Might be on for a little while, but, yeah, this weekend I'm gonna be out during the day and only really home in the evening, I believe. So, to make things easier I'm gonna put pretty much everything in the queue to hopefully run Sunday. I may selectively post tonight since I might be with friends later (and somewhat lurking). I appreciate the patience and am looking forward to everything I have~

Also, may randomly send asks over the weekend and love getting them too so always feel free to send anything, it'll be great and a good way to start things.

Finally, I may make a little spicy side blog just in case, so that rule may eventually be edited. I don't really wanna post it since it's more for relationships and those I have developed things with, plus feel comfortable with (not interested in out of the blue s.mut, and rarely do sinday). And, seriously, no minors...Lucifer's multiple no's. I just don't really want s.mut on my main.

Been really digging Frank's Laboratory on Youtube for JavaScript + Canvas tutorials since coming across him this past week. He keeps everything clear and shows patience for beginners. It's really been keeping me motivated to learn game dev in JS too! My dream...

YOU MUST MAKE A WEBSITE

Oh wow, look at that! YET ANOTHER post urging you to make a webbed site! What a completely new thing that people haven't made a thousand masterposts for already!!

• Making a website might look scary. It is Not.

At first, I too thought making a website was too much work. It really isn't! It turns out that all you need is

an HTML file,

a web hosting service and

w3schools tutorials,

and that's about it!

This post will point you towards these resources, and others I found useful while figuring out how to make a website.

• VERY QUICK EXPLANATIONS:

What's HTML and CSS?

HTML is the content of your webpage, the skeleton of it. What shows up in a webpage is what's written in the HTML file!

CSS is the way the HTML is styled; the colour of the background and the letters, the size of elements, the font, all that!

Do I absolutely NEED JavaScript for a website?

Not at all! You don't need to worry about learning it before getting started.

• What do I make a website for? What do I put in there?

ANYTHING AND ALMOST EVERYTHING. Here's some ideas for pages from a post of mine were I was very normal about websites:

You can make a page that's only pictures of your pets.

You can make an interactive adventure.

You can make your own academic blog full of your own essays or articles.

You can just post a ton of art or make a full music page.

You can make a blog and infodump eternally, give book reccs and reviews. You can host a thousand virtual pets and nothing else.

Upload entire books in a single html file. Make a wikipedia for your ocs. Make a fake site for a random fictional place (restaurant, hotel, whatever). You can make a thousand fanpages/shrines about your favorite media. You can upload your own webcomic and make it all like a fancy website and shit.

I could keep going but, for the sake of "brevity", I won't.

• WEBSITE EXAMPLES!

If I started listing the websites I know, this post would be bottomless. Here's only seven:

https://publictransit.neocities.org/ - A webbed site, for sure

https://ribo.zone/ - A personal site

https://leusyth.neocities.org/ - An art archive

https://solaria.neocities.org/ - Personal website with A Lot of stuff (it'll come up in a bit, because it offers web making resources)

https://hog.neocities.org/ - The Hogsite

https://thegardenofmadeline.neocities.org/ - Another personal site! It also has a web resources page and has made another masterpost like this one (but better)

https://spiders.neocities.org/ - My own website, which must be weird to see in mobile . sorry

• You've convinced me. I want a webbed site. Where do I start?

https://neocities.org/

FIRST OF ALL: Neocities. It is a free web hosting service, and it's the one I and the sites I linked use!

When I first started, my website was a black page with red letters and a drawing, and nothing else! It was like that for a month, till i started picking up on how to do things.

Here's what helped me get an idea of how to make things work:

https://sadgrl.online/learn/articles/beginners-guide-neocities

An absolute beginners guide to neocities -- while when you make an account there you get a tutorial page from the site, this one's extra support for that.

https://www.w3schools.com/

Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and MANY other coding things for free. All the tutorial/reference pages have live testing windows for you to mess with!! helped me a LOT while figuring this stuff out!

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/

https://htmlcheatsheet.com/css/

Cheatsheets for HTML and CSS, respectively. It includes a JavaScript one too!

https://sadgrl.online/webmastery/

Sadgrl's webmastery resources! Also includes the next resource listed here:

https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/

Sadgrl's layout builder; not a lot of customization at a first glance, but I've seen wildly different websites all using it as a base, plus it works using CSS Flexbox, so it generates a responsive layout!

(basically, a responsive layout is one that translates well in different sized screens)

https://www.tumblr.com/fysa/728086939730919424/wikitable-code?source=share

Tumblr user fysa made this layout imitating a wiki page!

https://brackets.io/

At some point, you might want to do things outside the Neocities code editor and get one outside the site. I recommend Brackets, because my old as fuck computer can run that and absolutely nothing else apparently, and it works wonderfully! Though I recommend either turning off the code autocomplete or using it after a good while of already using the Neocities code editor, so you get used to coding on your own.

http://www.unit-conversion.info/texttools/text-to-html/

Turn your text into HTML code! i use this kind of pages for my lengthy blog entries that I don't feel like formatting myself.

https://imagecompressor.com/

COMPRESS YOUR IMAGES.

The heavier an image is, the more your site weighs and the more time your page will spend loading. You don't want that, specially if your site is heavy on graphics. This might help!

https://solaria.neocities.org/guides

Some CSS, JavaScript and Accessibility guides! Worth checking out!

https://eloquentjavascript.net/

This is a free, interactive book for learning JavaScript! NOTE: It is very intuitive, but JavaScript is HARD!! I still haven't learned much of it, and my website does fine without so don't worry if you end up not doing much with it. It's still useful + the exercises are fun.

And now, accessories!

• Silly stuff for your page :]

https://gifypet.neocities.org/

Make a virtual pet, copy the code and paste it in your HTML file! You'll get a little guy in your webbed site :]

https://www.wikplayer.com/

Music player for your website!

http://www.mf2fm.com/rv/

JavaScript silly effects for your site :]

https://blinkies.neocities.org/geoblinkies

Blinkie search engine!

https://www.cbox.ws/

Add a chatbox to your site!!

https://momg.neocities.org/

Infinite gallery of gifs. i've spent hours in there looking at moving pictures and out of them all, the ONLY gif i actually ended up using on my site was a rotating tomato slice. it is still there. trapped.

https://wrender.neocities.org/tarotinstructions

A widget that gives you a random tarot card!

https://www.websudoku.com/widget.php

Sudoku widget!

