1. State of the art, project management and documentation¶
This week we went through the different online networks fabricademy is using:
Mattermost chat:
• open-source chat program
Gitlab flatform:
• hosting platform where we build our website
Fablabs.io:
• centralized sign-in account for all academy platforms
• it is also engaging with the wider FabLab network
Nuaval:
• platform to evaluate students’ weekly progress and discuss feedback
• Login through fablabs.io account
Building website¶
We are building our website on Gitlab using a static site generator called MkDocs. It is using a “simple” markdown language to translate into HTML code.
What is Markdown: it is a lightweight markup language that you can use to add formatting elements to plaintext text documents.
During the first couple of days I was just doing a few small tweaks to the code and mainly focused on finding a way to convert my normal workflow into my baby coding language.
I found that you can get quite far with even basic commands, but it takes some time to really understand how to use it smoothly:
Here is some of the basics steps that I was doing:
gitlab av Alve Lagercrantz
More detailed info you can find here:
Fabcloud
Google drive
MC Docs Material
Besides getting to understand the basics about coding I was also:
- Experimenting with embedding slides using Canva which is basically like a browser version of keynote, it allowed me to be more free with the design process.
I found it to be especially useful for “instruction manuals” because I could add more content without that the website becomes a never-ending “string” of images that sometimes can be hard to navigate.
And it was also nice to not have to worry about file sizes.
In Canva I could also embed videos with a slightly cleaner UI experience than for example Youtube
- Few different experiments with GIFs using illustrator and Ezgiff. It is an easy-to-use generator where we have quite good options for adjusting frame speeds and blend modes.
Example:
In the end, I settled for the simpler and more readable version (see HOME page).
My big problems came when I got bit overconfident and tried to be a bit more experimental. I started to ad special commands in the yml folder. Since I had mader several changes without commiting to them it was really hard to troubleshoot and I was stuck for hours trying to solve the issues.
finally I managed to find the issue in the commit log:
Methodical and patience is problebly key for this...
Other useful links we learned about during the week:
Free Stock Video images
• Unsplash
• Pexels
• Pixabay
• Freepik
• Freeimages
Free Stock Video Footage
• Vimeo
• Videvo
• Pexels
• Pixabay
• Adobe Stock
Free Music Libraries
• Filmmusic.io
• Free music archive
• Bensoun