Building the Solidarity Knows No Borders website ✊ Using AlpineJs to add interactivity to a web page ⛰️ Finishing my new personal website 🔗 Beginning a project with NextJs and Sanity ⏭️

What I’ve been working on

Over the past month I’ve been mainly focused on building the Solidarity Knows No Borders website. This project is a WordPress site built with the Full Site Editor and a few custom components like an interactive map and an embedded Action Network sign up form. We will be launching the site soon and I’m really excited for people to see it. I’ve also been learning how to create custom Gutenberg blocks in React and I’ve started a mini project to create a filter block. There’s one remaining bug where the block validation is failing that I need to solve. Aside from development work I’ve been learning about project management and have taken on the role of steward for a couple of projects at Common Knowledge. In my free time I’ve finished my new personal website and I’m getting it ready to launch.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

What I’ve been learning

This month I’ve been learning how to:

• import an SQL file into a Docker container running a MySQL database
• convert JSON data into GeoJson to enable clustering on a Mapbox map
• connect Gravity Forms form submissions to an Action Network mailing list with n8n
• use Alpine Js’ x-data and x-init directives to create a animation that cycles through a series of cards to encourage user interaction
• clone and adapt a NextJs and Sanity template and deploy it to Vercel

What’s next

Over the next month I’m hoping to launch my new personal website and archive my current site. Prior to launch I’d like to add Plausible as a web analytics tool and install the Eleventy social share card generator plugin to make sure my links look good on social media. For my next personal project I’m building another portfolio website for my partner using NextJs and Sanity. This will be a good opportunity to learn how to use Sanity Studio and improve my TypeScript skills. At Common Knowledge I will be steward for a new interactive tool for an online feminist magazine and picking up some development work on an ecommerce website for Pluto Books. I would also like to package up my custom Gutenberg filtering block into a plugin for use on all Common Knowledge WordPress sites.

Interesting links

These are some interesting links that I’ve come across this month:

• Create customizable JavaScript particles effects, confetti explosions and fireworks animations and use them as animated backgrounds for your website https://github.com/tsparticles/tsparticles
• The Cascade is a newsletter about the past, present, and future of CSS by designer and writer Robin Rendle
• Webdev Town is collection of 1700+ hand-picked web development & design resources
• Dev Hunt is a platform for launching new developer tools. Sign in with your GitHub account and vote weekly for your favourites
• https://ohmyz.sh/ offers themes, plugins, and shortcuts for your terminal to enhance productivity and make it more visually appealing