That's about it for now! I don't know how to end this!!! Remember to have fun and google everything you don't know :]

What are some habits you have when you code, be that things you do while coding or common names for stuff in your code?

hi, i wanted to answer this earlier but i left the house, sorry about that! hmm...

talking about javascript here - most of my code is for myself and not other people, so i'm pretty light on comments. i tend to use single-line comments a lot more, and if they're particularly short, i'll put them to the right of the line of code instead of above it. oh, and my comments nowadays have capital letters and proper grammar even though my typing style isn't like that!

i also tend to lean on the more compact side - i group functions or lines of code by functionality and space my code out that way, which ends up with blocks of code with not a lot of empty space. i also shorten if statements to one line if the block of code on the inside is super short. stuff like that.

i use camel case with my variable and function names, i start a lot of function names with "get" like getPokedexData for instance (unsure why that's the first thing that came to mind) and i also use the abbreviation "calc" if i'm crunching some numbers in a function (such as hpCalc)

as for HTML/CSS i can't think of much other than i usually like roughly ordering my CSS with positioning stuff first and then coloration/more stylistic stuff, and with HTML i prefer wrapping my input elements with their labels instead of keeping them separate in most situations, i just find it easier to read.

15 Questions Game

Taggedy by @captaincravatthecapricious

1. Were you named after anybody?

My grandma, kind of? My middle name anyway, which is the one I use. My first name, which I do not use, Came To My Mother in a Dream, so.

2. When was the last time you cried?

I’m getting better about this, so the answer is no longer “on the highway seven years ago”. I think I kinda hunched over and made guttural noises because the world was too much for a moment a couple days ago.

3. Do you have kids?

That is so incredibly not in the cards.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

Would I do that?

5. What sports do you play/have played?

If I had played sports at some point maybe I would’ve been a little less *gestures at everything* but no, the closest I got was Renaissance Fencing Club (we weren’t allowed to call it Fight Club but it was the Swing Bamboo Sticks at Each Other club).

6. What's the first thing you notice about someone?

Usually that they are talking to me because god. god. I am so spacey.

7. Eye color?

Greenish.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Why not both? But no I am a sucker for a happy ending.

9. Any special talents?

I can debug really unintuitive Python and PHP errors, and sometimes Javascript, especially if it’s a type issue. (It’s usually a type issue.) I can recite Galadriel’s Lament in Lothlorien from memory, in Elvish. I seem to be developing a bit of a green thumb? Oh! I can re-finish a wood floor!

10. Where were you born?

Not in Michigan.

11. What are your hobbies?

House plants, making chainmaille fidget toys, making art for friends, writing for friends, reading with friends, bothering the cat, cooking I guess.

12. Do you have any pets?

At no point in my life, except in the college dorms, have I lived without a cat. King Chonk is my current orange beast.

13. How tall are you?

I swear I used to be 5’8 but I guess I slouch now because the doctor’s office is consistently measuring 5’7 💀

14. Favorite subject in school?

Whichever class I was in at the moment tbh. Except history, I never got the hang of history.

15. Dream job?

God I really enjoyed transcribing when I did that for a bit, if only the income was remotely livable. I also love doing image descriptions. I just like taking things from one format and putting them in another format. The problem is I end up hating any passion project once I have to do it for money / to someone else’s demands, so “dream job” isn’t something I really think about.

Zero pressure tags @neosatsuma @lichfucker @somfte @keplercryptids

Seeing what's new.

I used RPG Maker XP before (though mainly only used Pokemon Essentials) so MZ has a lot new that folks who used the RPG Makers in between like VX and MV are probably already familiar with.

For example:

It comes with a character generator that makes easy-to-use sprites!

While I intend to use my own resources eventually you know I have to play with this...

Also? Children exist beyond gender! In that case...

There's also a dark theme (as well as two high contrast ones that... don't appeal to me.

That should be easier on the eyes after staring at a computer screen at work all day.

Another thing I noticed right away is that the tilesets give you a lot more autotiles than XP. XP maxed at 8. This one has loads!

Autotiles, for those newer to this than I am, are tiles that automatically draw corners and the like based on what tiles they're drawn next to rather than needing to be put together with individual tiles. These can also be animated to show the motion of waves or waterfalls.

The tilesets are also broken into tabs! Looks like the bases are in the A tab and the details to add on top are in B and C. I'll have to look more into this when I eventually import my own tiles but it already seems nice for organizing.

Another thing?

Four layers for mapping! XP had three. Apparently they took away layers for some of the iterations between XP and MZ? That sounds irritating. Good thing MZ has them again.

MZ defaults to 48x48 tiles but has options for others as well. Again, I'll worry about that when I play with my own resources.

Those are just what I noticed right away. Apparently another difference is that XP used the Ruby programming language and MZ uses Java JavaScript. I never touched the code back in my Pokemon Essentials days so anything involving that is going to be new to me.

Oh, man. I'm already getting ideas for things to make with this. I plan on using the default resources to start with while I'm learning (for the most part) but when I start putting my own in I'll probably record the process here.

and also the side effect of completely breaking twitch stream playback because you know there kinda isn't a single video file for a live stream of indefinite length.

i'm bored so i'm gonna talk about hls

a twitch video stream is a whole bunch of tiny video files of like two seconds of video each. there's a server somewhere in idk amsterdam or ohio or something that is constantly writing those files to disk one after another. it also updates a text file that's just all the filenames of the video files. it's a .m3u8 file, like a fucking mp3 playlist or something. the javascript in your browser constantly refreshes the m3u8 file like "did we get a new second of video yet? how about now? how about now?" and then it downloads the new file and manually decodes it and stuffs it into the browser video player element thing. sometimes the .m3u8 file lists a new video file but it's a lie and the browser requests the video segment and some in-between server is like oh yeah it's totally ready. i'm totally gonna send you the first byte any moment now. just hang on. while it frantically calls the other server from above asking for that file that doesn't actually exist yet. this makes it go faster somehow.

idk it kinda blew my mind and/or upset me a little that something as neat sounding as potentially infinitely long live video streams over the internet is just hundreds of tiny files. on a bunch of boring old web servers serving a bunch of files, like they did in the 80s probably. not even special video servers. might as well use ftp. i hate javascript.

on the other hand, if you want to do a thing that records a twitch stream to your computer, it can be a super simple script that just does a bunch of http requests and puts all the files into a directory and doesn't need to worry about anything actually video related, i guess.

