It's been a long time since my last blog post so while I'm in here tinkering I figured why not pop some words in to commemorate the latest updates?
I've been a web developer for around 15-20 years professionally at this point, hence my going out of my way to make a website rather than doing the simple thing for tracking my collection, like a spreadsheet. It keeps me sharp in my craft, making personal sites to serve my needs, and hey - it's a fun way to display and share stuff. If you've not seen the older version of the site I promise you weren't missing much!
Previously, the site...
Framework was Nuxt (Vue) version 2
Now it's Nuxt 3, the latest and greatest!
Used Bootstrap for styles
I've removed this dependency entirely and switched to a hand-rolled grid and other styling system
Was hosted on Netlify
As of writing this is still a work in progress, but I am moving my personal sites off of Netlify and over to AWS using an infrastructure as code (IaC) framework called SST (Serverless Stack Tooling); this gives me more direct control over the hosting as I continue to consolidate both my personal and professional (at my workplace) projects under the one AWS roof
I'm really enjoying the new IaC setup, using Github Actions to automatically push new builds to AWS. It's all so easy to update without having to manually go into AWS and update things via the GUI; I just make changes in code and they are reflected in the stuff hosting my site.
I'm also enjoying getting back into the design chair a bit - I decided with this upgrade that I wanted to actually style it based on the branding I made a decade or so ago (the whole Gloves Off Games thing) which was originally for my (now defunct) YouTube channel. A few years after I made the branding neon pink and blue came back in fashion so I wasn't so unique anymore, but regardless of what anyone else is doing it's still a style I really love, so I went with it. The new site meets my goal of being much more visually engaging than the previous iteration which was incredibly flat.
The only thing left now really is to go into each game and add a cover image for them, which I will continue to source from various resources online like The Cover Project. Kudos to all of the folks who have uploaded to that! Once I have most games with covers and the site back up at GlovesOff.Games I will consider it fully "launched", but I'm enjoying using it over the old site already so it's fulfilling it's purpose!