Weeknotes 21:09
July 16, 2021
Week of July 11-16
- I met with my church small group in person on Sunday. It was the first time all five of us had met in person in 15 months or so. It was great to eat pizza, hang out on a deck, and catch up. Three of us had met up a couple of weeks ago which was our first in-person meeting since the beginning of last year.
- GenesisHR project – I spent most of the workweek doing QA fixes and polishing up the site as we look to launch it in a couple of weeks. I started working on this project in mid-May. Most of the work that is left is just little things here and there. We are waiting on some content from the client so that will need to be added as soon as we receive it. I was able to touch base with my PM late in the week and feel pretty good about things on our end.
- One of the things I tackled this week was the contact page. I added some functionality to the page to display different content based on choices the user makes on another page of the site. I added some URL strings that allow me to display different content based on those strings or lack of.
- When I started this project, I was planning for it to be my first build to use the Gutenberg editor. But early in the project, I decided I was only going to use it for blog posts. But over the last month, I decided to add Gutenberg back into the mix. Most of the pages use Advanced Custom Fields for specific content. But I am going to add some flexibility and allow the client to add some modules at the bottom page of those pages. The homepage will utilize Gutenberg exclusively. I am building Gutenberg blocks with ACF (not React).
- I spent the end of the day Thursday and Friday building out Gutenberg blocks and then converting the homepage back to Gutenberg (I had originally built the page to utilize Gutenberg but then decided to abandon that approach). I added some polish to the edit page with some custom styles that added a title block to each of my Gutenberg blocks in the editor. I think it makes it a bit easier to know which blocks you are working with.
- I took some time on Thursday to Zoom with my new teammate, Andy. She is wanting to learn how to build sites with WordPress. I explained how we approached building sites with ACF and how we are looking to do more with Gutenberg in the future. I hope I did not overwhelm her. I tried to talk through some of the basics.
- That conversation sparked me to think about how I have learned how to develop with WordPress. I have picked up a lot over the years just through Googling how to do something. I read a good portion of Chris Coyier’s Digging into WordPress years ago (co-written by Jeff Starr). And most recently, I read a good portion of Jeff Starr’s WordPress Themes in Depth. I remember that I picked up a lot of good tips from that book. Got me thinking that it might be good to revisit that second book. I found out that he updated it last year so I plan to read it soon.
Watched
- MLB Allstar Game – I watched a bit of the game on Tuesday. I was excited to see that Mike Zunino hit a homer and the Rays players did well overall.
- Clarkson’s Farm (Prime) – I finished watching this series on Thursday.
- Loki (Disney+) – Finished up season 1 this week.
- Alias (Prime)
- Creative Coding Club – I watched a couple of the lessons in the ScrollTrigger Express course. I highly recommend it to those wanting to grow their GSAP skills.