A few weeks ago I was reading an article about how everyone should write a blog. Writing can help you demonstrate your knowledge, but also help out others that are trying to learn the same thing. I write a blog on my own website, which was built with Bulma Clean Theme (a Jekyll website theme built with Bulma), but it’s a bit much if you just wanted to create a blog. So I decided to get my notepad out and start sketching some blog theme ideas.
Introducing Mere Blog Theme
Creating your first Laravel package
I’ve always been interested in making a package for Laravel so I thought I would make a simple example package and share what I had learnt from the process. The package is very simple and just contains some extra collection methods, so I decided to call it extra-collect.
Introducing some new layouts to Bulma Clean Theme
I’ve been meaning to write about some of the new features I have been rolling out to my Jekyll theme, Bulma Clean Theme, for a while but I have only just managed to push the update for the landing page layout last weekend. This article provides some of the thinking behind the updates, as well as a brief introduction to how to get started.
Getting started with Laravel factories
If you want to start writing some tests for your Laravel project then chances are you will need to write some factories at some point. When I first heard the term factory I had no idea what it meant and what it did, let alone the benefits they can bring to your tests.
Using the unique validation rule in a Laravel Form Request
Sometimes you want to ensure that a field is unique in the database so that someone can’t add the same item twice, such as the title for a post. Laravel provides a couple of handy tools for this, including the Unique validation rule, but there is a bit more configuration required to other validation rules to make the most of its abilities.
Why build a package?
In my day to day job I make use of a lot of packages. This got me thinking it would be good to create a package of my own, so I have decided to build a Laravel package. It’s got a long way to go yet before it’s ready, but I thought I would write down my thoughts about the benefits of building a package while it is still fresh in my mind.
Latest Posts
Using when with the Laravel Http Client
Here’s a little tip I discovered that I haven’t seen documented anywhere. You can use when() and unless() with the Laravel Http client.
New book announcement!
Announcing the new book, The Little-Astwick Mysteries - Trouble at the church, by C.S. Rhymes. It is now available for pre-order on the Amazon Kindle store for £2.99, with the release date of the 1st February 2024.
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.
