How to Submit Blogs to Ortelius

You Have Something to Say - Share It

In the process of building the Ortelius open-source community, I’ve learned to important facts. First, everyone has something to share regardless of their experience or background. Second, sharing our thoughts and expertise is an important part of the open-source community. Each year, the Ortelius Committer Community holds a winter/spring BlogAThon giving everyone an opportunity to share.

To that end, every year I am asked, “how do I submit a blog?”

What Gets Your Attention?

Writing a blog is all about telling others what has caught your attention. It is from this place that you will write great content. If you are like me and easily distracted by something new, it may be hard to decide what to write about. During our annual BlogAThon, suggested topics are added to the Ortelius/Outreach repo in the form of issues. You can assign yourself one of these issues, which is great way to challenge yourself to learn something new, or share your expertise in a new area, for example, blockchain, SBOMs, Kubernetes, supply chain, etc.

What Type of Blog Should You Write

There are different styles of blogs that you can contribute. For example:

• List-Based - These blogs include lists of open-source products you may like, list of reading material, or facts you may want to share.
• News - News blogs get the word out about what the Ortelius community is working on. These are needed. The community gets busy but we often fail to share our progress with others.
• How-to - Tell new adopters of the Ortelius Platform how to install Ortelius, how to become a contributor, or how to write a blog.
• Explainer - Use these blogs to dive into technical topics to inform others about architecture, UI design, coding or other relevant topics that community members need to understand.

What You Should Include in Your Blog

If you are new to blogging here are some suggestions for how to construct the blog.

Introduction - At the beginning of your blog, summarize what you are going to tell your audience. Let them know what they will learn. This section can grab the attention of your reader if you title it with a basic definition for example, “What is blockchain?” or “What is an SBOM?”

Body - Blogs that are too long are not often read to completion. Keep your blog below 1000 words. Well written blogs of 500 words can do the job.

Conclusion - Summarize your information in one or two sentences. You might want to add a list of further reading.

References - If you have done research for your blog, tell everyone where you found it. Give credit where credit is do.

Getting the work done

To submit a blog to the Ortelius website, it must be written in Markdown format for the Hugo Server and submitted back to the Ortelius/Outreach repo for editing and approval.

Learn MarkDown

Markdown is super easy to learn. Don’t let this get in your way. You can always refer to other blogs in the Ortelius Website Repository. You will quickly see how simple Markdown is, and will be able to copy more complex functions like adding an image. In addition, there are many websites that explain Markdown syntax including:

• Markdown Guide
• Learn

Visual Studio Editor

I use Visual Studio to do all my editing. If you don’t have an editor, consider downloading Visual Studio. You can configure Visual Studio to connect to the Ortelius repo.

Become an Ortelius Blog Contributor

If you are not already part of the Ortelius Dev Group, you will need to be added in order to be assigned blogs. Follow these steps to be added to the Dev Group:

1. Sign-up for GitHub and create a GitHub UserID.
2. Create an issue under the Ortleius/Ortelius Git Repository requesting that you be added to the Ortelius Dev Group.

The Ortelius Administrators will send you an invite to become part of the Ortelius Dev Group. This will then allow you to assign yourself to Blog Issues under the Ortelius/Outreach repo.

Decide on Your Topic and Start Writing

You can review the open ‘blog’ issues at Ortelius/Outreach repo. If you don’t find a blog suggestion that you like, create a new Issue and assign it to yourself. Blogs can be submitted at anytime during the year, not just during BlogAThon.

Attach Your Markdown File to the Issue

Once you are ready to submit your blog for review and acceptance, go to the Ortelius/Outreach repo and find your issue. Respond to the issue by attaching your markdown file to be reviewed. If you have images that need to be included, attach these images as well.

Conclusion

The Ortelius community welcomes your blogging skills. You can select any type of topic, but the ones best suited for the Ortelius community include:

• How to install and get started with Ortelius
• How to setup Ortelius
• Explainer blogs on Ortelius objects: Components, Applications, Domains, Environments
• Explainer blogs on SBOMs and Supply Chain
• Explainer blogs on “logical” applications and how Ortelius aggregates data
• News on current events, outreach activities and new release announcements

Everyone has something to share. The Ortelius Community looks forward to hearing your voice and thoughts.

About Tracy Ragan

Tracy is an open-source enthusiast and the Community Director for the Ortelius Open-Source Project. Tracy is the CEO of DeployHub, Inc. She has over 25 years of experience in managing the software life cycle from build through release. She is expert in software supply chain issues. She has served on the Governing Boards of the Eclipse Foundation, Continuous Delivery Foundation and the OpenSSF. Learn more about Tracy from her LinkedIn Profile.

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