Retrospective 2022 (2)

See Part 1 of the retrospective and the overall graphic of 2022 here.

2021 had been a bit of a weird year for me (though it did give me the wonderful world of IF), with a lot of change. So I was glad 2022 was bit more... chill (kinda). I've dived so much deeper in IF and learned so freaking much in the past 12 months.

Long post ahead, breaking it here.

2022 Goals

Last year I only had a few goals: publish Scene 2 of CRWL, submit TTTT to the IF Comp, publish the demo of TTATEH and making Tweego my b*tch.

I am happy to say I've completed all these goals... and then some!

CRWL was updated not just once, but 3 times (with the last one including a bunch of re-writes.

I managed to submit TTTT to the IF Comp (for better for worse).

TTATEH's demo was up for Halloween (with 2 full chapters no less!)

Tweego is not a scary thing that I never managed to make work anymore (I even made an asset pack and guide to make it easy for everyone else)

So what's the extra?

I went from having essentially 3 working projects to 9-ish published ones, with the addition of: SPS Iron Hammer, The Thick Table Tavern, La Petite Mort (FR), The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt, Goncharov Escapes!, P-Rix - Space Trucker (and Le Jeu de la Dévotion - FR). All links are here.

I started getting my hands dirty with JavaScript (I know, the horror) and more customisation with CSS, and working on adding more accessibility in my projects (visual and gameplay wise).

Got more active in the community (here with Interact-IF, and on discord, and on the Forum... oh, as a note support your authors)

I've started sharing my little silly knowledge of Twine, by creating templates, and guides, and tutorials, and sharing resources.

Also organising my first Comp! (@seedcomp-if) with other peeps from the IF Forum. And we did that in 14 days! (kinda want to create more fun jams too now...)

Got into some trends, with one that resulted in the creation of the really bad idea that is @if-confessions.

And probably more that I forgot about...

Even then...

Part of me feels like it's not been enough, like I haven't been enough, like what I put out wasn't good enough. I've been struggling with insecurity and imposter syndrome for a long time, so this is not new, but it's still there, spiking once in a while, when I really don't need it to.

The slow but consistent increase of negative anons in my inbox (bound to happen with more people following/sharing my content) have made some days very hard to deal with (still, it could be much worse... even the hate from the leaks hasn't been too bad). It's hard not to feel emotional when something you are passionate about or something you do is getting egged on for not good reason. And it's not just the content of the messages (most are not even original...), but the amount of them. Honestly, it is infuriating and tiring (thank gosh for blocking...). It's also a bit hard when there is more negative than positive interactions in my inbox/replies...

Another thing that got me was the little to no progress I've made on both EC or CRWL. I had planned on releasing updates for both this semester, but I've been stuck in front of a blank page for both, or writing and re-writing the same sentence over an over again. Hadn't I distracted myself with other small projects, I would have done the same thing as last year and peaced out for months again...

And then I wrote it all down. I went through all my projects, all the posts I made and put it together that infographic, created and nice timeline... and I realised I was a bit dramatic about feeling like I haven't done enough.

At the end, there were only two months (April and May) which didn't have any publication of games, assets, guides, or update, and that was because CRWL was in re-write/beta. Even if I didn't focus my time on one project throughout the year like I maybe should have, there was on average something out there every month (almost 2x a month by the end).

Yay for unrelenting insecurities! (also, don't try to do as much as I did, I'm struggling with juggling all these projects, it's not sustainable)

2022 Achievements and Milestones

Not only did I reach last year's goals, I achieved a bunch of other stuff!

I published 6(-ish) new games/demos this year! And updated the other 3! I lost track of the count, but it wouldn't surprise me if I wrote somewhere around 100-200k words this year (maybe even more than 300k considering all I cut/re-wrote)...

I started experimenting with custom visual and macros (and editing other people's macro). Working on TTTT (and the update of EC) taught me so much about design and coding, and going much further with Twine!

With this newfound knowledge, I made my first template!

Got to learn how to use a bunch new Twine macros and tested a handful of different gameplay to incorporate in bigger projects.

Tweego. That's it.

I've seen my follower count essentially doubled this past year on both itch and Tumblr (getting close to 1k!).

All my games reached some sort of play milestone (from thousands to couple of thousands). More on that in the stats post, there's a lot.

I haven gotten more reviews and feedback on my projects than last year (the jams and comps have helped!) and in general more interactions with my posts. It's been so useful to grow as a creator and improve myself in general!

I reached 1st and 3rd place on a competition!

And participating in the IFComp was an achievement in and of itself!

And I'll add it here too: I helped organised a comp in 14 days! A proper one, not a spur of the moment jam, with an actual website and rules and stuff! (Now, I want to organise more!)

Honestly, I wouldn't have imagined at the start of the year how much I would end up doing this year, how much I would learn and grow, how much I would experience through it all. I got to climb that steep learning curve in coding, finding more about my voice in writing, designing some cool stuff, and share my love for the creative medium. Had someone shown me all I did this year back at the start of 2022, I wouldn't have believed them...

I feel very blessed to have been able to work on all these projects throughout the year and have gotten such positive reaction for each of them (and such help, to find wonderful people in this community and calling them my friends, and to interact with very passionate and helpful veterans in the genre and learn so much from them.

This year had some very high highs and quite low lows, but it has also been a very wonderful and fulfilling year overall! It makes me so excited for the new year and see what it has in store... (though I know of a few things already...)

well, since you’re ok with it… here’s the reveal!

hello it is i, the harbinger of tears, 💠 anon <3 this is my main blog, while my writing blog is at @genshrineimpact. just block the tag: “minors dni” and you should be good!!

now, back to the topic at hand…

*war flashbacks* i-i need a moment *lays on ground and pulls blanket over head*

[ we’re having technical difficulties at the moment - please enjoy the brief intermission. ]

*wipes tears* ok am back what were we talking about again? oh yes, plot bunnies! i think that used to be an actual term, kind of like how we say 'brainrot' these days haha but yes, it certainly makes an adorable image!

i’m glad that you think so! thank you for being understanding and kind about this <3 ok we can compromise - you just tell me if i ever make you uncomfortable and i shall bonk myself lol

that’s so intriguing, i think most people wouldn’t know about it! ohhh an au, hm? very interesting indeed… maybe i should try and do some research myself hehe

i think you’re spot on for the superiority complex! a love triangle between these three sounds like it’ll get very messy… the two albedos playing 3d chess while the reader is just stuck in the middle like (· ω ·) ??

