Is it possible to combine Airtable + [something else] as a backend?
(I can't code, so bear with me here…)
I love what a service like table2site enables - you can create a site from an Airtable base, and so adding data to your site and managing it is super easy. This is especially great for products - write a title, drag in an image, write a description, add a couple of attributes. It's much faster than adding something to say, WooCommerce in Wordpress.
Problem is, there's no way to add things like blog posts with this setup. You can only add the type of content that table2site allows.
So, my question is, would it be terribly difficult to create a solution that allows me to use Airtable for products AND blog posts, or Airtable for products and something else to store/generate blog posts? I assume this is possible, and I'm not* averse to learning whatever would make it possible, but I don't know where I would begin….
edit: NOT averse. I'll learn what I need to if it takes coding something from scratch.
Maybe take a look at IFTTT or Zapier… they are compatible with AirTable. https://ifttt.com/airtable https://zapier.com/apps/airtable/integrations if you need more no-code resources, you can also check https://www.nocode.tech/
I use IFTTT and Zapier for a number of things, but the problem here isn't exactly one of automation, but of generating a site with multiple post types in a custom way, all from Airtable, or from multiple databases. If it were indeed just from Airtable, I need a way parse content/markdown in Airtable and generate a blog post from it. None of the no-code tools I know of cover this, unless the people working on sheet2site and table2site come up with a blog content type.
Check out the tutorials over at MakerPad for how to do this
I'm afraid nothing there quite covers what I'm looking to do. It's easy enough to use a standard CMS like Wordpress for the post types I need, but there's no no-code tool that allows you to create blog posts from Airtable.
@blairrorani was actually just looking through his twitter feed, haha. Might turn this into a little learn-to-code project, though. I need some motivation 😆
I've been using no-code tools for a couple of years and I never found something like this. Honestly, I don't even understand the pros of this setup compared to a standard CMS and a subdomain. How do you manage SEO from Airtable? What are the pros that you are looking for?
The SEO is definitely an issue if using an Airtable-only setup. That's why I haven't pulled the trigger on something like table2site.
Not sure if this will help you but gatsby has an airtable plugin that allows you to get data from airtable and include it in a query.
What sort of things are you trying to do?
Yeah here is the link Gatsby Source Airtable, mind you I haven't tried this plugin yet so Im not sure how it works, but on the README page it say it can get records from your airtable.
I guess if you want to post things into your airtable you will have to use the API - which i'm writing a new post about it soon :D @kg756
Ooh ooh thanks…this might help a lot. I'm more or less envisioning a resources section of a site (like the resource collections plenty of people have put together using things like table2site and sheet2site) + a content/blog section of the site, at a minimum. I think that whatever the case, I finally need to dip my toes into learning how to code, because just about everything I'm doing these days has me running up against walls because I don't know how to 😂
@fabiorosado I will, thanks! Their tutorials are part of the reason I feel like I could actually set up a gatsby site - they're thorough and clear! Good way to start learning some things :)
I had the same problem and decided to try Gatsby + Airtable. I made a blog starter: Gatsby Airtable Advanced Starter You can use it as skeleton for a blog or site. Hope can be useful :)
Wow, this is interesting. Thanks for this! I need some time to wrap my head around Gatsby and all else that's out of my depth for now, but I'm going to take a closer look at this once I do. This does satisfy my curiosity about putting markdown into Airtable and creating a blog from it!
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