# october 2020: a blog that works

november 1, 2020
#css #html #python #webdev #website

## week 1

#bottle #python #regularexpression #website

### thursday, october 1

- blessfrey.me's diary properly displays snippets for all articles: a header taken from the title, a truncated view of the article, the date + a place for social media share links, and a link to the article.
- Cleaning the snippets enough to look okay and not break the page was a challenge. I used regular expressions to remove HTML link + header tags, which is apparently a lost cause Stack Overflow users stand against daily, hourly even. It's not so bad if it's not user content and the content is pretty predictable, right?
- Pythex is useful for checking whether your regular expression will catch your target strings
- First command line git merge. I usually do it on the website. It's really simple - switch to the branch you're merging the second branch into, type '`git merge second-branch`' (`second-branch` = name of the second branch obviously), and fix any conflicts.

### friday, october 2

- All articles are kept in the same folder. There's really no reason to split them up. If I want to differentiate types of articles, I can use tags or something.
- Set up blog navigation

### saturday, october 3

- Blog removes HTML tags through regex patterns.
- Fixed footer strangely appearing in the middle of the body on pages.

## week 2

#bottle #python #website

### sunday, october 4

- Started using absolute paths when needed. Diary snippet links to articles work now. Articles use CSS now.
- Improved navigation for diary. The number link cluster around the current page stays static in length - very early pages compensate by adding more links to the right

### monday, october 5

- made 'latest' box in sidebar of diary + articles with working links to the 5 latest articles

### tuesday, october 6

- researched + added a robots.txt, sitemap, nofollow links
- added social media share links to all snippets that allow you to share the title and a link to Twitter, Facebook, or email. Not sure if Facebook or email work because I don't feel like getting Facebook or connecting email to my browser.

### wednesday, october 7

- Added a simple Contact page.
- Moved diary entries under a diary directory for that /diary/whatever-entry URL, so people like me can backspace on that URL to get to the higher level page.

### saturday, october 10

- For testing, all colors were taken from the latest colors on random color websites, and all divs are stark. Instead, I have added margins, padding, sans-serif font choices, and an okay color palette. I'll pick something more true-to-brand later, but at least it isn't embarrassing now.

### tuesday, october 13

- updated site skillbar nav background art.
- continue working on CSS files.
- made Twitter timeline's background transparent on index page

### tuesday, october 16

- edit game and presskit pages and some diary entries
- for site navigation, CSS buttons are now image links with superimposed text. I think keeping text as text instead of part of images helps with accessibility. I use a lot of foreign websites, so personally, I like websites where I can copy + paste.

### saturday, october 17

- worked at the cafe today. Since my husband's battery is dead, he finally read some May I Ask For One Final Thing? I love that manga!!
- Refactored the main Bottle script. Before, I wrote it hard and fast, so it was reading all the diary entries multiple times per refresh. It's not only cleaner now, it also only reads the files twice.

### monday, october 19

- did some sketches for the story slideshow for the game page. they are an iteration of some cg art for the real game, too. I really don't draw enough...
- added the 'recommended articles' section to the bottom of diary entries.
- added 'extra' articles, for articles that are unlisted from the main directory. I'm using it to include more GDC talk notes per talk while keeping the GDC talk article general and summarized.