HWC Edinburgh - Tue 27th January

Fran

While for January we'd like to see you all the the Personal Websites code jam on Tue 20th, we might also run our standard session on the last tuesday of the month.

18:00–19:00 in the Costa at the top of Waveley Mall.

Since this is a tentative event, please leave a message below if you plan to come!

capjamesg

I might be able to come! I'm not 100% sure yet but I'd certainly try!

rdhar.dev

I'm keen!

capjamesg

I should be there next week! I also wonder if we should schedule a writing session again for some time in February. I'd appreciate an hour or two to sit down with the intention of writing 😃

Fran

I'll probably miss the session tomorrow, still here coughing. Up for a writing evening in a couple of weeks though!

Alistair Shepherd

I'll be there!

capjamesg

Thank you for coming along this evening, everyone! We've all been busy making things on our websites!

We had a group of five this evening, with Cicely joining us for the first time!

We discussed a lot tonight, including:

Freezing biscuits -- to do or not to do?
Analytics for websites -- Rishav has been experimenting with different solutions. Alastair has a blog post to publish on Goat Counter.
Cicely is working on adding a leaf mascot to her website, and experimenting with mapping!
Whimsical computing
Many of us are working on blog posts
Websites with bread borders (yes, bread as in the food!)
Kind software
EdinburghJS -- Rishav, Colin, and James were all there. It was a great environment with lots of good conversation!
Colin showed an NFC-based project he is working on
James created a new form to submit a piano to his Airport Pianos website @ https://forms.jamesg.blog/forms/airport-pianos/
Could there be an app that plays music that was written or has been performed near to where you physically are in a city?

I mentioned that I'd love to do a writing hour HWC at some point for anyone who would like to spend an hour in a coffee shop working on any blog posts they want to write! I'll share more information about this on the forum in the coming days, and https://events.indieweb.org as usual.

Thanks for coming along tonight everyone!

rdhar.dev

Really enjoyed this evening, and managed to jot down some notes down as well 😄

I've got nothing but good things to say about GoatCounter; from its privacy-friendly approach to ease of setup -- now all I need is to write some content for folks to read!
From adding HTML pages, to transparent PNGs, and aligning everything in-between: Cicely's blog is making moves!
When blogging, the ability to share drafts privately is very handy and James vouched for Ghost CMS shipping this feature.
Following the code jam, EdinburghJS often encourages the use of JavaScript frameworks, with Astro being a popular recommendation. However, Colin made the case for vanilla JavaScript for maximal compatibility with older devices and browser standards!
Alistair shared plans for a dynamically-generated hex map acting as a literal site map for navigation to-and-from pages, with some inspiration from Bruno Simon's three.js-powered portfolio site.
Colin shared a must-read from Glasgow's book club: This Is For Everyone by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web.
Alistair shared a link to Steve Gardner's frenzied site of "collectible Steve's" hidden online and in real life for anyone to find (just 9 more waiting to be discovered!)
James proposed more sites should feature a gravity switch 🙃, and Colin suggested a complementary snow globe mode to shake loose piles of snow! On the topic of web-design-should-be-fun, Josh Comeau's whimsical blogs come to mind (just try clicking on the li'l heart in the sidebar a few times).
James' post on kind software reminded me of this years old talk by Oliver Byford and how his team built/designed inclusive online forms for GOV.UK, such as rendering long applications in chunks to not overwhelm the user and automatically saving after every input.

Will keep an eye out for next writing event!

Colin

Thank you for remembering what happened! We need more napkins next time to write on.

Although...I'm a fan of no Javascript unless it's necessary. You don't get any of that fancy exciting vanilla flavoured stuff with me, never mind the chocolate Javascript! I like the original idea of the web as documents, and it's shame you need complicated browsers to handle navigation that could otherwise work on simple devices. I realise I'm a bit late to this however, and that ship has sailed...In my day, etc etc...

Colin

On the "Colin says Javascript can be good" side however: https://gradient.horse

you draw a horse and it runs! With a gradient!

I found this via mewtru on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SXgcg2Y0lso

Colin

"Build more dumb, useless stuff that makes you happy, and not for others" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w-yXmw3iwng