Swish.ink
A hosted blogging platform
It's been much too long since I last shared updates about Swish, and it is only fitting to break the silence with a significant update.
Themes are here!!!
The biggest news is that the groundwork to bring Themes to Swish has started bearing fruit and a 2nd theme \(apart from the default one\) is now available.
Additional themes have been the most requested feature since the inception of Swish and I can finally deliver on that.
The new theme is named Medium because it is based on Medium.com, although it will, of course, retain your chosen fonts and colours. Try it out and let me know.
Highlights
It has been 1 year and 9 months since the last update, and there are A LOT of changes that have been made. Here are the highlights:
Static Pages
It is now possible to create pages. This is useful for things like "About Us", "Contact Us", "Terms", and "Privacy Policy".
They are similar to posts, but do not show up on the "listings".
It is also possible to set a page as the "Homepage".
Author Name
Each user on the blog can now have a "Name" set which will show up on posts.
Preview URLs
When editing a draft post, a Preview URL is now provided to be able to view a post on the blog without publishing first.
Search posts on the dashboard
Instead of paginating through a long list of all posts to find a specific post. You can now search for posts on the dashboard.
Language and Translations
Many of you write blogs in other languages. It is now possible to set the blog language and to provide translations for any text that is shown by Swish.
Privacy
All fonts are loaded through fonts.swish.ink and we make sure no information is passed to Google, not even the IP address since Google will only see Swish's IP.
Notes
It is possible to add "Notes" to posts. These are only visible on the dashboard.
Export
If you need to move your blog away from Swish, it is now possible to Export the entire blog "Settings -> Admin".
New Integrations
- There is a new Integration "Webhook" which can be used to send webhook notifications when a post is created, published or deleted.
- An integration for Facebook Comments is now available.
- An integration for Hyvor Talk is now available https://talk.hyvor.com/.
What's Next
Pricing
In line with the increased value provided by Swish, I have decided to raise Swish's pricing in the next few weeks. The details of the new pricing are already up on the website.
As an existing user, if you want to subscribe at the current prices, feel free to do so from the dashboard.
More themes
The plan is to add a new theme every month for the next six months. If you spot any blog whose design you really like, kindly share.
As always, I am open to suggestions and feedback. You can either send me an email or send me a DM on Twitter.
It's been over 6 months since the last update, a lot of changes has been happening with Swish.
Here's what has changed, and a promise that the next update would not take another 6 months 😅.
What's New?
Default Editor
The default editor is now the WYSIWYG editor. I understand that many people are not used to markdown and a WYSIWYG editor is more in line with the first expectations.
The markdown editor is still there and can be selected from the preferences menu.
Hashnode imports
The Hashnode integration has been updated to support importing posts.
PGP Keys
Every blog now has a PGP key pair. The public key is linked from the meta tags so any tool can find it. There is also a menu in the settings to sign text with this key.
This is not very useful for most people, but allows for some niche use cases, like using your blog domain to sign in through protocols like indieauth.
Pay-walled Posts
You can now mark certain posts as private, this will require users to log in to be able to view them.
To power this feature, you'd have to enable an Integration for Post Protection. The first platform we have created an integration for is Memberful, let us know if you have any platforms you would like us to support so we can prioritize it.
Remove Swish Branding
Blogs on a paid plan can now remove "Powered by Swish" from the footer.
Background Color
From the theme options, it is now possible to change the background color of the blog pages.
The default background color was also changed from pure white to a warm white which is easier on the eyes.
Table of contents
An automatically generated table of contents is now shown alongside blog posts \(currently only on desktop\).
The visibility of the table of contents can be set for the entire blog and can also be overridden for individual posts.
Sharing from the Post Edit screen
When viewing a published post, you can now easily share directly to any of your active sharing integrations.
You are no longer limited to only when the post was published.
UI improvements
UI improvements are always being made. Most are too small to list here, but over time they add up.
PS: If you have any suggestions, let us know.
Webmention Integration
For adding comments through Webmention.io. Documentation.
If you do not already have an account you would have to create one using IndieAuth, and that requires signing a text using a PGP key.
Supporting this is the primary reason why the PGP feature was added. Take a look at the documentation to see how it works.
Adsense Integration
To instantly enable Google Adsense on your blog. Documentation.
Custom Code Integration
With this integration, you can add snippets of HTML code to the header and footer of your blog. Documentation.
CommentBox Integration
For adding comments with CommentBox. Documentation.
Commento Integration
For adding comments with Commento. Documentation.
Swarmify Integration
Integration with Swarmify Video CDN to automatically optimize any embedded videos. Documentation.
Linkedin Integration
The LinkedIn integration now supports sharing to organization pages. Documentation.
Memberful Integration
For limiting an entire blog, or just individual posts to “Members Only”. Documentation.
What's Next?
Over this time A LOT of work has gone into theming. The immediate plan is to start publishing a number of themes in the near future.