*clears throat* lia you are hallucinating wdym /j hahahah i know right??? literally none of them have similarities…. what is a ‘type’…. just like the concept of time, it is but an illusion to me… “you just fall for whoever you fall for” - yeah that sounds about right lmao

feel free to browse around my blog, but i don’t have much lol the 'god of war!reader au' series seems to be popular the past few days, and it’s been a super fun thing to write! but don’t feel pressured to do it, really! <3

IKR i was complaining to my brother about it like- seriously??? for the first day??? xiao is my main dps, and he’s practically useless (i’m so sorry bby) against that stupid thing ;_;

also yay, a taglist, sign me uppppp!

OML. HI, RIN !! it's nice to know the true identity of my 💠 anon without having to employ heizou. (/lh) and if you see a new follower with a melancholic albedo theme and a bio that says i follow cool people, that'd be me~

hehe, already done filtering the tag~ i am respectfully looking at the god of war!reader, (ab)normal day, and the universe abound series 👀 i also saw your edit of the game's voicelines to fit the god of war!reader AND IT FITS SO WELL. i don't have much experience with javascript or editing other than tumblr html, which may be why i am so in awe !! ;( i love the lore of the reader like the sibling adepti and the god of sun HNGGH this is what i meant when i say your brain >>> (/g)

who is this fine grandpa (/lh) man on the intermission screen??? 🔍 and the thought of saying, "psst, i have a plot bunny to give to you" is so cute <3 hehe, i'm always down for a new series made by you because fjejkdkks they're so good, HELLO?!?! but feel free to only focus on the ones you're working on, they deserve your attention the most rn ;D

BEING IN THE MIDDLE OF 2BEDO'S PLAYING CHESS, HELP. just know if susbedo lost, he'd bore hateful stares into the back of albedo's head and likely about to flip the whole table. (/lh)

the intermission is so suspicious that i can't help but suspect that you feel smth for that very same man... HMM. "just like the concept of time, it is but an illusion to me" rin, i think you've been spending too much time with zhongli. (/j)

YESYESYES !! the popularity of your god of war!reader au is SO VALID because the lore and their interactions with morax??? >>> your brain never ceases to amaze me !! fjekrksjds i can tell you put a lot of thought into it and the fact that you executed it so well??? aaaa, i love your works sm <3 (/g) i shall definitely find the time to binge your masterlist soon !! >:)

i don't think xiao's burst reaches that abomination when it's shooting missiles??? i don't have xiao because i lost the 50/50 to keqing on his first rerun and then pulled for yelan instead during 2.7 <//3 but i'd definitely pull for this boy the next time he comes around !! i got klee at guaranteed pity and tried pulling for heizou cons but ended up getting c1 kazuha at 15 pity instead (which i could've gotten for yoimiya but that is alright, i'm not one to dwell on regrets for longer than i needed) fwfjkekds

speaking of, is there anyone you're planning to pull for in the future, rin??? i'm at 13 pity + 50/50 rn on yoimiya's banner after getting c1 kazuha and if no one comes home, then i'll try my luck on the 3.0 banners !! saving particularly for al-haitham cough cough

I'm trying to check my academic progress because I'm hoping to graduate this semester

And the site isn't working and giving an error that looks more like an error from code issues than anything on the user end

So I view page source, not expecting to find anything since best practice is to have all your Javascript in a separate file from your HTML

(I decided to livetype my reaction to the source and it got long and heated so cut)

But NOPE. ALL THE JAVASCRIPT IS INSIDE THE HTML. AND THE VARIABLE NAMES ARE LONG AS SHIT LIKE SOME ARE LONGER THAN THE STRING THEY CONTAIN.

And ok this makes some sense since it's a lot of specific stuff regarding course registration but why is there a dictionary with one item with the key bankingInformationCloseButtonLabel and the value 'Close'

IT'S ONE FUCKING ITEM WHY USE A DICTIONARY

Why is the Javascript split into multiple sections. Like multiple <script></script> chunks.

ANOTHER SINGLE-ITEM DICTIONARY WHY

Oh there's the links to external Javascript files. Why are some of them inside the html and some not.

AND NOW BACK TO INTERNAL JAVASCRIPT FOR WHAT PURPOSE DO YOU DO THIS

This violates readability, jesus. Most of these are just masses of variable assignments. I guess the software that runs the back end does a lot of it but jesus this is a nightmare to look at. Not that my code is necessarily better, but im a student and this was presumably done by professionals who got paid

I mean I guess if you just needed to update a few variables and know what they were this wouldn't be too bad but this is suffering to look at

I would scream about this chunk being confusing and 'what do you mean you have to have this isolated string without quotes or the tests fail with invalid JS' but this is probably what real-world code looks like

At least the variable chunks are labeled with comments as to what they are

2600 lines in and we now have internal Javascript that isn't just lists of variables, oh god

And there's that isolated string without quotes so things work. Joy. Why did my phone try to correct work to worm

This code at least looks fine, logical function names and not doing more than one thing. Still shouldn't be in the main page but at least it's decent code

And almost 2700 lines in we finally get to the body element, the actual html in this file

I have now learned what a vector image looks like in html and I am terrified

AND WE'RE BACK TO JAVASCRIPT THIS TIME INSIDE THE BODY. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU PROGRAM.

Those class names are awful why are they two parts and long

This html is also awful to read but I just don't like working with html in general so that's probably the issue. Scrolling through a lot of it. More inline Javascript.

I FOUND THE SOURCE OF THE FUCKING ERROR THEY FORGOT TO CLOSE ONE FUCKING COMMENT USED IN A JAVASCRIPT LIBRARY

3600 LINES IN

This is equivalent to when my tests kept failing because I forgot to put a quarter of my code into an else statement and it ran every time except worse because i eventually fixed that before submitting my assignment but this is live code on the internet

Ok this is interesting some of this code may have come from the company this is licensed from or whatever and maybe that's why the variable names are garbage. This might be unrelated to anything my college does.

