Small Web September Check-In 5: Wrap-Up!

[enchantedsleeper]

And now, the end is near... And so I face the final check-in... 🎶

It's already time for our very last check-in for Small Web September!

If you can believe it, we're already on the last day of Small Web September. How is everyone doing? Maybe you feel super organised and productive and have hit every single one of your goals - or maybe you feel like there simply hasn't been enough time in the month to do what you wanted to do. (I feel you 100%). Maybe it's somewhere in the middle!

Whatever your status, congrats on getting to this point and for taking part in the challenge! Even if you feel like you didn't hit enough of your goals, setting out to do something new with your small web project(s) is awesome on its own. Taking part in the comments and community around SWS is excellent! (I'm totally unbiased with this one, of course :D) Or maybe you're making plans for what you can accomplish when your schedule lets up a bit.

Here are some questions to use for this check-in:

• What did you work on during Small Web September?
• What's next for your small web plans? Where will you go from here?

This is the fifth of five ‘check-in’/comment points that will be published during the event, but there’s no cut-off point for leaving comments on these. You can add something at any time, and you don’t need to comment on every one or do them in order! The themes are a loose guide, but all discussion is welcome.

In a few days, I'll also post a feedback post where people can share how they found the challenge and maybe give some thoughts on the next iteration (which, all being well, I'd love to run again!). Thank you all for taking part and making this a fantastic challenge! I hope you've enjoyed it <3

For our previous check-in around troubleshooting and problem-solving, go here: Small Web September Check-In 4: Troubleshooting

Comments

[tempural]

What did I work on during Small Web September?

I did not update Fujofans 💀.

I did do these things instead:

• Start a uses page for my computer stuff and art supplies.
• Made a page for exchanges I've done.
• Made a page for a general exchange letter so I can just link that instead of saying "i like nullo and major character death" in every request.
• Made a blank template for exchange letters, which anyone can use.
• Updated my deploy to neocities tutorial after someone said they were confused at one part
• Helped my wife make a skeleton for their commissions page
• Updated my about page's FAQ all the way on the bottom.
• Updated my links page with more links. I should start keeping these organized. Maybe some way to signify new links that doesn't require me to write NEW and delete NEW on old links lol.

What's next for your small web plans? Where will you go from here?

I am dipping into Eleventy to finally learn how to use a SSG to make another web directory BEFORE I update fujofans. 😔 I managed to make my first site with a template, and used vercel to preview it. Still can't help but feel that I could have typed all this out in plain html/css in 10% of the time, but I know that it'll save time and agony later when I finally get tired of copy/pasting the nav menu.

I spent like 5 hours of my life trying to figure out how to link files from my own directory. Turns out I needed to change vercel settings cuz the default "public" folder is named "_site" or whatever instead of... well, public. Build & Development Settings -> output directory -> enter the name of the public folder holding all the stuff you want people to see. My brain is completely fried from doing one simple thing, and I'm sad and cranky.

This is the most frustrating thing about trying new things with 50000 pages of documentation from 10 different people using 10 different ways to deploy their site, they all use different folder/file names and paths so it turns out most of my problems are following one tutorial but that tutorial doesn't account for default pathing. But at least I figured this out after a very hard and long time.

I was vaguely following petrapixel's tutorial for setting up eleventy but honestly all the jargon is confusing to me and they're using neocities (which I don't use but most of the accessible tutorials are for neocities LMAO), so I just clicked "use this template" on a template I liked and edited it to my liking.

Next on the list is to style it the way I want. And then when that's done, I'll finally update fujofans LMAOOOO maybe I'll figure out some way to pull data/sites/etc from google sheets and automatically format it into something purdy. It's hard to learn things... I end up wanting to delve deeper into another thing that's part of that learning, and never finishing that first thing i wanted to do...

REGARDLESS, thank you everyone here! Thank admins for running the event, and thank you other community members for showing off your work! It's always easier to work on things when you're twinning.. or tripletting.. etc with others.

[enchantedsleeper]

That's a ton of stuff! Congrats on everything you managed to do! Also, sometimes realising "okay, I need to learn X before I can do Y" is important, even if it's frustrating not to be able to complete a particular project as easily as you were hoping. I wish you the best of luck with the web directory styling and getting to Fujofans finally 🍀❤️

It's hard to learn things... I end up wanting to delve deeper into another thing that's part of that learning, and never finishing that first thing i wanted to do...

Oh yes, the side quests, I am so very familiar 😂 They usually lead to my browser tabs multiplying into the dozens... When I'm at my computer doing small web stuff, you'll hear me mutter "So... what was I doing?" approximately every 10 minutes xD

It's always easier to work on things when you're twinning.. or tripletting.. etc with others.

I totally agree! Thank you for being part of the event, and I'm really glad you enjoyed it and found it useful! <3