What Is Done?
For the past three months I’ve been building this website from scratch. It’s been a great learning process. There was a big learning curve and an initial lack of knowledge, but after a lot of research and a lot more hard work I’ve been able to get a functioning website up and running.
The website is hosted at a custom domain and is built all from scratch using the following tools:
- Bootstrap - front-end web framework
- Jekyll - static-site generator
- Adobe Brackets - text editor
- GitKraken - Git GUI
- GitHub Pages - web hosting service
- Google Domains - domain hosting service
- HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, Git, Ruby, and Liquid languages
- IKONS icon set from Piotr Adam Kwiatkowski
- Circle Icons social media icon set from Michal Kulesza
The site has a good layout and design, contact forms for email subscriptions / suggestions / contact, a blog with three posts, a YouTube channel, Instagram, Facebook page, and blog navigation system. Although I’m satisfied with the features right now, there are MANY more features in the works.
Thoughts On Overall Progress
Considering everything listed above, I’m very happy with where I am now. My original goal was to get a blog, website, and YouTube channel by a predefined launch date, and I made the deadline (albeit cutting it a bit close). The workflow that I’ve developed is very efficient, organized, and applicable to other future school/personal projects.
I’ve learned a lot that I never would have learned in class, and that is one of the biggest highlights that I’m going to take from this project. The experience I’ve gained in website building/design/hosting - all the while with new tools - has become a great undertaking that I would recommend to any growing programmer or developer. There were setbacks, but this was a very worthwhile venture in my opinion.
Plans
I will continue to build the website and add onto the featureset, but now I will shift gears and start focusing on creating content for the YouTube channel and for the blog. I don’t want to set up any goals for numbers of posts/videos, but I definitely want to put up a few before summer ends.
The next website features are to implement an archive of all the blog posts and to create a post tag/category system to sort and organize the posts.
Thoughts On Launching
To be honest, I’m kinda nervous. I have no idea where Gaudium will go or how long it will last. I originally intend for this to go out to friends and family and maybe spread from there, but I honestly have no idea how I’ll react if this grows to a significant point of followers and fans.
I’m also a tad bit anxious about the reception I’ll receive and how people will react. This is a normal feeling to have since Gaudium is something I have invested a lot of time and effort into and am now putting it out into the world for anyone to find and evaluate.
I have no idea how people are going to react to this, and that’s a kind of necessary unknown. I’m sure there will be support and people talking about it, but will it be a “This is great! I’m going to remember it and tell some of my friends” or will it be a “That’s cool. Good job.”…?
A part of me knows I shouldn’t dwell too much on public opinion, but at the same time a part of me is still anxious as to how people are going to see this whole endeavor.
Overall, I’m confident I’ve made something worth showing to the world. While I have a few mixed feelings on reception and spread, I’m sure there will be a small handful inspired by this.
Maybe those few will be spurred to do something on their own. It is those few that I’m trying to reach. If only one person is inspired from this, that’ll be enough justification for me.