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Part 2: The Refactor [Jan 2019]
I was happy to get my portfolio up and online with the new SQL/PHP backend but after a year or so I got inspired to give it a revamp. The first pass was distinctly an excersize in getting it working. This time around I will focus more on polish and finesse. First thing's first, I originally used JQuery as a shortcut to getting decent animations quickly. I intend to remove these and get a little deeper into CSS animations and/or vanilla javascript for that purpose. The next large task is to make a more sophisticated database schema for the articles with an eye to adding a content management system on the back end as mentioned below. Lastly I will get deeper into the visual design and themeing to make it look less amateurish. Fingers crossed. Another goal in this revision is to add a second subdomain to host a version of my portfolio for testing purposes. This would allow me to make changes without bricking my primary site for everyone else, which I totally haven't done before.
Part 1: The First Attempt [Feb 2017]
Having recently completed the The Complete Web Developer Course on Udemy and was pretty stoked to build something useful so I set my sights on two websites BTTBestates.com to showcase my student property up in Nottingham and AllanJamesEdgar.com (which you SHOULD already know about as you are currently here). I chose to tackle these because in their basic form they can be simple to implement, but could be easily be upgraded to utilize more skills and advanced techniques.
Starting with some Discovery, Wireframing and Photoshop Design from Travis Neilson at DevTips I continued by creating static html and CSS pages and figuring out how to serve them from virtual hosts in apache. Before I knew it I was adding javascript and incorporating jquery functionality and libraries such as slick image carousel. I think the next big step is to make a basic content management system which will require an authentication system (scary). Currently, updating and editing content is done directly through the html which is both slow and unwieldy. For the inevitable smartasses out there, yes I know what wordpress is. I've tried it before and even quite liked it. Despite this I wont be using it, I'm here to make stuff and it takes away a lot of what I find rewarding. SO THERE...