Create the blog

The first thing we’ll do is create a new Section for our blog posts.

# Create a section

In the control panel, choose Settings from the main navigation.
Choose Sections from the “Content” options.
Choose + New section.
Enter “Blog” for this new section’s name. Notice the lowercase handle and Entry URI Format are created for you. The handle is what you’ll use referring to this section in your templates and GraphQL queries, and the URI is where you’ll eventually see your blog post on the public site.
Enter blog/_entry for the Template setting. We’ll create that template later on.
Leave the rest of the default settings as they are and choose Save.

Screenshot of new section fields — Settings for the new blog section.

You’ll see a new Entries menu item in the sidebar navigation. Choose that, then New Entry → Blog.

We can create a new blog post now, but all it would have is a Title field:

Screenshot of new blog post entry with only a title — The new blog post entry doesn’t yet have any custom fields.

Let’s create some fields to store blog post content!

# Create blog fields

Now we’ll create some fields for storing content and add them to the blog entry type’s field layout.

Here’s what we’ll set up for our blog posts:

A Volume for storing images used for post content.
A Plain Text field to be used for a post summary.
An Assets field for a feature image.
A Categories field for post taxonomy.
A Matrix field for flexible post content.

# Create an Asset Volume

First, let’s create a place to upload the files we’ll use for our feature and post images.

Craft uses the concept of Assets to describe uploaded files. Assets consist of the files themselves and any other fields we’d like to attach to them. All Assets are stored in folders referred to as Volumes. These can be in your filesystem or different cloud storage providers—see the documentation on Volumes for more about those options.

We’ll create a local Asset Volume within the web root for blog post images:

In the control panel, navigate to Settings → Assets.
Choose + New volume.
Enter the name “Blog” and set the following:
- Assets in this volume have public URLs: on/enabled
- Base URL: @web/assets/blog
- File System Path: @webroot/assets/blog
Save the Asset Volume.

Craft will create that folder and let you upload and manage its Assets from the control panel.

@web and @webroot are aliases Craft includes by default, pointing to the base site URL and document root file path respectively.

Screenshot of settings for the new asset volume — Settings for the new blog volume.

If you’d rather store your Assets on a cloud service like Amazon S3, you could install the Amazon S3 plugin (opens new window) to select and configure that Volume Type instead.

# Create a Category Group

Now create a Category Group we can use for blog post categories:

Navigate to Settings and choose Categories.
Choose + New category group.
Enter the name Blog Categories and limit Max Levels to 1.
For Category URI Format, enter blog/category/{slug} and set the Template to blog/_category.
Save the Category Group.

Screenshot of new category group fields — Settings for the new blog category group.

# Install the Redactor plugin for rich text fields

You’ll probably want a rich text editor (WYSIWYG) for editing the main text of your blog posts. For this, we’ll install the first-party Redactor (opens new window) plugin. You can do this through the control panel or from the terminal.

Let’s be adventurous and use console commands:

From your terminal, run ddev composer require craftcms/redactor. Composer will download the plugin and add it to your project.
Now run ddev php craft plugin/install redactor.

You can install Craft and Craft plugins from the browser like we did earlier or using terminal commands like we did here. 😎

That’s it! The Redactor plugin is installed and ready to use in our site.

Screenshot of plugins list showing Redactor installed — Redactor now appears in the list of installed plugins, where it can be disabled or uninstalled.

# Create individual fields

Next, let’s create the individual fields for our blog posts. With Craft, we explicitly create and configure each custom field we want to use so we can arrange them in field layouts.

Navigate to Settings → Fields.
Choose + New group to create a new field group with the name “Blog Post Fields”. Save the group.
Create a Plain Text “Summary” field. Choose New Field and enter the following:
- Name: Summary
- Default Instructions: Enter a brief, one or two sentence post summary. (This helps the content editor know what to do!)
- Allow line breaks: on/enabled
- Initial Rows: 1
Save the field.
Create an Assets “Feature Image” field. Choose New Field again and enter the following:
- Name: Feature Image
- Field Type: Assets
- Restrict uploads to a single folder?: checked
- Default Asset Location: Blog
- Restrict allowed file types?: checked
  - Select Image to ensure content editors can only select files that are images
- Limit: 1
Save the field.
Create a Categories field named “Post Categories”. Again choose New Field and enter:
- Name: Post Categories
- Field Type: Categories
- Source: Blog Categories (selected by default, because we just created it in the last step).
Save the field.
Create a Matrix field named “Post Content”. Choose New Field one more time and enter:
- Name: Post Content
- Field Type: Matrix
We’ll use the Configuration area to add two block types, each being its own group of sub-fields:
1. First add a text block an author can use to enter rich text.
  Choose + New block type, enter Text for its Name, and choose Create. For this block’s first field, enter:
  - Name: Text
  - This field is required: checked (Every text block should have at least some text.)
  - Field Type: Redactor
2. Add one more block for images.
  Choose + New block type again, enter Image for its name, and enter:
  - Name: Image
  - This field is required: checked (Every image block should have an image.)
  - Field Type: Assets
  - Restrict uploads to a single folder?: checked
  - Restrict allowed file types?: checked
    - Select Image to ensure content editors can only select files that are images
Save the field.

Screenshot of complete Blog Post Fields group — Our complete group of new fields.

# Add fields to the blog field layout

Now we have everything we need to collect content for our blog posts. If you were to create a new entry right now, however, you’d still only see that Title field again.

It’s time to use our custom fields by creating a blog section Field Layout:

Navigate to Settings → Sections.
Choose Edit entry types (1), and then choose the Blog entry type that was added for you.
At the bottom of this view you’ll see the field layout designer. Choose + New Tab.
Select the gear icon to the right of the new tab, choose Rename, and give this tab a more descriptive label like Post Content.
Drag each of the fields we created earlier to this tab, in whatever order you’d like.
Since every blog post should have some kind of content, choose the gear icon to the right of the “Post Content” field and make sure it’s required.
Enter Headline for Title Field Label.
Save the field layout.

Screenshot of complete blog field layout — Completed blog entry type field layout.

That Title Field Label is a simple way to relabel the title—which every entry has—to something more descriptive for content editors. This can be especially important later if each entry represents something like a service, a physical object, or a person.

Once you’ve added fields to the blog section’s field layout, return to Entries and create a new blog entry. Now you’ll see each of the fields you created and you’re ready to publish some content!

Screenshot of new entry screen with our custom fields — A new blog post entry now includes our custom fields.

Create the blog

# Create a section

# Create blog fields

# Create an Asset Volume

# Create a Category Group

# Install the Redactor plugin for rich text fields

# Create individual fields

# Add fields to the blog field layout

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