Source: a comment like

[College] customization: student services requested this message be displayed. I did [explanation]. Ben ([college - date])

Now that's good practice. Thank you Ben for being smart.

In any case this file is almost 5000 lines long and most of that was Javascript and one missing comment tag ruined everything

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning! I hope y’all are enjoying your favorite morning wakeup beverage, I know I am. My first cup of the magic elixir know the world over as coffee is sitting next to me and it’s delicious. ☕️

I’m not using my “normal” workflow this morning. Instead of using a combination of Tot and the Micro.Blog app on my iPhone I’m using the wonderful MarsEdit from my Mac. Believe it or not, it feels kind of weird to be doing it this way. But, MarsEdit is such a wonderful tool. Happy to have it. Here we go!

Iconfactory

News quickly spread on Twitter and Mastodon that a wide range of third party apps like Twitterrific, Tweetbot, Echofon, and many others had been disabled. Strangely, Twitterrific for macOS continues to work normally. We cannot say for certain why some clients are unaffected, but it seems possible that there is a new (seemingly unstated and unannounced) policy that is only being applied to apps with large numbers of users.

As of this writing Twitterrific is still blocked from connecting to Twitter. Good old Elon, Mr. Free Speech, is being spiteful and blocking third-pary apps from working. It seems it’s only the third-party apps with the biggest user base.

So far Twitter hasn’t explained why they did it. Spite, I’d imagine.

Oh, it’s worth noting that Twitterrific is the granddaddy of all Twitter clients and while working on it the word “tweet” was coined. They definitely made history. Ollie, the little bird at the right, is Twitterrific’s mascot and in many ways has become synonymous with Twitter.

I’ve been a Twitterrific user for years and years and I have enormous respect for everyone at The Iconfactory and wish them all the best. ❤️

Pitchfork

The Grammy-winning rock guitarist Jeff Beck has died, his family announced. “After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday,” the family shared in a statement. “His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss.” Beck was 78 years old.

Another legend gone before his time. RIP Mr. Beck.

The Guardian

Joe Biden said the situation in Brazil was “outrageous” after supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the country’s congress, presidential palace and supreme court on Sunday, with some senior US lawmakers calling for the far-right figure to be extradited from the US.

Of course Bolsonaro took a page from the Trump Playbook of Stupidity and encouraged his supports to try to overthrow the government. The world looks to the United States for direction. TFG is a real asshole and has put democracy around the world at risk. Both men will get their just deserts someday.

Douglas Hill

In an iOS app, it’s technically fairly easy to also use code written in C, C++, Objective-C, Objective-C++ or JavaScript. In this article, we’ll look at how to call JavaScript code from Swift using JavaScriptCore. As an example, I’ll go through the steps of adding a JavaScript dependency to my iOS reading app to remove tracking parameters from URLs.

Really nice piece by Mr. Hill. I would love to integrate Read Later into Stream someday and it would also be wonderful to embed Readability JavaScript into Stream to make that happen. It would also help standard RSS feeds because many only include a snippet of the full article text. Having Readability support would allow Stream to parse the text of the original web page so you’d get the full article in the article view. Just one of many things I’d love to so.

Raw Story

The wife of a 2020 Iowa Republican candidate for Congress has been arrested and accused of filing 23 fraudulent votes for her husband, reports Business Insider.

If you want to know what the GOP is guilty of on a daily basis just listen to the things they scream about the most.

Seems they like to cheat at elections, among other things.

Goto 10

So I knew I wanted something different. It turns out that a new OS had been getting a big marketing push: IBM OS/2 Warp. This was v3 of OS/2 and let’s get into its history a bit.

I heard this a lot when I was part of Visio. A gentleman approached me at Windows World in Atlanta one year and said “I guarantee if you port Visio to OS/2 you’ll sell 100,000 copies right away.” Apparently he worked for IBM.

We chose not to do it because the market was just too small for us to use precious resources for the port. We did have versions that ran on Classic MacOS, NT PPC, and NT Alpha, but never OS/2. The NT versions were fairly straight forward. The Mac version used a porting kit called Alar. I can’t find any references to it or I’d give y’all a link.

Bjango

In an effort to reduce the final app size of iStat Menus, we’ve been investigating ways to slim down our app icon. It’s currently about 1.4MB, which is normal for an app icon, but a decent percentage of our bundle.

Marc Edwards does a deep dive into app icon sizes and his attempt to scale back the size a bit.

Cycling News

Chris Froome has warned of the long-term effects of COVID-19, arguing that many riders are struggling for months post-infection and highlighting the potential risks to the heart.

Yes, long term COVID-19 is a real deal and it effects young, old, and even the fittest of fit professional athletes. Wear a mask and stay safe out there.

Bloomberg

Apple Inc. is working on adding touch screens to its Mac computers, a move that would defy long-held company orthodoxy and embrace an approach that co-founder Steve Jobs once called “ergonomically terrible.”

I can understand folks saying it’s ergoonomically terrible to use a touch screen on a desktop computer, but occasionally tapping the screen on a laptop isn’t bad at all. I’ve seen many a person do this with their touch screen Windows laptops over the years and they don’t seem to have any sort of fatigue associated with it.

Microsoft’s Surface Pro seems like the perfect Windows device to me. It’s a tablet that can be use with a full sized monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and it runs Windows. I could write code on one of these devices. I can’t do that with an iPad.

Fox Sports

Sometimes, there’s a guy like Stetson Bennett IV, except that there isn’t really, not exactly like him anyway, not when this young man of unassuming excellence had to be a footballing miracle-worker just to become Georgia’s quarterback, never mind everything he’s done since.

I love me an underdog. Now, lets see if Stetson Bennett can have an NFL career. I hope so.

Also, the real Championship game was Georgia vs. Ohio State in the Peach Bowl. That was one amazing football game.

Don Melton on Mastodon

Today is the twentieth anniversary of #Apple’s #Safari Web browser being publicly introduced. That stunning debut happened at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco on January 7, 2003. And, of course , I was there. Here’s what I wrote about that event ten years ago:

Happy Birthday Safari! 🥳 All us Mac loving people owe Don “Gramps” Melton a big thanks for putting together the team that went on to create Safari. Thanks, Don!

