stored. All CMS commits and PRs are made to this branch. |
|
| The API endpoint. Only necessary in certain cases, like with GitHub Enterprise or self-hosted GitLab. |
|
| Sets the |
|
| OAuth client hostname (just the base domain, no path). Required when using an external OAuth server or self-hosted GitLab. |
|
| Path to append to |
|
| Pull (or Merge) Requests label prefix when using editorial workflow. Optional. |
Creating a New Backend
Anyone can write a backend, but we don't yet have a finalized and documented API. If you would like to write your own backend for a service that does not have one currently, we recommend using the GitHub backend as a reference for API and best practices.
Creating Custom Widgets
The NetlifyCMS exposes a window.CMS
a global object that you can use to register custom widgets, previews, and editor plugins. The same object is also the default export if you import Netlify CMS as an npm module. The available widget extension methods are:
registerWidget: registers a custom widget.
registerEditorComponent: adds a block component to the Markdown editor.
Writing React Components inline
The registerWidget
requires you to provide a React component. If you have a build process in place for your project, it is possible to integrate with this build process.
However, although possible, it may be cumbersome or even impractical to add a React build phase. For this reason, NetlifyCMS exposes two constructs globally to allow you to create components inline: ‘createClass’ and ‘h’ (alias for React.createElement).
registerWidget
registerWidget
Register a custom widget.
Params:
Param | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
|
| Widget name, allows this widget to be used via the field |
|
|
|
[ |
| Renders the widget preview, receives the following props:
|
[ |
| Enforces a schema for the widget's field configuration |
Example:
admin/index.html
admin/config.yml
registerEditorComponent
registerEditorComponent
Register a block level component for the Markdown editor:
Params
definition: The component definition; must specify: id, label, fields, patterns, fromBlock, toBlock, toPreview
Example:
Result:
![youtube-widget](/img/screen shot 2018-01-05 at 4.25.07 pm.png)
Advanced field validation
All widget fields, including those for built-in widgets, include basic validation capability using the required
and pattern
options.
With custom widgets, the widget control can also optionally implement an isValid
method to perform custom validations, in addition to presence and pattern. The isValid
method will be automatically called, and it can return either a boolean value, an object with an error message or a promise. Examples:
Boolean No errors:
Existing error:
Object with error
(useful for returning custom error messages) Existing error:
Promise You can also return a promise from isValid
. While the promise is pending, the widget will be marked as "in error". When the promise resolves, the error is automatically cleared.
Note: Do not create a promise inside isValid
- isValid
is called right before trying to persist. This means that even if a previous promise was already resolved, when the user hits 'save', isValid
will be called again. If it returns a new promise, it will be immediately marked as "in error" until the new promise resolves.
Writing custom widgets as a separate package
Widgets are inputs for the Netlify CMS editor interface. It's a React component that receives user input and outputs a serialized value. Those are the only rules - the component can be extremely simple, like text input, or extremely complicated, like a full-blown markdown editor. They can make calls to external services, and generally do anything that JavaScript can do.
For writing custom widgets as a separate package you should follow these steps:
Create a directory
Navigate to the directory
For setting up a new npm package run this command:
Answer the questions in the command line questionnaire.
In order to build React components, we need to set up a build step. We'll be using Webpack. Please run the following commands to install the required dependencies:
And you should manually add "peerDependencies" and "scripts" as shown below.
Here is the content of package.json
that you will have at the end:
Create a Webpack configuration file with this content:
webpack.config.js
The
.babelrc
file is our local configuration for our code in the project. You should create it under the root of the application repo. It will affect all files that Babel processes. So, create a.babelrc
file under the main project with this content:
Create a
src
directory with the filesControl.js
,Preview.js
andindex.js
src/Control.js
src/Preview.js
src/index.js
Now you need to set up the locale example site. Under the main project, create a
dev
directory with the filesbootstrap.js
andindex.js
bootstrap.js
index.js
Development
To run a copy of Netlify CMS with your widget for development, use the start script:
Your widget source is in the src
directory, where there are separate files for the Control
and Preview
components.
Production & Publishing
You'll want to take a few steps before publishing a production built package to npm:
Customize
package.json
with details for your specific widget, e.g. name, description, author, version, etc.For discoverability, ensure that your package name follows the pattern
netlify-cms-widget-<name>
.Delete this
README.md
, renameREADME_TEMPLATE.md
toREADME.md
, and update the new file for your specific widget.Rename the exports in
src/index.js
. For example, if your widget isnetlify-cms-widget-awesome
, you would do:
Optional: customize the component and file names in
src
.If you haven't already, push your repo to your GitHub account so the source available to other developers.
Create a production build, which will be output to
dist
:
Finally, if you're sure things are tested and working, publish!
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