As always, I am open to suggestions and feedback. You can either send me an email or send me a DM on Twitter.
It’s been about a month since the last update, and of course, improvements are constantly being made. Here are the highlights:
Use 3rd Party Analytics
There are 4 new integrations and all of them are for 3rd party analytics. Aside from the already included analytics from Swish, you can connect your own analytics service of choice.
For those that have analytics for other products and services, you can now hook up your Swish blog to the same analytics to have a unified view.
Visual Improvements
From the landing page to the dashboard, there has been a significant visual rework. Things do look better overall.
What’s Next
- Add new integrations
- Explore more theming options
As always, I am open to suggestions and feedback. You can either send me an email or send me a DM on Twitter.
Here is what we’ve been up to since the last update:
Unsplash Integration
Unsplash has been integrated directly into Swish, you can now search images from Unsplash and use them in your posts.
Of course, you can also use the images as the featured image for your post.
Related to this, you can also use the search bar to search for the pictures you have uploaded yourself.
Visual Improvements
Swish is overdue for a fresh coat of paint, and we’ve started with the dashboard. The teal has been replaced with a light blue tone, which better represents the logo, and coveys the easy\-breezy feel that Swish tries to represent.
Over the coming weeks, a redesign of the landing pages is in the works.
What’s Next
- Rework the landing pages
- Add new integrations
As always, I am open to suggestions. You can either send me an email or send me a DM on Twitter.
This update took longer than I thought it would, I kept wanting to finish “one last thing” before sending it out which then somehow turned into 6 weeks 😅.
What’s New?
Cached Images
If you add an external image to your Swish post, we now download this image to serve through Swish.
What this means for you is that you never need to worry about your images breaking. Whether or not the original source moves or deletes the image, your post will continue to work as expected.
Main Link
On your Swish blog, the logo and title in the navigation bar link to the homepage of your blog. However, it is now possible to make it link to a different URL, for example, your main website.
The option to do this is under Settings > Theme.
Documentation
The documentation has gone through a huge rewrite to make it far more useful. We have also added a link from the dashboard to the documentation so it Is easier to find when you need it.
WYSIWYG Editor (BETA)
A new what you see is what you get editor has been added to Swish. The current Markdown editor is not going away though, it will continue to exist for anyone who prefers to write in Markdown.
From the Beginning, Swish has always used a Markdown editor, however, I have been told that some users would prefer to not have to write or learn markdown. This is also in line with Swish’s goal of being a tool that gets out of your way and is easy to use.
The choice of which editor to use will be in the hands of the specific user, so even if you have multiple authors on the same blog, they do not have to use the same editor, each author can pick the editor they feel most comfortable with.
While this new editor will eventually be the default, for now, you would have to opt in to try it out. Go to the Preferences page to switch.
UI Changes
Some general UI polish, especially for the dashboard. As the product added more features, the dashboard started to look a bit cluttered. We have moved things around to make it overall easier to navigate.
What’s Next?
Here are some things we have planned,
- Polish the new editor
- Make the post editing page even more immersive
- Allow images to be searched and added directly from Unsplash.
- New integrations.
As always, I am open to suggestions:
It's been less than a week since the last update, but here is what's new on Swish
WordPress Integration
New WordPress integration that allows you to import posts from your WordPress blog.
Supports both the hosted and self-hosted versions.
LinkedIn Integration
Much like the Twitter integration, this allows you to automatically share new published posts to your LinkedIn profile.
Sitemaps
Sitemaps now exist for every Swish blog, it is at /sitemap.xml. E.g. blog.swish.ink/sitemap.xml.
You can submit this to Google and other search engines so that they can easily find all pages on your blog.
Learn more about sitemaps here
What's Next
Working on adding more integrations. If you have any integration you'd like to see, let me know. You can:
Here are the features that we've shipped since the last update
Pretty URLs
Previously, every post URL ended with the ID of the post, which is 36 characters long. This is no longer the case.
Published posts are now assigned a unique slug when they are first published, but you can set it manually in the post settings.
Custom Fonts
There is now an option to set cutom fonts for the headings and body text on your blog, along with setting the primary color, your blog can now more closely match your brand.
Hide Featured Images in Post Grid
An option to hide featured images in the post grid is now present in the customization options. This is nice when going for a more minimalist look.
UX Improvements
- On the pages tab of analytics page, there is now a link to visit the page.
- Some other dashboard sections are now split into tabs to make things easier to use. For example, the Customize page and the integration settings page.
- On the Integrations page, tags to show what each integration type supports, and for current integrations, whether these abilities are turned on.
New Integrations
We've added some more integrations which you can seamlessly connect to your blog with a few clicks.
Disqus
Disqus is of course, one of the most popular comment hosting platforms, and when thinking of ways to add comments to a blog, Disqus was of course at the top of the list.