How to install mario kart 8 mods – Askingames

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Forums New posts Search forums. Groups Public Events. Reviews Overview Official reviews. Downloads Latest reviews Search resources. Blogs New entries New comments Blog list Search blogs. Chat Top chatters. Search Everywhere Threads This forum This thread. Search titles only. Search Advanced search…. Everywhere Threads This forum This thread. Search Advanced…. Log in Register. New posts. Search forums. Install the app. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Homebrew Mario Kart 8 Ultimate, download the alpha now! Level Mario Kart 8 Ultimate alpha is here. In this new modpack, you get additional courses plus all your base Mario Kart 8 courses. The included readme should answer just about any question you have. A full video showcase is in the works, but for now just enjoy the small video showing the full course selection menu, and then if you want it, hit that download button below it! Spoiler: Old outdated info Your browser is not able to display this video. Put in Root of Folder for Eur copies of game. Last edited by MikaDubbz , Jul 19, Reactions: SuperDan , Firexploit , Sypherone and 20 others. Level 9. FanNintendo said:. Click to expand Reactions: KeinesR , Coolsonickirby , Lostbhoy and 2 others. Moon Well-Known Member Member. This is so cool, I'm very happy to see that there are still people doing interesting things for the Wii U, I can't wait to test it on my console when I get home, thank you very much for doing this. Reactions: MikaDubbz. Sweet Mika. Is that my Pacman ui Icon??? Even cooler if it is! Did you use my arcade voice mod for him too? Loving the load screen, did you do that yourself? Looks awesome! Also, did you manage to get the custom courses to play without lag in multiplayer? Some them are really bad inbthe versions I have. Last edited by Lostbhoy , Feb 13, Lostbhoy said:. Last edited by MikaDubbz , Feb 13, Reactions: Lostbhoy. I'm sure that's the same character I have pacman over just checked, its lemmy! I put some oldskool arcade fx as the voice Sorta similar to the classic sonic voice mod if you have used that before. Your more than welcome to use it if you want They must be named exactly as the bars file for that character has them and they cannot be larger than the original file. The way I went about it was to listen to each file individually and then replace with a smaller but similar sound. Ie yahoos and oh no's with smaller yahoos and oh no's for the correct sound in the right place. A mighty painful process! If any of the new sound files are larger than the one being replaced you will get silence. They can't be transferred the same way some characters can. Damn shame!! Loving alot of the stuff you've done here, the hub changes are cool and the font also is very cool. I can see the small edits you made and I'm loving it! I see you used my race count numbers and finish! I thought he was cool!! I'm honoured you used them!! I made a few changes to the turbo file like the death star explosion in star wars as the blue shell hit sound. I also managed to put 4 different songs to the animal crossing stage, a different song for every season. Shame we can't do that with the course I should probably up them to gb but it's been months since i messed with modding it. The cafe one is very cool with the addition of tracks. I'll be keeping an eye on the progress of that but very well done with this man, it's very well put together! NotNotMe Member Newcomer. Level 1. Really cool, just wish we had the option to only install one of the packs rather than all of them! Level 7. Good job man! NotNotMe said:. CrisMod said:. Level 2. Looks amazing! Can you install this next to the 'normal' MK8 or does it overwrite it? MikaDubbz said:. They're just modpacks, so if you boot MK8 without booting sdcafiine first, you'll get normal MK8, if you boot sdcafiine and then MK8 you'll get the modpack choices to pop up when you launch it. So yeah, you can still have normal MK8 no problem with these. Well you can install just one, but you can't download just one, I could upload them separately to download just one, but that seems a bit redundant, I know at over 5GB, it's a larger download to get them all together, but you can delete what you don't want to use. Thanks so much! Level 5. MCUdude Member Newcomer. I'm having trouble getting your modpack s to work. I've installed sdcafiine v1. The issue I'm experiencing is that after I've selected a modpackgame freezes after a few seconds, and I'm left with a frozen gamepad with a weird noise coming out of the speakers. The "deepest" into the game I've been able to go is where I can select my character. Do you know what's causing this and possibly how it can be fixed? Last edited by MCUdude , Feb 28, MCUdude said:. SuperDan Im Aware Im Unaware Member. XP 5, Country. Holy Crap Dude This is looking amazing!!!! Post reply. Insert quotes…. Similar threads. Replies 14 Views 3K. Nintendo Wii U Jul 5, Lostbhoy. Replies 28 Views 1K. Nintendo Wii U May 24, V10lator. Replies 0 Views Psd99 Oct 5, Nintendo Wii U. Replies 11 Views 1K. Nintendo Wii U Oct 5, Psd Replies 51 Views 4K. Homebrew ScummVM 2. Go to forum More news. Hi Everyone Twil0 - 12 minutes ago. Hi all, newbie here Twil0 - 12 minutes ago. New to the site. Want to re-gain use of my DSi and R4 flashcard Twil0 - 12 minutes ago. General chit-chat Help Users Settings Notifications Miscellaneous Inverse message direction Display editor on top Enable maximized mode Display images as links Hide bot messages Hide statuses Hide chatter list Show messages from ignored users Temporarily disable chat Receive mention alerts Sound notifications Normal messages Private messages Whisper messages Mention messages Bot messages Desktop notifications Normal messages Private messages Whisper messages Mention messages Bot messages. Options View top chatters Open in popup. No one is chatting at the moment. KenniesNewName : It's just the ones I want to play use it. Gift Today at PM. KenniesNewName : I'm sure the miyo mino v3 will be announced by the time the v2 restocks. Veho : Then there's the hundred Anbernic models out there. Veho : Their Windows handheld isn't really wowing the crowds. KenniesNewName : Yeah we'll probably see ten more revisions before they go back to their roots. Been playing Gargoyles Quest on it, and it's just supreme in that limited use case. KenniesNewName : They may release one where everyone is like rip steamdeck plus cheaper chips are rumored to run up to ps2 well by next year. Veho : Work is the mind killer. KenniesNewName : Well I hear it's ethically correct to suck cow nipples for breakfast. Veho : Bye mthrnite! KenniesNewName : If you want that route I can drop my exs phone number. Gift 59 minutes ago. KenniesNewName : Watch out he could be a woman. Gift 58 minutes ago. Gift 56 minutes ago.

