Meysam

Posted on May 27

Tarzan - Email to Blog Platform

#devchallenge #postmarkchallenge #webdev #api

This is a submission for the Postmark Challenge: Inbox Innovators.

What I Built
Demo
Code Repository
How I Built It

What I Built

I created Tarzan - a revolutionary email-powered blogging platform that transforms your inbox into a publishing powerhouse! 🌟

Instead of logging into yet another content management system, Tarzan lets you publish blog posts by simply sending an email. Write your content in your favorite email client, hit send, and watch as it magically appears as a beautifully formatted blog post on your website.

The platform leverages Postmark's inbound email parsing to receive emails, processes Markdown content seamlessly, handles file attachments, and renders everything into a stunning blog interface built with Vue.js and TailwindCSS.

Key Features:

📧 Email-to-Blog Publishing: Send an email, get a blog post
🎨 Markdown Support: Full Markdown rendering with syntax highlighting
📎 File Attachments: Images and documents are automatically handled
⚡ Lightning Fast: Go backend with SQLite for exceptional performance
🔒 Self-Hosted: Complete data ownership and privacy
🏠 Single Binary: No dependencies, perfect for air-gapped environments
📱 PWA Ready: Install like a native app on any device

Demo

🚀 Live Demo: https://tarzan.meysam.io

Testing Instructions:
Since this is a live blogging platform, you can see real blog posts that were created by sending emails! The demo site showcases:

Browse Posts: Navigate through blog posts created via email
Responsive Design: Test on different screen sizes
PWA Features: Try installing it as an app on your device
RSS Feed: Check out the auto-generated RSS feed at /rss.xml

For Developers - Local Testing:

# Quick start with Docker Compose
curl -o .env https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meysam81/tarzan/main/.env.example
curl -o docker-compose.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meysam81/tarzan/main/compose.yml
docker compose up -d

Then visit http://localhost:8000 to see your local instance!

To test the email functionality, you'll need to:

Set up a Postmark account (free tier works perfectly!)
Configure your domain's MX record
Set the webhook URL to your Tarzan instance
Send a test email and watch the magic happen ✨

Code Repository

meysam81 / tarzan

🌟 Revolutionary email-powered blogging platform. Transform your inbox into a publishing powerhouse! Send emails to create beautiful blog posts instantly. Self-hosted, zero dependencies, lightning-fast Go backend with Vue.js frontend. PWA ready, Docker support, Kubernetes deployment included. 📧✨

🌟 Tarzan - Revolutionary Email-Powered Blogging Platform

Transform your inbox into a publishing powerhouse with revolutionary email-powered blogging.

Tarzan revolutionizes content creation by turning every email you send into a beautifully rendered blog post. Built with cutting-edge technology and an unwavering commitment to simplicity, Tarzan empowers creators to publish content effortlessly while maintaining complete control over their data and infrastructure.

✨ Why Choose Tarzan?

🎯 Effortless

…

View on GitHub

The repository includes:

🏗️ Clean Architecture: Modular Go backend with dependency injection
🎨 Modern Frontend: Vue.js 3 with TailwindCSS and Vite
🐳 Production Ready: Docker support with Kubernetes manifests
🔐 Security First: Vulnerability scanning with every commit
📖 Comprehensive Docs: Detailed setup and configuration guides
🧪 Quality Assured: Pre-commit hooks and automated testing

How I Built It

Building Tarzan was an exciting journey that pushed me to think differently about content creation! Here's how I leveraged Postmark's amazing inbound email capabilities:

🔧 Technical Architecture

Backend (Go):

Built a robust HTTP server that receives Postmark's inbound webhooks
Implemented secure webhook authentication using basic auth
Created a flexible content processor that parses email bodies as Markdown
Designed a clean SQLite database schema for storing posts and metadata
Added file storage system for email attachments

Frontend (Vue.js + TailwindCSS):

Crafted a beautiful, responsive blog interface
Implemented progressive web app features for native-like experience
Added RSS feed generation and SEO optimization
Created smooth animations and modern UI patterns

📧 Postmark Integration Journey

Working with Postmark's inbound email parsing was absolutely delightful! The API is incredibly well-designed and made the integration seamless:

Webhook Setup: Configured Postmark to send parsed emails to my /webhook endpoint
Email Processing: Extracted email content, sender info, and attachments from the webhook payload
Content Transformation: Converted email body to Markdown and rendered it beautifully
Attachment Handling: Saved email attachments as static files and embedded them in posts

What impressed me most about Postmark:

The webhook payload is perfectly structured and contains everything needed
The attachment handling is robust and reliable
The inbound parsing configuration is intuitive
The free tier is generous enough for thorough testing and small blogs

🚀 Development Highlights

Zero-dependency deployment: The entire application compiles to a single binary
12-Factor App principles: Fully configurable via environment variables
Security-hardened: Container runs as non-root user with minimal privileges on scratch image
Production-ready: Comprehensive CI/CD with automated releases and security scanning

💡 Challenges & Solutions

The biggest challenge was designing an intuitive email-to-blog workflow. I wanted users to feel like they're just sending a regular email, not learning a new publishing system. After many iterations, I settled on:

Email subject becomes the blog post title
Email body (Markdown supported) becomes the post content
First attachment becomes the featured image
Sender email maps to author information

🎯 Why This Matters

As a developer who's often on the go, I found myself wanting to blog more but being frustrated by complex interfaces. Tarzan scratches my own itch - I can draft posts in my email client during commutes, send them when I have connectivity, and they're automatically published with beautiful formatting.

The email-first approach also makes Tarzan incredibly accessible - everyone knows how to send an email, but not everyone wants to learn another CMS!

🙏 Thank You Postmark!

Huge thanks to the Postmark team for not only providing an excellent service but also for sponsoring this challenge! The inbound email parsing feature opened up so many creative possibilities, and building with Postmark was genuinely enjoyable.

Working on this project reminded me why I love building tools that solve real problems in simple, elegant ways. Sometimes the best innovation comes from asking "what if we did this completely differently?"

I hope Tarzan inspires others to think creatively about how we can make content creation more accessible and enjoyable for everyone! 🌟

Built with love, lots of coffee, and the amazing Postmark API. Check out the live demo and let me know what you think! ☕✨

Top comments (3)

Richard Mirks • May 27

Interesting approach! Does Tarzan support any email formatting limitations, or can users use rich text and inline images freely when emailing posts?

Meysam • May 28

Well, it does support markdown right out of the box.

But, there is a catch!

The short version

The markdown support is limited to no-image rendering.

The long version

The inbound server sends a JSON that contains TextBody and the HtmlBody.

The TextBody does not have the inline images within it, which means, if the user sends markdown formatted email, you will get the # and other elements in this TextBody but you will not have access to the image.

On the other hand, in the HtmlBody, there are img elements for any attachments from the inline images. Parsing that and making sure that the src of the image is set correctly is no biggie, i.e., just switch cid:<attachment-id> to the URL of the image.

But, sadly, you'd have to do crazy HTML parsing of the HtmlBody to be able to render the markdown format AND have the inline images.

Here's the official doc:

postmarkapp.com/developer/user-gui...

For the time being, and to avoid perfection killing the progress, the image rendering does not happen simply because I grab the TextBody and produce markdown rendered content, but that obviously can change if the postmark would include the image in the TextBody!

ADEBI Châ-Fine Ayédoun • May 31

You blew me away