DEV
Turn a note or a blog post into a DEV article with a cover, tags and a canonical link, so search engines credit your original. Each DEV account you add is one account on your plan.
Connect DEV
- On DEV, open Settings › Extensions and create a key under DEV Community API Keys.
- In Refract, open Accounts, select Connect account and pick DEV.
- Paste the key into API key and select Check and connect. Refract checks it with DEV and shows your DEV username.
- Choose which workspace the account belongs to.
Refract stores your API key encrypted and uses it only to publish what you schedule. Articles go out under your own DEV profile: DEV's API doesn't list the organizations you belong to. If you revoke the key on DEV, the account shows Signed out of DEV on the Accounts page: create a new key and select Reconnect. Client connect links can include DEV.
What you can post
- Article: a title, the body in Markdown and a short description. The description is the article's first sentence, up to 150 characters.
- Cover image: the first picture. DEV shows it at the top and in the feed, cut to 1000 × 420. The other pictures follow the text as Markdown images, with their alt text.
- Tags: up to 4, letters and digits only, up to 30 characters each, without the #.
- Canonical link: points search engines to your original post. When you leave it empty, Refract uses your original post: the blog post a post came from with the Refract plugin for WordPress, or the first link in your note (then your text) that's on one of your connected WordPress sites. The field shows that link.
- Series: optional. Articles in the same series link to each other on DEV.
- Send as a draft: turn it on in the DEV tab to send the article to your DEV drafts and publish it there.
DEV takes no video. A version written from your note is an article of 300 to 600 words in short sections, with code in fenced blocks. It costs credits by length; the cost shows before you write.
Limits
Titles take up to 128 characters and the body up to 800 KB. The composer checks the title, the 4 tags and the canonical link before you schedule. Refract sends at most 10 articles every 30 seconds per account, and waits as long as DEV asks when DEV wants it to slow down.
Edit and remove
- Edit: yes. Refract sends the article again: title, body, description, tags, cover, canonical link and series. Whether it's published or a draft on DEV stays as it is.
- Unpublish from DEV: DEV's API can't delete an article, so Refract turns it back into a draft on DEV. The post stays in Refract, marked Removed. Delete the draft on DEV if you want it gone. An article already gone from DEV counts as removed.
Numbers
Analytics shows each article's views, reactions and comments, and your followers on DEV. An article you unpublished has no numbers.
Errors and fixes
| What Refract says | What to do |
|---|---|
| DEV didn't accept that API key | Create a new key in DEV under Settings › Extensions and paste it again. |
| DEV signed you out | The key was revoked. Create a new one and select Reconnect DEV. |
| Another article on DEV already uses this canonical link | Change the canonical link in the DEV tab or leave it empty, then retry. |
| DEV didn't confirm it got the post | Check your articles on DEV. If the article isn't there, retry it. Refract never sends it twice on its own. |
| DEV rejected this post | DEV says why after the colon. Fix it in the DEV tab, then retry. |
| DEV has restricted posting on this account | Check your account on DEV. |
| DEV says the post no longer exists | The article was deleted on DEV. |
| DEV asked us to slow down | Refract waits as long as DEV asks and tries again. |