DEV Community: Wynter Jones

Just a Single Screenshot

Wynter Jones — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 00:37:39 +0000

Think about it.

We as developers, we build. And we build some more.

We take all that work and compress it into a few screenshots, maybe a video and a landing page that sells the product.

Imagine if it took you 3 years to build and build.

You launch and it's crickets. Your screenshots, videos and marketing are all missing the mark.

Do you pivot?

Are those three years for nothing? What do you do!

Sure -- nothing in the market happens quick especially out of obscurity.

Why not, stop building? Start selling. Take a screenshot right now of your product.

Congratulations - you are done. No more months of work or weeks of tweaking the UI in order to fit a possible problem you've decided you need to solve. Before anyone uses it.

So I say, stop building. Start selling. Show off your work and once you know, really, really know. Continue building.

Don't build in a silo. Find another way to feed the farm by turning that silo into a discotheque that brings people in from far and wide.

That's is all. You got this!

Launch, launch, launch.

How the Terminal Should Work by Default; But Doesn't

Wynter Jones — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 22:03:32 +0000

So we use this Terminal/Console/Command Prompt thingy every day. The first time we used it we felt like we finally hacked into the matrix.

Back Story

Even the first computer I used which was some DOS system with green text. You enter a command a some magic would happen. Except I did not know any commands, nor did I know it could process commands. So it was used a way to leave messages on screen for my mom or brother.

How it worked then and how it works now is the same.

Enter command, it prints the output and enters a new line. After a while you have a tiny scroll bar and entire history of every command you entered.

Cool, I guess for some engineers I am sure, for me? I have never needed to look through history to see anything. So ultimately it's all left over noise.

So I clear screen and continue on.

A Side Story

A few years ago I was developing a desktop application that is basically a PostgreSQL database viewer which connected to Ruby on Rails. Most of the commands needed to be entered into a terminal.

This is when I really learned why they call them terminal emulators and got to understand the shell more. This is when I could control the entire layout of the terminal.

I realized I never needed any of that history and in fact I needed to see all the output clearly and easily.

This project has since been closed however.

The Point & The Code

Here's some bashrc code that will clear the screen after each command and provide the output in a much nicer way:

preexec () {
 printf "\033c"
 echo "$fg_bold[red]╭╼$fg[blue] $PWD\n$fg_bold[red]╰───╼$fg_bold[green] $ $history[$HISTCMD] $fg_bold[red]\n"
}
preexec_invoke_exec () {
    [ -n "$COMP_LINE" ] && return                     # do nothing if completing
    [ "$BASH_COMMAND" = "$PROMPT_COMMAND" ] && return # don't cause a preexec for $PROMPT_COMMAND
    local this_command=`history 1 | sed -e "s/^[ ]*[0-9]*[ ]*//g"`; # obtain the command from the history, removing the history number at the beginning
    preexec "$this_command"
}

Disclaimer

Yes, you do lose the history and it always shows just the last command at a time.

Yes, it has some fancy stuff to format the directory and last command.

Yes, you should be using Starship addon for your terminal to format the node version, etc.

Yes, I think this is the way it should work. In fact I think the input should always stay at the top of the terminal and output below, however that seems to hard to hack into a .zshrc or .bashrc script.

Either way, thanks for reading.

Music

Wynter Jones — Sat, 26 Sep 2020 04:36:06 +0000

Probably mentioned a thousand times on here. Rather than search and read what others have posted I am just going to skip to writing about why music is fuel for me.

In the late nights while bobbing my head up and down listening to UGK and I find the code starts to match the rhythm. Before I know it the prose is mixed in a deeper meaning.

Just function.
Do the the thing.
Little fingers keep on typing.

Zap Pow comes in and lights up the room and suddenly that new screen is no longer another thing to do but a groovey new piece of awesomeness sliding it's way into your product.

While you pause and reflect the smooth sounds of Nikolai Rimsky fill the room and the button works. The function is performed and the action taken.

Success.

Celebrate the good times with sounds of Micheal Jackson. Moonwalk your way away from the computer and into a effortless sleep as today your fingers danced along the keyboard to produce a small piece of magic.

