✍️ @Saumil's Blog

[SAUMILDHANKAR]

Hi and welcome to Content Lab! Here is a self paced guide to ensure you get feedback as you publish your technical blog.

Resources:

• Previous workshop recording
• Previous blog posts

Timeline:

• 📋 Week 4: Create an outline by 3/2
• 📰 Week 7: Rough draft due by 3/16
  • Mentor reviews by 3/30
• Week 9: Final version due 4/7

📋 Blog Outline: Write your outline in the issue directly

Requirements

Questions to consider:

• Who’s reading this? Where are they in your dev journey? What do they need to know before they can dive into this story?
• If people could leave with just one action, what would it be?
• Were there surprises or alternative problem solving you want to give a heads up to?

Sample Topics for your blog post

• Creating tests for Stripe/Cicero/Twilio
• Using Vuetify and V-cards
• Debugging a PR test failure affecting entire codebase and creating an issue for it
• System Design/Architecture design for caching capability
• Implementing Text to Speech
• Configuring secrets for APIs in codespaces
• Building Actions for [security|community|CI| etc]

Example Outlines

What makes good documentation on open source?

• Could this be a list? (3 pieces of documentation thats easy to check for and add to the project to add immediate value?
• What inspired you from the Tech documentation workshop?
• What would you help encourage other first time contributors to do?
• Is a learning curve for everyone? And whats the balance between good documentation and too much documentation? Choice architecture
• What is each space used for? Wiki vs Discussion vs Pages
• How do we search and find?
  Reference: https://blackgirlbytes.dev/conquering-the-fear-of-contributing-to-open-source
  Reference issue/PR for photos
  Conclusion: Documentation is always changing, will always be needed`

To Do: when you complete the requirements, add "outline ready" label on your issue

• Identify your topic from one of the PRs approved
• Outlining bullet points of blog roadmap
• Is your blog a List, Survey, or demo?
• Which Visuals or Diagram or Code snippets will you add
• References to resources

📰 Blog Rough draft: Format into a google doc

Questions to answer across draft

• Why is this helpful for a reader?
• What problem does this help them solve?
• What kind of experience should the reader have or that you will provide so they’re up to speed
• What larger problem is this solving?
• Were there other ways of solving this problem - what made you choose the one that you did?
• What were the positive tradeoffs? (Did it save time? Save hours? Was more secure?)
• What is the best way to present the content (i.e. code snippets, graphics) ?
• What additional resources can they provide the reader if they want more information?
• Is there a call to action?

To do: when you complete the requirements, add "draft ready" label on your issue

• intro paragraph
• context of Amplify
• paragraph on problem
• paragrph compare your solution
• paragraph impact your solution
• Less than 600 words
• Drop link to your google doc (with permissions for edits) in review issue

[SAUMILDHANKAR]

Blog Outline

Audience: Anyone interested in learning about onboarding flow, API ecosystem and PostgreSQL.

Goal: Demo for people to follow and learn. Will include code snippets.

Title: Update letter using LOB API and PostgreSQL.
Issue #183, #371

Introduction:

• Introduction for Amplify platform
• What is LOB API?
  • Include brief introduction.
• What is PostgreSQL?
  • How is it connected with LOB API.
• How to onboard new issues to Amplify platform?
  • Give brief intro about amplify platform
  • Discuss how to use LOB API to customize a form for a letter
• How is LOB API connected to the entire workflow?
• What other tools you might need?

Body:

• Setup environment using Codespaces
• Lookup the data in tables in PostgreSQL
• Request data using LOB API
  • Consider using Postman to make the request
• Add merge variable to createLetter object in LOB API
• Updating API ecosystem and database (PostgreSQL)
• Encryption
• Tests

Conclusion:

• Summary

Next Steps:

Resources

• Amplify platform
• LOB API
• PostgreSQL

[unnamedrd]

I think it's great that you're writing on something directly from your experience on the project. You may want to consider streamlining the focus of your blog. By that I mean, focus on one problem that you can teach the user about, but don't make it specific to Amplify contributors. No need to give a comprehensive introduction for Amplify or get into detail about setting up Codespaces. Definitely feel free to use the context of Amplify.

For example, the blog can center around the broader instruction of how to use the LOB API to customize a form for a letter or campaign and use your word limit to dive into that topic using examples from your experience working on Amplify. Hopefully that makes sense.

[SAUMILDHANKAR]

Thanks Naj for sharing your feedback. I will incorporate your suggestions going forward. Also, adding the link to the google doc for my blog which is still a work in progress: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nw_dzesESQD6BLqvHk58JPfcdVhNAutZTa6MqU_EQzU/edit#heading=h.qcw1ux3m87yc. I will add the draft ready label as soon as I make good progress on this.

[unnamedrd]

@SAUMILDHANKAR you should have access now! Lmk if it's not working. Also be sure to fill out the doc with a rough draft. Focus on getting the intro and the body done, doesn't need to be perfect!

[SAUMILDHANKAR]

@unnamedrd Thanks for sharing the access. I have added more information to my rough draft with steps that I am planning to complete. I will update it as I learn more. Apologies for the delay.

[unnamedrd]

@SAUMILDHANKAR Thank you! Remember to add the "draft ready" tag!

[SAUMILDHANKAR]

@unnamedrd Hi Naj, sorry I missed the deadline. I just finished adding information to my blog so it meets some more requirements. I would like to add the "draft ready" tag now, but the setting to add label appears to be disabled for my issue currently. During pair programming session, I was removed and added back to the org (for testing purposes by Param), so not sure if that might impact the setting here. Look forward to hearing from you and thank you.