Full Circle Magazine FR

Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !

I have been using the lull of the last month to read up on all the articles I save, and the videos I’ve added to my ‘watch later’ list. In this article, I plan to share some applications I’ve discovered through this reading, and a few general revelations. Cantata I’m the kind of person who works best with a bit of background music playing. For the longest time, my go-to music player was NCMPCPP and MPD (Music Player Daemon). However, in the course of sharing my music folder between my laptop and NUC, I decided I needed an application I could use to rename files and organize the folder in general. Enter Cantata. It’s a graphical front-end for MPD, meaning I could still use my playlists and NCMPCPP whenever I pleased. It also offers the ability to download album art, find album information when ripping CDs, and dynamic playlists. Overall, the application does way more than I ever really use, but also does exactly what I want when it comes to organizing files. If you use MPD, and want a graphical interface for it, Cantata should be on your short list of applications to try. Not least of all because it appears to be one of the few still being actively developed.

J'ai utilisé l'accalmie du mois dernier pour lire tous les articles que j'avais stocké et regarder les vidéos que j'ai ajouté à ma liste « à regarder plus tard ». Dans cet article, je pense partager certaines applications que j'ai découvertes au cours de mes lectures, ainsi que quelques révélations générales.

Cantata

Je suis le genre de personne qui travaille mieux avec un peu de musique en arrière plan. Habituellement, le lecteur de musique que je préfère était NCMPCPP et MPD (Music Player Daemon). Toutefois, lorsque je partageais mon dossier de musique entre mon ordinateur portable et NUC, j'ai décidé que j'avais besoin d'une application que je pouvais utiliser pour renommer des fichiers et, généralement, pour organiser le dossier. C'est alors que Cantata est entrée en scène. C'est une interface graphique pour MPD, ce qui signifie que je pouvais toujours utiliser mes listes de lecture et NCMPCPP quand je voulais. Elle vous permet également de télécharger la pochette de l'album, trouver des renseignements dessus lors du ripage d'un CD, et créer des listes de lecture dynamiques. Globalement, l'application fait beaucoup plus que ce dont j'ai besoin, mais fait également exactement ce que je veux quand il s'agit d'organiser mes fichiers.

Si vous utilisez MPD et voulez une interface graphique qui convient, Cantata devrait faire partie de la courte liste d'applications à essayer. Ne serait-ce que parce que semble être l'une des rares qui sont toujours en développement actif.

Hugo-Reveal

Reveal.js is a library for creating slideshow presentations using HTML, and is something I’ve used occasionally. Hugo is a static site generator I’ve adopted into my workflow. As such, I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered an article (link in Further Reading below) that covered a theme for Hugo that puts Reveal.js to good use. You can essentially turn your SSG (static site generator) into a presentation generator. The resulting static site can then be hosted almost anywhere you like (GitHub Pages, Netlify, your own host, locally, etc). I haven’t yet looked into the various options, nor have I tried to theme a presentation. However, if you’re looking for a relatively fast and easy way to get into Reveal.js (or just want a quicker alternative to something like Powerpoint or Good Slides), then I highly recommend giving this a shot. Using Markdown to format and style the slides is much faster than a typical GUI and mouse approach.

Laravel Homestead

One of the video series I started watching was “Building SponsorShip” by Adam Wathan (one of the creators of Tailwind CSS), where he livestreams the process of developing a Laravel app with Tailwind CSS. The series is an excellent primer on using Laravel via TDD (test-driven development), and covers some aspects of Tailwind CSS as well. This prompted me to install Laravel on my computer myself. At first, I expected it to be as irritating to install and maintain alongside my other PHP applications as usual. Instead, I discovered that they offer Homestead - a prepared Vagrant virtual container for running and testing your projects. While it would be nice to have a lightweight option as well, Homestead is a very robust option. It may be possible to find a Docker container that also offers similar features, but the ease of installation and configuration for Homestead offsets the benefits of Docker.

If you are looking to get into Laravel, I highly recommend you start with Homestead and work from there. If you happen to develop on macOS, they have a smaller option called Valet.

Test-Driven Development

The video series mentioned above also drove home how useful test-driven development can be. While I’m no stranger to TDD, my main experience using it is with things like Exercism, where a set of tests are delivered to you and the actual application is what you need to write. I do occasionally write tests, but never for web applications when I work in Rails. I have therefore decided to take some time to learn at least the basics of TDD for Rails, Laravel, and Python in general. This will cover my 3 main languages, and should also allow me to discover the similarities between testing libraries.

If you’re a new programmer - start with TDD as early as possible! I know this is a topic that frequently comes up when hiring new developers. It can also help you learn the “programmer’s mindset”. If you’re an experienced developer, you may have more trouble rewiring your workflow to include TDD, but it’s a step that most programmers should take. I don’t mean that TDD should be used for every project - if you’re writing 15 lines of code, you shouldn’t need to write tests for this. However, for any larger project, or project you may be maintaining for a while, TDD will pay off quite quickly.

Notion

Lastly - the most noteworthy application of all. A note-taking one! Notion is a web application that offers users the ability to take notes of any sort - to-do lists, bulleted lists, tables, databases, etc. It’s been one that I’ve had on my radar for quite a while (since Chris Coyier mentioned it on ShopTalk), but I waited until they had created an actual Android app. The web app lacked some features I required on mobile (such as notifications for reminders).

Previously, I’d used Trello and/or Google Keep for tracking small notes. For anything larger, I’d open a google drive document. Now, I just open Notion and select the template that’s most suitable for what I need. For example, I use their Tasks template to create to-do lists similar to Trello (3 columns, and I move the items between them according to their status). You can also assign users to tasks.

If you’re looking for a note-taking application that can do much more than just bulleted lists, I highly recommend you give Notion a shot. If you don’t feel like creating another account to keep track of, you can also simply use Google to log in.

Conclusion

The above points have already (or will soon) shape how I work and organize myself. Hopefully, they can do the same for you! If any programmers among my readers have good suggestions for getting into TDD, please do let me know! As always, I can be reached under lswest34+fcm@gmail.com. I’m also open to article suggestions, questions, or comments!