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Blog

Using prettier to format your Jekyll theme
Using prettier to format your Jekyll theme

I have been using prettier for a few years to automatically format code, especially JavaScript and TypeScript projects, as it helps standardise the output on a shared code project. I have maintained a few different Jekyll themes over the years and wanted to use the power of prettier to automatically format code consistently.

First impressions of React Native as a Web Developer
First impressions of React Native as a Web Developer

I decided to try out React Native to build a native app and see how it works. I’m an experienced web developer but have limited knowledge of apps. I helped build an app using Apache Cordova and PhoneGap many (many) years ago and also worked on another app using the ionic framework a few years later. If I’m honest I can’t really remember how they worked as it was so long ago, so it was kind of like starting fresh for me.

Querying Laravel Eloquent's Many to Many relationships
Querying Laravel Eloquent's Many to Many relationships

A while ago I wrote about how to use a many to many relationship in Laravel, (all the way back in April 2019). Now I want to build on this example and show how you can query many to many relationships, but also how you can add additional constraints to the query to further filter your results.

Optimizing Laravel Eloquent queries
Optimizing Laravel Eloquent queries

Here are a few tips and tricks that I have learnt along the way to help optimize your database queries in Laravel. Sometimes, little changes can add up and make a big difference overall.

Building a directory system API in Laravel
Building a directory system API in Laravel

Sometimes it’s difficult to know whether to buy a system, use an existing open source system, or even build your own system. Each approach has its own risks and rewards. As a developer sometimes you get the opportunity to try things out and build a prototype to see what is possible. I recently got this chance and built a prototype for an API.

Using PHP Enums in Laravel to store additional information
Using PHP Enums in Laravel to store additional information

Sometimes it’s difficult to decide where to put code, trying to figure out where it really belongs. Laravel has a predefined folder structure that you can keep to for most scenarios, but I wasn’t sure whether the settings should be kept in a config file, a class, or somewhere else. In the end I decided to use an enum.

Latest Posts

Fixing a few SEO issues with my author website
Fixing a few SEO issues with my author website

When I launched my cozy mystery series, The Little-Astwick Mysteries, I decided to create a new website to promote it. But I made a few mistakes with SEO that have led to a few issues with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Here is how I fixed them.

Using Tailwindcss with Codepen
Using Tailwindcss with Codepen

I created a free account for Codepen to provide a demo with my blog post about ‘Creating a custom toggle in TailwindCSS’ but it took me a little while to figure out how to use Tailwindcss with codepen. So, this is what I did to get it working.

Creating a custom toggle in TailwindCSS
Creating a custom toggle in TailwindCSS

I’ve only just started using TailwindCSS, (I know late to the party huh), and I wanted to create a custom toggle switch that looked a bit nicer than a standard checkbox. This blog post goes through some of the thought processes and the tools that Tailwindcss v4 has out of the box that you can make use of.

How NOT to make a website

Unlooked for Tales - a collection of short stories

By C.S. Rhymes

Free on Apple Books and Google Play Books

Nigel's Intranet Adventure

Nigel's Intranet Adventure

By C.S. Rhymes

From £0.99 or read for free on Kindle Unlimited!