kevinxing.ca / ggkevinxing.github.io Self-proclaimed Web Czar
December 2014 - Present
Strap in. Built with Bootstrap.
A great framework for HTML, CSS and JavaScript that's both powerful and easy to learn. Using Bootstrap allows me to quickly create beautifully clean websites that look great on all platforms of varying screen resolutions with (almost) no required additional tweaking.
Simple. Sublime.
While Sublime Text by default is very simple, straightforward and clean, its high customizability allows for higher efficiency. That means more time building the website and less time wondering where everything is. Features such as tabs, multiple selection, high customizability of UI, completions, and more seem like such a natural evolution of a text editor that I simply cannot imagine going back to the dark days of Notepad.
Git hyped for GitHub.
GitHub provides the means to host and edit pages easily. Editing from any device that can access the GitHub website and custom URL redirects with the simple commit of a CNAME file in the repository are just a few reasons why GitHub Pages is great for everyone. Of course, it's not without its limitations; the only usable website formats are HTML, CSS and JavaScript (with jQuery) as GitHub Pages does not execute any server-side code. On the bright side, it's absolutely free!
Project Tools
- Sublime Text 3
- Bootstrap (v. 3.3.1), requires jQuery (v. 1.11.2)
- GitHub Pages
- Google Chrome's "View Source" and "Inspect Element" features, which allow me to learn from Bootstrap documentation and edit my own pages on-the-fly without needing to commit changes to my repository
- Photoshop (or GIMP), though you could probably just get away with using Paint since it's mostly just cropping work anyway
Resources
- Maker-Based Education's "HTML and CSS for Entrepreneurs", which introduced me to the idea of using Bootstrap in the first place. While the course was a tad trivial to me due to my previous experience learning with Codecademy, it was a decent learning resource for getting started with Bootstrap. The content is detailed, thorough and concise, making it a good choice for complete beginners.
- Bootswatch's' Yeti theme provides the beautiful font and color scheme.
- Bootstrap's excellent documentation which includes component information as well as examples to learn from; the Grid System and Carousel samples proved immensely helpful.
The Road Ahead
When I have more time and money I'd like to move away from GitHub Pages; as a free option it's fantastic for what it is, but I'd like to be able to use server-side languages to enhance the browsing experience. The following are things to look out for in the future:
- Dynamic page generation (i.e. using GitHub API to generate a project timeline)
- Modular navbar (i.e.
<?php include ('navbar.php'); ?>) reducing the need to edit every page when one change is made to the nav - Blog integration for when I have both server-side code execution and enough interesting things to say about my life