Power up your Jamstack blog with Tina CMS

Published: at 11:08 PM

Bloggers all need help with maintaining their content. That’s why choosing a good Content Management System (CMS for short) is very important. We have to choose a CMS which is scalable, open, and without a vendor lock-in. We have several CMSs which are very good in their belt hitting way above their weight like Ghost CMS, Sanity, WordPress, and many more But I recently came across Tina which is a git-based CMS which is unique and open. Let me introduce why Tina might be the best cms for your blog.

Table of contents

Open Table of contents

Why TinaCMS is best for content management?

Git Based:

While there are many CMS which provide API. This is one of the unique ones where all the content is stored in markdown format in a git repository without any vendor lock-in. On top of all this, you can leverage the benefits of git to your advantage such as commit history, tracking, environments, etc.

Open Source:

TinaCMS started as an open-source project. Even now after the acquisition by an Australian firm, it is still committed by the firm and community to stay open source.

Inline Editing:

TinaCMS features inline editing, allowing you to update content directly on your website with a live preview. This intuitive editing experience streamlines content creation and management, making it accessible and efficient for users of all technical levels.

Who will be Tina CMS best for?

TinaCMS is best suited for developers and content creators looking for a flexible and modern content management solution. It’s ideal for those who appreciate the benefits of a git-based workflow, offering robust version control and seamless collaboration. Additionally, its open-source nature makes it perfect for teams that need a customizable, scalable CMS without vendor lock-in. Whether you’re managing a small personal blog or a large-scale content site, TinaCMS provides the tools and flexibility needed to efficiently.

How I am using the Tina CMS

I am using Tina CMS for this blog. The first thing that I did after setting Tina was to configure all the frontmatter properties for my markdown blog posts so that I could access them in my Astro markdown props. Apart from that I have changed my static media upload from git source to Cloudinary CDN for better image processing and image delivery.

Here are some snippets of how I configured the frontmatter properties and Static images handler.

{
  media: {
    // cloudinary  
    loadCustomStore: async () => {
      const pack = await import("next-tinacms-cloudinary");
      return pack.TinaCloudCloudinaryMediaStore;
    },  
	},
}

{
  name: "blog",
    label: "Blogs",
      path: "src/content/blog",
        format: "md",
          fields: [
            {
              type: "string",
              name: "title",
              label: "Title",
              isTitle: true,
              required: true,
              ui: {
                validate: (value, data) => {
                  const lengthOfTitle = value?.length || 0;
                  const lengthOfDescription = data?.description?.length || 0;
                  if (lengthOfTitle >= lengthOfDescription) {
                    return "The description must be longer than the title";
                  }
                },
              },
            },
            {
              type: "boolean",
              name: "draft",
              label: "Draft",
            },
            {
              type: "string",
              name: "tags",
              label: "Tags",
              list: true,
            },
            {
              type: "rich-text",
              name: "body",
              label: "Body",
              isBody: true,
              templates: [
                {
                  name: "Callout",
                  label: "Callout",
                  fields: [{
                    name: "message",
                    label: "Message",
                    type: "string",
                  },
                  ],
                },
              ],
            },
          ]
}

Conclusion

TinaCMS stands out due to its open-source nature. It is an excellent choice for developers and content creators seeking a flexible and modern CMS without vendor lock-in. By leveraging TinaCMS, you can efficiently manage your blog, enjoy the benefits of version control, and customize the platform to suit your specific needs. If you’re running a personal blog TinaCMS provides the tools and flexibility required for effective content management.

Frequently Asked Questions

Have a different question and can’t find the answer you’re looking for? Reach out to me here.