NXX Members with Coding Languages I Think They Would Enjoy

In which I use some of my vague knowledge for entertainment purposes :D

WC: 0.7K

MC/Rosa: the building blocks in Scratch

Whatever MC does, she gives it her all and coding is no exception!

I'm thinking she'll likely start small and build from there (pun unintended), and that she'll probably take a lot of enjoyment from the puzzle-shaped pieces in Scratch

She's learning the foundation to writing programs!

Soon she will be able to master every language and become an expert in all things programming

Luke: Command line / Python

Command line isn't exactly a coding language per se, but if Luke did have a favorite language, I think it'd be Python (although I think he can comfortably code in multiple languages since he can easily hack into the Big Data Lab!)

I'm saying Python slightly because I'm biased, but also because Python offers syntax that is easy to read and is also fairly simple to write -- because of said less complicated syntax

Also, snek! A young Luke sees that the language is named after a Cool Reptile and says, "yeah I'm gonna go learn that right now"

Moving on to the Not A Coding Language: Command line (could be Windows, Linux, whatever they have in Stellis)

Luke is the kind of person who likes taking things apart, building them back together again, but it's not the same as before oh no you'll find that your toaster is not an ordinary toaster anymore, it also triples as an inkjet printer and a metal detector!

With any kind of command line interface he's allowed to go crazy with an electronic device! He used to have a cheat sheet of all the commands next to him but NOT ANYMORE, he's memorized them after hours of playing around with them (and if he forgets anything, there's probably a command along the line of /help that he can type in to get the information he's looking for)

Artem: CoffeeScript

While Artem likes JavaScript well enough, he enjoys the simplicity of CoffeeScript

Because CoffeeScript is essentially just Javascript with nicer syntax (or as the CoffeeScript website puts it, "an attempt to expose the good parts of JavaScript in a simple way.")

Also, it has coffee in the name and while he's not going to admit it, it's hard to resist (and coffee is pretty on brand for him)

If Artem is in the mood for curly brackets, he can switch to JavaScript fairly easily, but he's very comfortable with CoffeeScript, even if it does raise eyebrows at times due to its status as a lesser known language

"CoffeeScript?" Celestine asks. "Is that a real thing?"

"Yes," Artem says, and quotes the CoffeeScript website: "It's just Javascript."

Vyn: C or C++

Because Vyn is insane

That's it. That's my reasoning

I think other than C or C++, Vyn might like SQL? That's the database language for managing/sorting data and who knows? He might like that. Might find it relaxing, even

But back to C!

Vyn falls in love with C by first going through the full experience of pain: the missing semicolons, the dropped bracket, each and every skipped indentation

But C can be used for loads of things, I mean it's been around for approximately 50 years and heaps of things are coded in C

And Vyn knows, that when he's mastered it

He will be unstoppable

Marius: LOLCODE

I have been waiting for the day I can finally bring up this coding language, and today is that day!

Because tell me Marius von Hagen would not have the utmost pleasure beginning programs with HAI and ending them with KTHXBYE

Tell me he wouldn't enjoy loops that are essentially written as IM IN YR LOOP and IM OUTTA YR LOOP (rather than the conventional phrasing for while and for loops)

While I don't have enough knowledge to write in LOLCODE, I still find it hilarious and I think Marius would have a blast just playing around with the commands

Other than LOLCODE, I think Marius would like CSS (and maybe even HTML, they go hand in hand)! It can be a pain sometimes but the possibilities are next to endless (making things pretty with computer language? Seems like it could be right up his alley)

Side note on Vyn and C/C++: I have the utmost respect for people who can write in C, because I have struggled with it -- although honestly maybe that's because I don't spend enough time learning it (and because Python 3 is my favorite haha)

Edit: to all the people in the tags who said Luke would like Java, yes you are completely right I just know next to nothing about Java :')

Marquita Wiggins is Developing her Open Source Graphic Design Program: Designy

The Unleash Your Potential Program provides a System76 computer to six winners for accelerating the completion of their next project. This week, we interviewed Marquita Wiggins, who is in the early stages of developing her open source Canva alternative, Designy.

What prompted you to want to create Designy?

I like Canva, but because it’s owned by a company that keeps the software closed down, there’s no ability for people who know how to code to be like, “Oh, I want this. Let’s add it and make Canva even better.” To my knowledge, there aren’t any free tools out there that give the Canva Pro treatment. So I’d like to make a tool that’s better, and also free.

You mentioned you had heavy experience using Canva. What’s your background with it?

I work in marketing for WBEZ, a public radio station. I’ve been doing that for about three years. A good portion of my work involves designing, so I’m always in either Canva or Illustrator.

I like the ease of Canva because I can work on designs from my work laptop, or I can use someone else’s laptop and log in if I’m somewhere else. And then with Illustrator, you can expand artboards as much as you want.

What sorts of improvements are you implementing in your open source alternative?

When you’re working on a design in Canva, it’s very linear. Let’s say I am working on a poster, and I just started it, and I just want to keep iterating on small changes. In order to do that, you have to locate the artboard that you’re working on, and you can’t view them all on the board at the same time. The reason I like Illustrator is I like to have eight different artboards up at the same time, and I can zoom out and see all my iterations at the same time, and then zoom into the one I want to make changes on. That is my number one feature that I love about Illustrator, and that’s what I want to bring to Designy.

I’d also give Designy the ability to create templates and share them with other people on the same software. If you create a template, you can then put it on the template board for other people to use. In Canva, you can’t just put templates up in the marketplace. Canva creates your templates, and those are the only ones you’re able to see unless you know somebody who also uses Canva, and they send you the template to use.

Do you have a background in coding?

Not really. In my last job I sent out all the emails for the organization, and I also managed the website, so I did use HTML and CSS for that, but I was never an expert in it. That said, I was an expert Googler. I was able to make massive changes to the website by Googling what I needed to do and then figuring out the code for it.

I’ve been interested in the computer programming space for a while, and I’ve always dabbled in it and learned more about HTML and CSS. When I saw this program pop up, I felt that this was my opportunity to learn a lot more, and also be able to create something that would be useful to myself.

What software are you using to develop it?