Keep on jammin'

Useless Chrome Extensions for YouTube

Wynter Jones — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 15:37:19 +0000

Hello Dev.to community!

I'd like to share with you some useless code for creating a variety of Chrome Extensions that play around with YouTube.

The idea was mostly to see how I could inject CSS and JavaScript onto a page using a chrome extension. Very basic and simple.

Only problem, what do I do with that power?

Idea #1 - Hide YouTube Comments

First, here's the basic manifest.json file for injecting CSS.

{
  "name": "Replace YouTube Comments",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "manifest_version": 2,
  "description": "",
  "homepage_url": "http://www.monetizedesign.com",
  "default_locale": "en",
  "content_scripts": [
    {
      "matches": ["http://*/*", "https://*/*"],
      "css": [
        "inject.css"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "permissions": [
    "tabs", "http://*/*", "https://*/*"
  ]
}

For a chrome extension you basically need the manifest.json, locales/en/messages.json and extra files for what you plan to do with your extension.

For this first example here's the CSS that will hide the YouTube comments.

ytd-comments {
  display: none !important
}

Amazing!

Fairly boring, although 318,626 users might think otherwise and praise this very simple chrome extension (or argue about features in the comments) as seen here on the Hide YouTube Comments extension.

This next one might sound silly and when I showed other people this idea they initially thought I was being a troll... That's up to you to decide.

Idea #2 - Auto Dislike YouTube Videos

If you're like me and watch way too much YouTube videos that you might think this is useless and it is.

Personally, I rarely like, comment or subscribe any YouTube video, however since 90% of YouTube videos ask you to Like and Subscribe; I thought why not auto-dislike every video I'm watching?

Here's the manifest.json to inject JavaScript onto the page.

{
  "name": "Auto Dislike YouTube Videos",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "manifest_version": 2,
  "description": "",
  "homepage_url": "http://www.monetizedesign.com",
  "default_locale": "en",
  "content_scripts": [
    {
      "matches": ["http://*/*", "https://*/*"],
      "js": ["jquery.js", "inject.js"],
      "run_at":"document_end"
    }
],
  "permissions": [
    "activeTab"
  ]
}

Yes, I included jQuery, mostly because I am lazy. Feel free to rewrite the code with vanilla JS, which I would do if I were to actually release this extension.

Here's the code that is always checking and ready to dislike any YouTube video at a moments notice:

function checkAndDislike() {
    setTimeout(checkAndDislike, 5000)
    if ($('ytd-app[is-watch-page]').length) {
      if (!$('#menu ytd-toggle-button-renderer').eq(1).hasClass('style-default-active')) {
        $('#menu ytd-toggle-button-renderer').eq(1).trigger('click')
      }
    }
}
setTimeout(checkAndDislike, 5000);

Now this may seem cruel and unusual.

This is nothing compared to my next idea in terms of uselessness...

Idea #3 - Auto Like and Subscribe YouTube Videos

This might be a bit more social commentary than the rest of these useless chrome extensions, however the goal of this one which includes the same manifest.json is to do the opposite.

Auto Like and Subscribe to every YouTube video you watch!

Here's the code:

function checkAndSubscribe() {
    setTimeout(checkAndSubscribe, 5000)
    if ($('ytd-app[is-watch-page]').length) {
      const likeButton = $('#menu ytd-toggle-button-renderer').first()
      if (!likeButton.hasClass('style-default-active')) {
        likeButton.trigger('click')
      }
      const subscribeButton = $('#subscribe-button paper-button.ytd-subscribe-button-renderer')
      if (!subscribeButton[0].hasAttribute("subscribed")) {
       subscribeButton.first().trigger('click')
      }
    }
}
setTimeout(checkAndSubscribe, 5000);

It's pretty evil, isn't it?

No, I'm not talking about the need to inject jQuery to use it only to use .first() or .eq() ...

Basically every 5 seconds it checks the page to Like and Subscribe the video you are watching.

How incredibly useless.

Either way -- the code is not useless just the function.

Do You Have Useless Chrome Extension Ideas?

Let me know in the comments some random and silly ideas that serve no real purpose.