Blog Coming Soon - Testing All the Features

A comprehensive showcase of all blog formatting features while we prepare to launch. This post contains every possible markdown element to test the system.

·7 min read·Tom Watts

Blog Coming Soon - Testing All the Features

I’m excited to share that this blog is almost ready! While I put the finishing touches on content, here’s a comprehensive showcase of all the formatting features and capabilities you can expect.

What to Expect

This blog will focus on design engineering, product development, and lessons learned from building software that people actually want to use. Think of it as a place where design meets code, and theory meets practice.

Topics I’ll Cover

Here are some areas I’m planning to write about:

  • Design Systems - Building scalable, maintainable component libraries
  • Frontend Architecture - Patterns and practices for modern web development
  • Product Discovery - How to validate ideas before building them
  • Team Collaboration - Bridging the gap between design and engineering
  • Career Growth - Lessons from 10+ years in tech

Formatting Showcase

Let me show you all the formatting features this blog supports:

Typography Hierarchy

This is an H1 Heading

This is an H2 Heading

This is an H3 Heading

This is an H4 Heading

Regular paragraph text with bold text, italic text, and bold italic text. You can also use inline code for technical terms and links to external sites.

Code Examples

Here’s some TypeScript code with syntax highlighting:

interface BlogPost {
  title: string
  date: string
  excerpt: string
  content: string
  tags: string[]
  author: string
  readingTime: number
  published: boolean
}

function generateExcerpt(content: string, maxLength = 160): string {
  const plainText = content.replace(/[#*`]/g, '').trim()
  if (plainText.length <= maxLength) {
    return plainText
  }
  
  const truncated = plainText.substring(0, maxLength)
  const lastSpaceIndex = truncated.lastIndexOf(' ')
  
  return lastSpaceIndex > 0 
    ? truncated.substring(0, lastSpaceIndex) + '...'
    : truncated + '...'
}

CSS styling example:

.blog-content {
  max-width: 65ch;
  line-height: 1.6;
  font-family: 'Inter', system-ui, sans-serif;
}

.blog-content h2 {
  margin-top: 2rem;
  margin-bottom: 1rem;
  font-weight: 600;
  color: var(--heading-color);
}

Bash commands:

# Install dependencies
npm install gray-matter markdown-it prismjs

# Build the project  
npm run build

# Start development server
npm run dev

Lists and Organization

Unordered list:

  • First item with some detail
  • Second item that’s a bit longer to test wrapping
  • Third item with a link embedded
    • Nested item one
    • Nested item two
      • Deep nested item

Ordered list:

  1. Set up the infrastructure - Create the basic routing and layout
  2. Add content processing - Implement markdown parsing and syntax highlighting
  3. Enhance the experience - Add table of contents, copy buttons, progress indicators
  4. Optimize for production - SEO, performance, and accessibility improvements

Task list:

  • Complete blog infrastructure setup
  • Add syntax highlighting for code blocks
  • Implement table of contents generation
  • Add copy-to-clipboard functionality
  • Write first real blog post
  • Set up newsletter integration
  • Add comment system

Quotes and Callouts

“The best products emerge when design and engineering work as one discipline, not two separate functions.”

This approach has consistently led to better outcomes in my experience.

Here’s a longer blockquote to test formatting:

Design systems are only as good as their adoption rate. I’ve seen beautifully crafted component libraries sit unused while teams continue to build one-off components. The key insight? Design systems are as much about people and process as they are about code.

Tables

Feature Status Priority Notes
Markdown Parsing ✅ Complete High Using markdown-it with plugins
Syntax Highlighting ✅ Complete High Prism.js with TypeScript support
Table of Contents ✅ Complete Medium Auto-generated from headings
Copy Code Buttons ✅ Complete Medium Hover to reveal, click to copy
Reading Progress ✅ Complete Low Shows progress at top of page
RSS Feeds ✅ Complete Medium Multiple formats available

Images and Media

Unfortunately, I don’t have any images ready for this test post, but the system supports:

  • Automatic image optimization through Next.js
  • Responsive image sizing
  • Alt text for accessibility
  • Caption support

Footnotes

This blog supports footnotes[1] for additional context and references[2]. They’re perfect for citing sources without interrupting the main flow of content.

Horizontal Rules

Sometimes you need to separate sections:

And here we are in a new section! The horizontal rule above creates a clear visual break.

Mathematical Expressions

While not implemented yet, I’m considering adding support for mathematical expressions using KaTeX for any technical posts that might benefit from formulas.

Technical Features Behind This Post

This post demonstrates several technical capabilities:

  1. Static Generation - This page is pre-rendered at build time for optimal performance
  2. SEO Optimization - Full meta tags, Open Graph, and structured data
  3. Accessibility - Semantic HTML, proper heading hierarchy, alt text
  4. Performance - Code splitting, optimized assets, efficient caching
  5. Developer Experience - TypeScript throughout, proper error handling

What’s Next?

I’m putting the finishing touches on the content strategy and will start publishing real posts soon. In the meantime, feel free to:

  • Follow the RSS feed at /rss.xml for updates
  • Check out my work in the portfolio section
  • Reach out if you have questions or suggestions

The table of contents on the right (on larger screens) shows how easy it is to navigate longer posts, and you should see a reading progress indicator at the top of the page.

Testing Edge Cases

Let’s test some edge cases and special formatting:

Very Long Code Block

// This is a longer code example to test horizontal scrolling
const reallyLongFunctionNameThatWouldCauseHorizontalScrolling = (parameterOne, parameterTwo, parameterThree, parameterFour) => {
  return `This is a really long string that demonstrates how code blocks handle content that extends beyond the normal line length and requires horizontal scrolling to view completely`
}

// Multiple lines of code
function calculateReadingTime(content) {
  const wordsPerMinute = 200
  const words = content.trim().split(/\s+/).length
  const readingTime = Math.ceil(words / wordsPerMinute)
  return readingTime
}

Nested Lists with Mixed Content

  1. First major point

    • Supporting detail A
    • Supporting detail B with inline code
    • Supporting detail C with a link

  2. Second major point

    With a blockquote nested inside

    And some additional explanation text.

  3. Third major point

    # Even code blocks can be nested
echo "Hello from a nested code block"

Special Characters and Unicode

Testing various special characters: áéíóú, ñ, 中文, 日本語, العربية, русский

Emojis: 🚀 ⚡ 💡 🎯 ✨ 🔥 📝 💻 🎨 🌟

Mathematical symbols: α β γ δ ε ∑ ∏ ∫ ∞ ≤ ≥ ≠ ≈

Conclusion

This showcase demonstrates that the blog is technically ready and can handle a wide variety of content formats. The reading experience should be smooth, accessible, and visually appealing.

Stay tuned for real content coming soon! 🚀

This post was generated to test all formatting features. Real blog posts with valuable insights are coming soon.

  1. Footnotes appear at the bottom of the post with automatic numbering and back-links. ↩︎

  2. This is powered by the markdown-it-footnote plugin, which provides a clean, semantic implementation. ↩︎

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