Common Azure Fuctions needed to support a personal website

This project implements backend Azure Function API for common website tasks like blog feed generation, contact form that sends an email to an owner etc.

Setting up to run locally

Install all prerequisites mentioned here:

• Azure Functions Tools
• .Net Core CLI Tools
• C# Extension

Make sure the local.settings.json file contains the following to allow CORS:

{
  "IsEncrypted": false,
  "Values": {
  },
  "Host": {
        "LocalHttpPort": 7071,
        "CORS": "*",
        "CORSCredentials": false
      }
}

Setting up the project locally

git clone https://github.com/thisisrajiraj/sites

** Pre-requisites: ** You need to have .netcore 3.1 installed

Then cd into the folder containing azurefuncs.csproj. Run:

dotnet clean dotnet restore dotnet build

Running the project

To run the project, create a local.settings.json file in the folder containing azurefuncs.csproj.

For using /Feed API

Feed API is used to generate a RSS feed from your blog site Add to the local.settings file the following for using the /Feed API:

Setting name	Setting Value	Default value
rootURL	Root URL of the website	null (this is required)
blogURL	URL of the blog	null (this is required)
title	Title for your RSS feed	"Website feed"
description	Description for your RSS feed	"This is a generated blog feed"
language	Language of your RSS feed	"en"
indexfilelocation	URL of a json file containing the feed index	null (this is required)
contentfileroot	Root URL of each html post	(this is required)
enablecontent	If the output XML should contain content tag	0
maxitems	Max number of items to return	10

Index file should be served as a json in a HTTP location. The format is as in the following example:

 [
    {
        "date": "September 6, 2018",
        "name": "foo",
        "title": "How to not foo"
    },
    {
        "date": "September 11, 2018",
        "name": "bar",
        "title": "How to not bar"
    }
 ]

In this example, if indexfilelocation is "http://contoso.com/blogindex.json", blogURL is http://contoso.com/blog, and contentfileroot is "http://contoso.com/posts", then the following locations should be valid and reachable:

• http://contoso.com/posts/bar.html
• http://contoso.com/posts/foo.html
• http://contoso.com/blogindex.json
• http://contoso.com/blog/foo
• http://contoso.com/blog/bar

For using /SendMail API

SendMail API is used from website contact forms where individuals want to contact the website owners. Add to the file the following for using the /SendMail API:

Setting name	Setting Value	Default value
emailfrom	Email address of who the email should be sent from. This typically is the website owner email	null (this is required)
fromname	Name of who the email should be sent from. This typically is the website owner email.	null (this is required)
emailto	Who the email should be sent to. This typically is the website owner email.	emailfrom value
toname	Name of who the email should be sent to. This typically is the website owner email.	fromname value
emailsubject	Subject of the email	"New email from <emailfrom>
sendgridapikey	API key from send grid. You SendGrid dev API key	empty (this is required)

SendMail uses SendGrid API to send email. Please make sure you have a [SendGrid] (https://sendgrid.com/) account and configure it right. Check [here] (https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/api_keys) for your API key and add your from address [here] (https://app.sendgrid.com/settings/sender_auth).

Parameters to /SendMail should be sent as a JSON body. Parameters needed include:

Setting name	Setting Value
from	The name of the individual trying to contact
fromemail	Who the email should be sent to
message	Content of the email

E.g.

{
    "from":"foo",
    "fromemail":"bar@bar.com",
    "message":"Hello world"
}

For using /MinsToRead API

MinsToRead returns the approximate number of mins needed to read an article.

Add to the local.settings file the following for using the API:

Setting name	Setting Value	Default value
contentfileroot	Root URL where posts can be fetched from	If not set, pass in JSON body to request
azurestorageconnstring	Connection string to Azure Blog storage account	null (this is required)

Parameters to /MinsToRead should be sent as a JSON body. Parameters needed include:

Setting name	Setting Value
name	Unique name of the blog
fileurl	Entire URL to get the blog content from. Can be left out if contentfileroot is configured.

E.g.

{
    "name":"foo"
}

In this example, if contentfileroot is "http://contoso.com/posts", and then the following locations should be valid and reachable:

• http://contoso.com/posts/foo.html

For using /GetBlogMetadata API

GetBlogMetadata returns the metadata on a blog (minstoread, comments, likes, name). Returns a BlogInfo object that includes the metadata above.

Add to the local.settings file the following for using the API:

Setting name	Setting Value	Default value
contentfileroot	Root URL where posts can be fetched from	If not set, pass in JSON body to request
azurestorageconnstring	Connection string to Azure Blog storage account	null (this is required)

Parameters to /GetBlogMetadata should be sent as a JSON body. Parameters needed include:

Setting name	Setting Value
name	Unique name of the blog

E.g.

{
    "name":"foo"
}

http://contoso.com/posts/foo.html

For using /Comments API

Comments API adds any comments passed in comments and returns a string that contains the passed in comments + the old comments in storage

Add to the local.settings file the following for using the API:

Setting name	Setting Value	Default value
contentfileroot	Root URL where posts can be fetched from	If not set, pass in JSON body to request
azurestorageconnstring	Connection string to Azure Blog storage account	null (this is required)

Parameters to /Comments should be sent as a JSON body. Parameters needed include:

Setting name	Setting Value
name	Unique name of the blog

E.g.

{
    "name":"foo",
    "comments":"This is a comment. If you want the comment to be concatenated with some newlines, add HTML newlines at the end like so <br/>"
}

For using /Likes API

Likes API adds or decrements passed in number of likes from what already exists. The API will stop at 0 so like count doesn't go negative. Retuns the current Like count as an int.

Add to the local.settings file the following for using the API:

Setting name	Setting Value	Default value
contentfileroot	Root URL where posts can be fetched from	If not set, pass in JSON body to request
azurestorageconnstring	Connection string to Azure Blog storage account	null (this is required)

Parameters to /Comments should be sent as a JSON body. Parameters needed include:

Setting name	Setting Value
name	Unique name of the blog

E.g.

{
    "name":"foo",
    "comments":"This is a comment. If you want the comment to be concatenated with some newlines, add HTML newlines at the end like so <br/>"
}

Running tests

cd into the azurefuncs_test folder, and run:

dotnet test

Running the application

If you are using VSCode, simply hit Run -> Start Debugging (F5 on Windows) from the menu to debug.

Deploying to Azure using VSCode

Once you have built, updated local.settings.json, tested locally, now it's time to deploy to Azure. To do that, there are two ways:

1. Use Azure App Service extension from [VS code] (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-develop-vs-code?tabs=csharp)
2. Use [Azure DevOps pipeline] (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/targets/azure-functions-window) and use a GitHub YAML file. The checked in YAML file should work.

Before running your Azure App, make sure you have set all your application settings from local.settings.json file in Azure Function App through the Azure portal.

Happy development!