As I mentioned previously I have a number of projects on the go. Some of them are for fun, some of them hopefully will lead to something, at least one of them is a long overdue favour for someone which will also free up some of my time. As part of my plan for 2013 I’d like to pick up these projects and make some progress. My plan is to have two projects on the go at any one time, alternating between them each time I work (hopefully most nights in the week), and to pick a long term project to work on for a while along side a number of shorter projects (or at least projects which have a shorter release cycle).
The first thing I have in mind is to finish off converting the Calderdale Theatre School website to WordPress. The people who I’m doing it for have asked if there is any way they can update it themselves, and I’d love to give them one. The complication so far has been integrating the production pages and callendar into WP in a suitable way. I have started this and made good progress on the main content pages at the end of last year, but haven’t given much thought to the other sections. My current thinking is that I will leave those pages running on the legacy code for now and publish the rest in the new WP format. The theme does still need some work, but the first stage shouldn’t take long and it will give them the ability to update most of the content themselves while I work on plugins for the other sections. Once it’s all done it will also mean we can look at adding some enhancements, such as integration with their Facebook pages and the like.
I also would like to finish moving my galleries over to WP. With the latest version media functionality has been improved, and I’d like to migrate away from my old, creeking, bespoke code to something more maintained and reliable. Again, I’ve started this and had a play with custom post types and my templates to make the galleries do just what I want them to do. So far it’s looking ok, but I’d like to iron out a few things before I finish migrating all the other photos — afterall there are thousands and I don’t want to get half way through before having to go back to change something, or start again.
I’d also like to do some more work on my WordPress plugins. I know Syndicate Out has a feature list as long as my arm, and it would be great to get another version out. My plan is to work on this a bit at a time, prioritising the tasks I have for that and spending a day or two on the project before releasing a new version of it for people to have a play with. Text Obfuscator has pretty much run it’s course feature wise, but there might be one or two things I can do to tweak it here or there, so I’d like to have another look over that too. I’d certainly like to check it works with the latest versions of WordPress. The WordPress Twitter Plugin I think is a none-starter. There are plenty of WP Twitter integrations out there, and with no sign of Twitter doing anything to help plugin authors with the authentication probelms which arise when you have a public codebase, I don’t think I can add much to the market place. It’s sad, but I think I have to draw the line somewhere.
When it comes to longer term project I have three in mind. The first is one I started a long time ago, but didn’t do much work on technically. The stage library project needs some thought, and there are a number of technical challenges to overcome too. I don’t want to give up on it, I think it can go somewhere, but I do need to have a good look at how I might manage it going forward.
CGT has the basics layed down. I know how it will all hang together and I have a good set of base data. I have even built some basic PoC scripts to output the data I have collected. I started refactoring the existing code last year, and I need to finish that off and pull the output scripts into some better order. I also need to have a look at the ideas I have and the data I have and work out what I can effectively soft launch with and what I can work on later. It also needs some kind of design and some thing for the front and other gateway pages. Given where I am with this currently, and the amount of work it would take to get it into a state ready for some kind of launch, I think this is the first long term project I’ll work on.
The second will hopefully be whatever PrepareApp turns into. I have some basic PoC scripts built for this, but the idea needs developing further. This is where I’m hoping I won’t be alone — the plan is to work on this with a couple of other people who specialise in front end development and design, and marketing. We also hopefully have someone on board from the buyers side of the fence which will really help us to develop the project into something sellable. I think this really has legs, and as soon as there are some concrete plans on the table, I plan to adopt this as my long term project. The trouble at the moment is I don’t know when that will be.
So one day on a short term project, one day on a long term project. Starting now. Let’s see how things go…
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[…] So my first: be a bit better organised with my time outside of work so that I get more done. I don’t know exactly what form of organisation it will take just yet, but I’m thinking about something along the lines of having just two projects on the go at one time and alternating between them. If I get just a little bit done on something each night (with exceptions, of course) I will make a load more progress on them than I have done in the last year. Some of the projects are longer ones, some of them are shorter ones and I’d like to have one long running project along side a set of smaller ones with the plan being that the alternation will stop me getting too fed up with one thing, the change of small project will make sure things are frequently different, and the combination will make sure that overall I’m making progress. I’ll write a little more about my projects for this year in another post. […]