I’m going to be using Javascript for the front end, Java for the back end, and likely MonoDB for the database. I’m almost done learning Javascript now, and it’s a lot! So after that, I’ll start building the front end of the site, and then learn Java, connect it to the back end, and then MonoDB for the database.

This was the perfect opportunity to get the momentum going on learning how to do this, because now I can’t stop until it’s done!

Why did you choose Javascript?

When Canva was created, they created it using Javascript, so I figured why not use the same software that they originally used? I think right now they’ve moved on to something else, but when they originally started they used Javascript.

What are your initial thoughts on Pop!_OS?

I never used Linux until I got this laptop, so it was a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to do certain things. I haven’t really downloaded that much—I only really use Visual Studio Code and Firefox, and I also downloaded the Brave browser on it—but I like the navigation. I like that I can open up Visual Studio Code and then open up Firefox and the auto-tiling will automatically arrange the windows. I wish more companies would develop that feature.

How has your experience been with the Oryx Pro so far?

It’s great! It has a huge screen, so I don’t even have to use an external monitor. I have it on a riser with an external keyboard. I haven’t had any issues so far.

Did you encounter any challenges in setting up your system out of the box?

It was super smooth. I don’t even know if it took 15 minutes from unboxing it to actually being able to use it. I also like that I’m able to secure my data with encryption before I log into my account.

You mentioned Designy will have a beta. What’s the plan for that currently?

I’m thinking the beta phase will start in March when it’s all done, where I’m sharing it with other people, getting feedback, and making changes. I’ll be using Reddit a lot to get folks to try it out and let me know what they think. It’ll also be up on GitHub, so people will be able to push updates if they have a change they want me to make.

I’m going to finish the front end of the site in November and the back end of the site will be done in January. The database connection will be done in February. I know there may be a lot of weird bugs and whatnot that other people will find, so the beta helps me work all that out. The goal is to put this out to the public and then iterate on it, so maybe down the line it’ll transition from Javascript to something else.

Is there anything we didn’t ask about that you wanted to share?

A random fact is I have a dog named Mr. President. People seem to get a kick out of that.

Stay tuned for further updates from Marquita Wiggins’ Designy and other cool projects from our UYPP winners!

new blog feed finished!!!

♫ 𝔪𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔠: dariacore 2: enter here, hell to the left - leroy ♡ 𝔪𝔬𝔬𝔡: ＼(￣▽￣)／ accomplished

I tried my absolute hardest to recreate the Livejournal Flexible Squares layout. The CSS elements generated by Feed2JS is a bit limited, but I uh, made it work the best I could. Holy shit this is janky. Feast your eyes on this absolute garbage fire of code:

So I have a tag that will target any link with 'post' in it, which works since every post title is a link back to the Tumblr post. HOWEVER. If I, for any reason at some point during the future, want to use any link that happens to contain 'post', I will have to put it through a link shortener so it doesn't contain 'post' and won't be styled like the title.

Ahhh I love awful terrible CSS. This is the digital equivalent of duct tape. I didn't have to edit any Javascript in the end (although really I should have but shhh), this will be much less awful when I port it to the Tumblr theme because I can choose what order to display elements in so I don't have to do things like negative margins. I really prefer making things scaleable and responsive to multiple screen sizes and not overly-specific "-51px" shit, but eh it'll work. I've spent the past three days on this though so the Tumblr theme will have to wait, I have a killer headache and I'm going to go eat weed about it.

OH ALSO! The "friends" page will soon have links to other sites/blogs! And I probably broke my "about" page when I deleted all the Zonelets stuff... Sorry, oops. I decided to switch to Tumblr so I don't have to worry about images taking up space on my Neocities, so I can host all of my artwork in the future on my own website. I'm still working on the ref sheet I promise! I just got sidetracked by the prospect of Blog because I saw this post by sadgrl.online and I knew I had to jump on that. Ok going to take a nap byebye

EDIT: I lied it’s just as janky on Tumblr. LOL oh well, if it works then it works! Lots of things in here are link classes, but at LEAST there’s no stylized link parsing. And here I have the added benefit of tags! Yay!

I'm not sure if you've posted this before, but do you have any guides or anything like that about Twine of IF storywriting, or anything like that? I'm looking into possibly teaching a class on game design for charity, and I think Twine might be useful for this kind of thing! You're the only Twine user that I've been following for a bit, so I thought I'd ask!

Oh that sounds so neat! I haven’t written any guides myself yet (I am thinking about it, but it will probably be a Patreon-exclusive by the time I get around to it), but I can dig up a few resources for you. You can also check my resources tag, which is where I put stuff related to game design and coding.

If you’re teaching game design, I’d definitely check out The Game Narrative Toolbox (Heussner, Finley, Hepler et al). It was published in 2015 so it’s examples aren’t from current games, but it has a very good overview of structure and narrative considerations when it comes to designing interactive stories. It is hands-down the most useful book I have come across about game writing and includes writing exercises at the end of each chapter. There are also neat tidbits of behind-the-scenes game writing from published games which are really helpful because you get to see the structure/forms in action (Hepler worked on Dragon Age 2, so she has a few examples from DA2 that highlight how and why certain choices were made).

For Twine specifically, keep in mind that there are three main coding languages (called your “story format”) compatible with the engine, in addition to CSS and Javascript. Your experience will vary greatly depending on which one you use. If you’re researching Twine guides on your own, you may want to specify which language if you’re looking for something past the basics. 

Twine’s also been around for a while and while some things stay the same between versions, there have been major changes and updates with new additions. Most tutorials will be about Twine 2 and after; if you find yourself looking at Twine 1 tutorials, you might want to skip it. 

Depending on how far into Twine you get, you may also want to scan through your chosen story format’s documentation. 

Otherwise, here are a few beginner’s guides and overviews:

Twine 2 Guide (twinery.org)

Twine 2 tutorial series (DigitalExposureTV)

A Total Beginner’s Guide to Twine 2.1 (Adam Hammond)

You can also check out Dan Cox’s YouTube channel. He has a number of tutorial videos about using different interactive fiction engines:

Learning Twine 2.2

Learning Ren’py

Learning Ink

Learning ChoiceScript

Good luck! Let me know if I can help in any other way, I’m always happy to spitball ideas and resources.