Perchance - Create a Random Text Generator @lemmy.world wthit56 @lemmy.world 4w ago

Pro tip: make a private dev copy of your plugin/generator

(Pro tips can still come from non-pros, right? 👀)

I only started doing this recently, but it's a lot better for my stress levels 😂

I change the title to DEV ONLY so I know how safe it is to edit the functionality etc. I also have a banner in the HTML that shows if I'm not actually editing the original "real" version, which also reassures me.

Then I can break stuff, save to my hearts content (I have an itchy save-finger). And only copy it across to the real version when I'm happy it's safe. Just remember not to overwrite the $meta stuff if that's different in your dev copy. Though if you accidentally do that, the backups are very useful for quickly grabbing what you need to put back.

For the name, I call it the same, but with -dev- in there somewhere, and -4958734957 a load of random numbers at the end so it's super unlikely people could stumble across it.

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7 comments

I just append -beta at the end. That's all. People are free to come and watch the development process too. 😮
- Sounds okay 👍
- Same with me too, I appended -preview at the top of my preview versions of the projects, although this only applies to my generator hub page and my name generator at the moment.
  
  A little bit of story, I have planned to make an "alpha" version of these generator projects, which is like a lively updated version (frequently saved, typically as soon as I edit the code and go AFK mode). The reason for this is because, in Preview versions, I've really wanted to bring the freshly-served experimental features and updates ready-to-go to be then tested, all in one update, to be later released into the stable version through some updates, whereas the alpha version will be a place where the newest experimental features are being progressively built to be then transferred into the preview version.
  
  In other notes, I also never wanted to bring these preview, unfinished versions directly into the stable version so that things keep well-organized. I might not explain it very well, because I'm still largely heading into the recovery time (see this post). I'll make it clear in the 30.0k views milestone special coming this month (or next month, followed by the huge update) though.
  
  Here's what I wrote from the big revival announcement page:
  
  Third, the new Alpha versions I've mentioned in the 5.0k announcement before is now more of like the in-progress versions of the Preview updates of the generator, so I'll constantly saving and updating the generator while I'm working on an actual Preview update!
  
  However, this version will not be discoverable anywhere, in fact I will not going to mention any links to the alpha version, since this version is mostly a little "secret" space where I build new features of the generator, and so that I can spare less time in a day working on the generator (in other words, no need to spend more time finishing on a new Preview version in a single day).
  
  I've also planned to create an alpha version of my name generator, but haven't done so to this day:
  
  So I've finally planned to continue the active development of the generator when the generator reaches its 1st anniversary (that's on March 25th). Also, there will be a new development stage for the generator, mainly called Alpha/Dev. The releases of this stage will be on the "stepping stone system" on top of the Preview releases, so it'll contain smaller packs of new features and improvements and expect more of the non-functional features! Still, feel free to hop in the preview version and let me know what's your experience! Oh, and the generator will soon use the new font within the next big update!
  
  (here's an old copy of my Generator Manager that I've still left the old announcement on, mentioning above text)
  
  What do you think of this concept? @[email protected]
  
  Also, I'm planning to remove the canvas in the big revival announcement page very soon, just to close up the potential holes of people putting the bad things into the generator page. The drawings there will stay intact, just the canvas frame being removed.
  
  I am planning on removing the canvas too.
  
  About the app stages, could you explain what you mean by alpha? Because, from semantic versioning perspective, alpha refers to a stage of a software that is still in development.
  
  And about managing multiple stages, I am thinking hosting them in GitHub or in my local machine, and then manage multiple versions of them there directly, I have been slowly getting into it.
  
  I used this term alpha to define the version as an "under maintenance" version of the Preview builds. It's basically a more private-ish version of the Preview versions, where I save the code to a place where the features are left unfinished (directly on Perchance). This could save some time as I don't need to constantly copy and paste the generator's code into a text file and paste them back once I want to continue working, and also to reduce the accidental saving events that happen uncommonly. And with that, I could also plan more efficiently too.
  
  Yeah sounds fine... I don't do that specifically because I don't want people to see the half-broken half-finished kind of stuff while I'm working on it. And for something like plugins I don't want to break things for anyone using it. I'm specifically doing this to have a "private" copy.
  
  Yep. This isn't yet clear by the way; I'll be mentioning a special section related to this in the 30.0k special announcement thing (hopefully coming next month or so, because not only my recovery is almost complete, but I'm also getting a lot of new business and off-Perchance plans, so I have to take some big time and rearrange the generator update plans as best as I could)

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