A short list of ongoing features and coding needs for Glowbug:
- Twitter API usage for generating embeds of tweets
- Build XML sitemap
- Build an RSS feed for people to subscribe to
- Enable embedding of template code so I can reuse the same template for the sidebars
- Replacing the rich text editor the admin panel currently uses, TinyMCE is feature rich but the HTML it generates is awful
- I have a few ideas for the day archive pages to add context to life, such as local weather on that day, etc. I don't know if I'll end up soing it or not but it is a neat idea.
Google Maps' Moat is Evaporating
I was just bemoaning the state of near monopoly Google Maps has yesterday in discussing how much I missed playing Geoguessr regularly. It's an online game that sprung up after Google's street view took off. You get dropped in a random place in the world and have to figure out where you are. They were forced to make it a premium game so as to enable paying for access to Google's API (and probably to make it a business as well, I'm sure.) But as it is now you can play one game a day without paying for premium.
So this read was quite interesting to see the behind-the-scenes of the battle that is building as the other companies try to wrest away control from big G.
The 2020 Bucatini Shortage
Humorously enough, I ran into this too this year. I love making a version of Pasta Carbonara for dinner and find Bucatini to be better than spaghetti for it. We couldn't find it for months this year, it seems that the shortage is over for now (at least in the Seattle area) but this was an enjoyable if rather a bit of a let down at the end.
I can't stop futzing with Glowbug. I have just added a Discord webhook to publication so I can push updates to an as-yet not-public Discord server. It was shockingly easy, which is my favorite coding experimentation.
I don't know if I'll make the Discord hook public or not, it's just an idea I'm exploring.
Quill.js
A bit of research has led me to abandoning TinyMCE and moving the Glowbug editor to Quill.js. It is not a clean swap, requiring a bit of change to code since Quill.js operates differently from TinyMCE in a few ways. But, as far as I can see, the code it generates is very clean compared.
Will take some fiddling and experimenting, but from initial implementation to now, it seems quite good.
I get that API documentation is difficult. I'm bad at documenting my own code. But I've just spent 3 days trying to get Twitter embeds working and finally realized I could do it in mere minutes because I was way overcomplicating the process.
It's things like this which don't make me miss being a web developer full time.
I can't overstate how much I enjoy having a coding project to work on. Endless adjustments, tweaks, etc. I've long compared it to the people who work on cars, or models, etc. It's a nearly never ending project. Or at least it seems that way as I continue to tweak and adjust and add.
Thankfully adding the RSS feed proved simple enough, now if you use an RSS reader you can subscribe to the feed.
Boardwalk Empire - âââ.5/5 Stars
The first two seasons are extremely strong. In my humble opinion the series should have ended there, possibly after the third season. They continued on for 5 seasons which tell a mostly cohesive narrative but which grow further outlandish and forced.
Next up for bingeing: The Expanse.