2022 - a new year with new plans

2022 is well on the way and as always there are some thoughts in my head on what I would like to do in 2022. This is a little scribble of what is floating around in my head about what I would like to do in 2022. It includes both things I want to do on the site, but also some thoughts on things outside the site, such as the YouTube channel and my writings on Medium and LinkedIn.

The first thing is probably to determine why I do what I do and how it affects different parts of my life. This site for example is something I have created to write and to explore different things, like frontend development and design. It is a pretty selfish site where I just do whatever I find interesting and fun to be honest, and I like it because I am almost always building on it and there is no pressure of any kind.

YouTube feels a bit different, but maybe that is just me making a bit more of it than I should. I started out with the intent of creating more educational content, but got a bit stuck in my own mind, I think. I started to buy into the marketing of things rather than just make things, which is exactly what I sometimes get caught up in here on the site. YouTube is no different from any other content, and the only thing that matters is that you move forward. Things will not be perfect, but that is ok.

I have been drawn to the Social Justice debates lately, and I feel I want to write about it. Possibly even making content about it on YouTube. I know it will get me into a ton of trouble, but I am itching to make sense of things because there is so much chaos and madness out there about these topics. I do not intend to make a lot of articles on this topic, but there are a few that are rumbling around in my mind. I am just not sure what to do about them or where to put them... I guess that is a topic for 2022 to figure out.

With this in mind, I have some things I do plan to do in 2022.

Sections need to be built.

I have been putting this off for a long time because I keep getting sidetracked and caught in this loop of having a perfect setup for all sections. It will not be perfect, it just needs to be created! So I will start out with Development and Atlassian, since those are the two I work most with at the moment.

Development

For development, I will start by split the site into two sections: Frontend and Backend. My focus will be on the frontend first, where I will make a new database for code references. In setup, it will be similar to w3Schools, but I will tie in Videos and other things from other databases to make it a little more "meaty". I will start picking out a handful JS libraries and frameworks that I want to cover and explore as well to make the section a good starting point for learning more.

I consider having a section for IPS and WordPress development here as well, which will be things like tutorials and build guides mostly.

Atlassian

Atlassian is made up of multiple products, but also a ton of apps. So the idea here is to split into official products and apps. For the official products, I have this idea to create a database for how to use and how to configure things. This is what I do most days anyway, so I figure I could just as well  build a setup for it, so I can share it online.  I do plan a series of custom setup for Jira & Confluence on YouTube as well as in article form, and I probably will have a database for that setup specifically.

An apps database has been on my mind for a while as well. The reason for that is that I want to explore the apps, but I also want to tie in other databases to it. Like articles and videos, but also roles and people. This is going to be sort of an extension of the Companies database, which I am rebuilding at the moment.

Spring Cleaning

One downside of always building without any real time to focus and plan is that you accumulate a bit of technical debt. This is something I will need to address in 2022 as there are some broken areas and some blocks that should be rebuilt. I need a new setup for CSS for sure as it is a bit all over the place, so I need to set a standard and then restructure things accordingly. I have not yet decided on the said structure, but I need to set a global set and a local set that should work together.

Besides code, I also will go over the databases and look over the templates as they don't work properly. I will most likely rebuild them using CSS grid instead of flex, which may sound like a ton of work, but it is just a few templates.

Wither the new database Template I have built in the last week or so, I do feel that I have a very good starting point for this work. That is because I have pretty much moved all the current databases into this new display template and I am very happy with this setup. I am still exploring the possibilities for this new setup, but so far things feel good. The current state is that I am building the display template and then I will

YouTube

As I wrote earlier, I have been a bit reluctant and hesitant about making YouTube content. It is a bit silly, but not unexpected, since it takes a bit of getting used to. I am currently working a number of videos for work, and it works just fine. The plan is to make a lot of videos in 2022, but not focusing so much on the quality but more on the content itself. Just like with building a website, it takes a while to find the tonality, so I will do my best to not forcing things.

Atlassian instructions

Probably the area I want to dive in most at the moment is the Atlassian Instructions. It will go well with the Atlassian Guide Database mentioned above. I also have a set of articles on how to design a proper setup of Jira and Confluence that I plan to make in Video form as well.

Feedly & Zapier

Automatic content creation has always been something I want to build, and with the databases I have right now I see a potential for that using Zapier and Feedly. Feedly has been my news feeder of choice for a while now and as Invision Community have Zapier support now, I figure I will give it a go.

The setup is fairly simple.

I create a board in Feedly, then I create a Zapier account and add a zap that connect that Feedly board to a database in Invision Community. As I can easily add the content in the feed to my custom fields, this makes adding content dynamically very easy.

Stories

For stories I need to fix the voting bugs that currently prevent voting. It's nothing major, but I need some time to sit down and figure it out.