Converting BlogCFC blog to Eleventy

Originally posted at akbarsait.com

This post outlines the steps for migrating an existing BlogCFC blog to a JamStack, with a focus on using Eleventy.

Blog Posts Conversion to MD Files: First, convert the existing blog posts to Markdown files. Since all the BlogCFC posts are data-driven, this simplifies the process of converting them to MD files. Adrian Moreno has created a three-step script to make this even easier. Simply use the ColdFusion scripts and customize them as needed

• https://adrianmoreno.com/2018/10/06/converting-blogcfc-posts-to-markdown.html

Comments Handling: Next, I needed to migrate the comments from the blog. Initially, I used the built-in comments functionality that saved comments to the BlogCFC database. Later, I migrated to Disqus. Despite the low comment count, I followed these steps to manage them.

• Comments Export from Disqus: Raymond Camden outlines the steps for converting: https://www.raymondcamden.com/2014/11/26/disqus-update-and-blogcfc-export-script

• Comments Import to Eleventy: After converting the content to XML files, the next step is to create a JSON file with a name similar to the blog post’s Markdown (MD) files. Eleventy will automatically handle this JSON data within our markdown template. The process is documented through utility by Zach Leatherman. https://github.com/11ty/eleventy-import-disqus
  

coldfusion-builder-extension-appcore-creator.md
coldfusion-builder-extension-appcore-creator.json

• The result of the imported comments will display as follows.

  • https://akbarsait.com/blog/2009/1/13/blogcfc-redesign/
  • https://akbarsait.com/blog/2013/11/23/getcfmljobscom-for-cfml-developers/
  • https://akbarsait.com/blog/2012/1/25/configuring-and-running-railo-powered-cfml-applications-on-jelastic-cloud/

• Handling New Comments: There are excellent lightweight comment utilities available for managing comments on your eleventy blog. I personally use Utterances, but Giscus is also a great alternative.

Redirect and Netlify: If you’re hosting your blog on Netlify and intend to set up redirects for changes to your page URLs, create a new front-matter entry using the following script. This step is necessary only if you plan to alter the URL pattern from your previous blog to the new one.

• https://willvincent.com/2022/07/27/redirects-with-11ty-and-netlify/

The transition from BlogCFC to Eleventy was smoother than anticipated, and I successfully deployed the website on Netlify.
Thanks to Adrian Moreno, Raymond Camden and Zach Leatherman. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Related Post:

• Blog Powered by 11ty
• BlogCFC Redesign

Title Photo by Akbar Noormohamed on Unsplash