First Post!
Intro
Welcome to my blog section!
My name is Alan Davies and this is my first blog post.
Hopefully, this will be a way to keep track of developments and action plans.
I'm not very active on social media, so I fear I won’t be the best at writing in a blog-like format; despite this, I hope it will provide some useful insights!
The objective of this section will mainly be to outline my developments, focuses and achievements as a software engineer.
What's About?
- [Home Page]
- [Blog Page]
- [Projects Page]
- [About Page]
- [Contact Page]
Feel free to checkout the site and let me know if you have any feedback!
Date Posted: 21/06/2023
Website Development
Intro
Some of my collective projects sit in abandoned storage devices from my time around University; these projects remain catalogued in my mind but aren't available or outlined anywhere.
I hope this site can aid in recording the development of new skills and interests in the future and provide access to some of my older projects.
First, however, I'd like to outline the inspiration for the site theme.
Colour/Design Choice
Designed around an art piece focusing on my Guild Wars 2 character: 'Aster', it explores silhouette themes with a limited colour palette.
Due to the striking nature of the colour theme, it seemed reasonable to use it as a template for the site.
The intensity of colour/value on the left side of the background concerns me from a design perspective; the contrast disrupts the focus on the page, something I wish to avoid.
Given that the character silhouette provided a balance of value that draws the attention between two points, the background is much darker on the right-hand side that might push viewers’ attention away from the main cards/articles of the page.
In the future, I might make a different background or modify the current one; for now, it's a working template that allows the actualisation of the site - rather than existing as a concept exclusively.
Where to now?
Part of designing this site is my focus on constructing the CSS, React/Typescript/Javascript, as well as migrating the whole site from a router-based package to Next.js
Whilst I have designs for how the website should appear in paper documentation, I wish to get the content available and then begin adapting the site around the data available as a template.
To maintain this website, I want to focus on main projects and blog posts as well as simplifying the addition of such articles. I'm outlining the following areas to work on:
- Expanded Project pages
- Image Galleries
- Translate Blog posts & Project pages to JSON format
- Add a footer in layout template (enabling global social media availability)
- Refine CSS design
I may not be continuously developing the site as I come from a Java/C++ background; however, I hope it becomes a good reference for my activities and achievements.
Date Posted: 21/06/2023
JSON Data
Intro
As part of the integration, I've outlined a TypeScriptXml format to inject data and encountered a blocker with how the implementation of images and image galleries might work with this.
JSON Update
The implementation paints the way forward for project-specific pages generated from JSON-related data; this is a promising start. I will have to consider implementing flexible imagery blocks into the page via JSON data - it may not be able to "float" on the page; instead, it might have to be part of a grid or flexbox solution.
Creating a template and exploring a structured way to present blog posts has meant I've had to revisit the CSS to make it more uniform. I've pushed SCSS data into unique pages and imported them centrally; this should keep page-specific CSS maintainable by keeping page-specific styles contained.
Additionally, I've encountered the "aspect-ratio" property; it's pretty helpful in overcoming a bug I had with the avatar picture on the [About] page; now it scales with the available resolution, and I'm hoping to refine the responsive nature of the site as development progresses.
What's Next?
The Projects section also needs a data-driven approach for maintenance; images and their addition to this section could provide insight into adapting future blog posts.
Date Posted: 24/06/2023
Website Updates
Intro
As part of the development of this site, I wanted to create a site that presents some of the projects I’ve been working on; this post is just an update from the last post.
What's New?
I’ve been able to add significant project pages and respective links to each of my University projects; there are some coding-specific projects I’ve yet to add(such as the C++ pancake decorator pattern & OpenGL mesh rendering technique), as well as a few hobby projects I’ve not put priority on to add to the site just yet.
Image Carousel
Using custom CSS and React components I have created image galleries for the project Pages, adding a visual element of some of the works and achievements I’ve accrued during my time in university as well as my hobby achievements.
Site Footer
The contact page used to have social media redirects; I’ve now included a site footer that lists social media icons for specific sites. Because of the nature of this site, media sites will primarily be professional profiles as they provide the most value to identifying my technical expertise.
Custom Styling
Scss has been a surprising tool in creating the style of this site; it’s provided insight into how to implement and maintain the layout. I’m still exploring ways to remove redundancy that results from inheritance, balancing the implications of global styling against page-specific styles.
What's Next?
I’m quite happy about how this site has turned out; it may not be perfect; however, it has been an interesting few weeks of exploring React and modifying the original single-page application that it used to be.
There are a few areas I’d like to add; I have gathered these points and created a list below.
Project Scroller
expand
There’s a scrolling issue with the projects page; I want to outline five projects visible at any time; this might mean I’ll be focusing on identifying the scaling issue so that the cards reside within the bounding box.
Blog Page improvements
expand
The blog page will eventually overflow and become difficult to view; I’d like to ensure that there is an easy way to get the most out of the page. Adding a floating window to display posts from different years and incorporating link anchors to these items; should provide a navigational aid and overview of the posts I’ve released.
Testing & Maintaince
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Adding testing will give an overview of what functions/methods of implementation practices and where I can refine certain functions. Exploration of React Next.js is good; best practice is better and helps reinforce maintainability.
Whilst I’ve worked with Junit and Mockito, following SOLID principles, I’ve not looked into the presentation layer and type/javascript approaches given the more asynchronous behaviours; however, building the site up to support modularity and maintainability should be the goal.
At some point, I’d like to explore adding a webpage widget to demonstrate the Dungeons & Dragons explorable map; this will be an interesting project to implement. Previously I looked into this during my Angular9 skill refresh from AngularJS but only integrated a PDF viewer; the feature allowed me to quickly select a specific D&D PDF to reference whilst hosting my game(quick official book searches are surprisingly easy to scan through using PDF search tools).
I’ve outlined the potential issues to implement in the following priority order:
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Must:
- Scrolling/overflow issues on the projects page.
Should:
- Update additional projects from Uni and Hobby Works.
- Collapse/Expandable blog messages with custom Styling.
- Maintain code by incorporating Jest test coverage(95%) for the site.
Could:
- Modify the backdrop graphic to even out the colour distribution.
- Add a timeline for blog posts
- Using chronologically listed anchors
- Specific fetch requests for blog posts in certain years.
Would Like:
- D&D map display.
Date Posted: 13/07/2023