A Continuing Journey in Rails
Author: admin@example.com
Created: Thu, 29 May 2025
Category: General
November 27, 2024 I wrote a article in my Substack that was an introduction to my new portfolio concept. That was what, roughly 7 months ago? I have taken about a month off of work on it while I repaired my laptop, other than that, I think I have done pretty well. After all, I can only work on it a few hours a day plus weekends. It still has a long way to go, but I wanted to write a quick note on what I have and how I got here.
The Concept
I want once place that anyone can go, that will represent me. The site needs to accomplish two things.
- 1. It needs to showcase my projects. I want them to be integrated into the portfolio but also feel like stand alone, working sites. While inside the projects, you need to feel like you have excited the portfolio and entered the project, but still have access to the portfolio resources and navigation.
- 2. It needs to also focus on the customer, providing them with information on my services as well as provide communication. I should be able to inform a customer as well as securely talk with them and provide a interface where they can see progress, create tickets, make requests.
Current State
Today the site includes:
* Light and Dark Mode - Features to switch to different themes. Not all the project use this feature, but can be wired in.
* Admin Dashboard - All the data for the various projects is managed through the secure dashboard. I can create, edit, and delete blogs, pills, and much more. Zuke will be included but currently the Zuke data is seeded.
Today the site includes:
* Light and Dark Mode - Features to switch to different themes. Not all the project use this feature, but can be wired in.
* Admin Dashboard - All the data for the various projects is managed through the secure dashboard. I can create, edit, and delete blogs, pills, and much more. Zuke will be included but currently the Zuke data is seeded.
- * Blog - The blog is where I write articles on what I learn and thoughts I have regarding the site and various projects. It includes a article image, article information like title and author, a scheduling feature to see drafts, published and scheduled articles. Categories you can sort the articles by.
- * Zuke - Music player. This is a music player to organize and play your own personal audio files. This allows you to upload your audio and images to s3 and play them in the browser. This allows you to customize your music to how you like. Currently the player is at the top of the page and includes a banner image. The albums load underneath. Clicking a album will load the song. You have the option to load and play or load and click to play the song. You have the option to play the next song when the current song is finished, or just play the current song. Clicking a album will change the banner image. The sound wave resembles the sound cloud wave form. You can choose artists or genres to sort the songs. This site is stimulus heavy and uses custom events to communicate with various components. It also uses turbo frames for that SPA, React feel.
- * Salt and Tar - Fan remake of a Salt and Tar channel. I love the channel and wanted to provide more functionality. Currently there is just the landing page that includes my design and references for social links. I have finally completed a reformat of specific early videos so I can continue to the next phase of a video showcase. This design will have a Polaroid feel and a simple, clean interface.
- * Copywriter - This project uses my old design and Fivvers top copywriter content.
- * Hermit Plus - This project is being a pain at the moment. This will be Netflix but with the hermits of hermitcraft. This will use the YouTube API and S3 storage. It will focus on season 8 and be pretty awesome. A great mock up has been nearly completed using NextJs and Express. I am excited to return to this with Rails.
- * Eastbound - This is a CDL Class A recruitment site that was up and running for a few. This has various secure backend dashboards for management. One for writing blogs and one for managing leads. When someone enters a email for newsletter or fills out the contact form, emails are generated and sent as well as the information is saved in the database. This information is gathered and a email is sent to the admin. The information can also be managed in the dashboard. This is in process of being installed in MILK-00.
I still have so much to do. There is no SEO, Hermits landing is still crap, Zuke still needs a lot of work, but works. There is next to nothing for the clients. I need to open up the dashboard for potential clients to see but still protect from data manipulation.
Work continues, but I wanted to give a quick update.