Blogstreak
I came across Blogstreak on Indie Hackers and I felt it was quite elegant.
Gives the ability to add a Medium-style Clap and a comments section to your website. I also had a good time collaborating with and giving feedback to Raja Simon
Adding Blogstreak to your Swish blog will only take you a few clicks.
The Twitter integration will automatically share new posts to your Twitter account.
Personally I find this really handy since I tend to share new posts to my Twitter account anyway 😅.
What's Next
Working on adding more integrations. If you have any integration you'd like to see, let me know. You can:
Hello, it been a while since the last update. Really wanted to send it out sooner, but needed to polish a few things here and there.
What's New?
Analytics
The analytics integration in the dashboard is done. You can see how your blog and posts are doing.
The data available only starts from 23rd January, so please keep that in mind.
Notifications
If you notice at the button of the sidebar, there is now a notifications page. It was only a matter of time before we added one.
There will definitely be things that would require your attention, and notifications are necessary for this.
Right now, they only show up in the dashboard, maybe sometime in the future it will be possible to get an email if you have some unread notifications.
Imports
It is now possible to import from a Medium or DEV integration. Many thanks to Shalvah who used both imports for his blog and helped me catch some bugs.
If you have been blogging on another platform, and you'd like to be able to import your posts, let me know so I prioritize that when adding new import sources.
Updated Pricing
After some feedback, we decided to change a few things about the pricing. All paying subscribers were contacted to communicate the change and have been moved to the new plan.
Check out more details of the plan here.
What's Next?
For the next couple weeks, the main focus will be reaching out to potential users. I believe the people who would find Swish most useful are companies and individuals who are posting articles regularly, but are using Medium/DEV as their primary platform.
I believe that some of them would love the ability to easily move (thanks to the imports), while keeping their current distribution channels since the Swish blog will automatically syndicate to Medium/DEV.
If you know anyone who fits this, I would really appreciate if you can point me in their direction 🙏🏾.
It's been nearly 3 months since the last update.
I took a six week vacation from mid November until the end of 2020 during which I did my best to stay away from work.
Since the new year, I've had a renewed energy to keep working on Swish, some new features have been shipped.
Also there is now a Blog for Swish. It was somewhat ironic that a blogging platform did not have a blog 😂.
What's New?
Connections to other platforms
When I first started thinking about this feature, it was primarily about cross posting to other platforms. However, I see that it can be so much more.
In the dashboard, there is now an "integrations" menu item which allows you to connect your blog with multiple services.
Right now, the focus is on cross posting, so the initial connections are Medium, DEV and Hashnode.
Multiple connections of each type can be added, and they can be set up to cross post and even edit/delete the external post where possible.
In the future, other forms of connections will be added. Some possiblities I'm currently thinking about are:
- Comment hosting services to enable comments on blog posts
- Social media platforms to notify followers when a post is published
- Newsletter platforms to share new posts as newsletters
- Webhooks for more generic integrations
- Other generic connecting platforms like Zapier and IFTTT.
Analytics
Analytics are now being measured on all blogs. The integration was done with the amazing Simple Analytics. It is privacy friendly, and we don't track your users or use any cookies.
This also means that there is no need for cookie banners and your readers have an uninterrupted experience.
Displaying these analytics on the dashboard is being worked on and should ship in the coming week.
Social share buttons
Social share buttons are now shown when a single post is being viewed.
This in currently ONLY available on desktop, because:
- Mobile browsers all have in-built share buttons
- We don't want to clutter the view, especially on smaller screens.
If you would like them to also be displayed on mobile screens, let us know.
Global Content After Posts
In the customise menu, you can add some content that will be show blow every post.
We can see this being useful to add some extra information about the blog or author, or add a newsletter subscription link like we are doing on the Official Swish Blog.
What's Next?
Show analytics data in dashboard
To round up the other end of the analytics and display this information to the users.
Import/Export
This may take some time to implement completely.
The idea is to make it possible to import posts from other platforms like Medium, Ghost, WordPress, DEV, Hashnode with only a few clicks.
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Here's what's been happening with Swish over the last 2 weeks.
What's New?
Multiple Users per Blog
It is now possible to invite multiple users to your blog. Since you wouldn't want everyone to have the same levels of access, there's a permissions system which allows you to select what each user has access to. There's also a few predefined roles which you can easily use.
Invites are sent by email and have to be accepted. This is to prevent someone being randomly added to blogs.
Check it out and please share your feedback.
What's Next?
Cross-posting to other platforms
For better distribution, it is very common to re-post an article on multiple platforms. This is something I do myself.
Soon, you should be able to link your blog to an account (or publication) on different platforms, and then Swish will automatically re-post every published post to these platforms.
Of course, the canonical URL will be set to link correctly to the original article.
The platforms I intend to first work on are:
- Medium
- Dev.to
- Hashnode
If there's any platform you'd like Swish to support, just reply to this email to let me know.
Thank You
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