WEEK 1 - Principles and practices; Project Management
I have only ever used WordPress before (that someone else set up) so I had to do some HTML tutorials and try to learn about Git. I started off using LibreOffice but it kept changing the code, e.g. margins and embedding the photo. So I'll improve this step by step.
UPDATE. Because I'm a bit locked into how LibreOffice set up the styles, I'm still figuring out how things get placed on a webpage, especially images, and I haven't yet created a separate css folder for the stylesheet. I am trying to figure out how to get the two Preferences screenshots to the right side by side but no luck yet. UPDATE again. I managed it but I'm not sure how. The images are linked to the paragraphs, but moving them is still trial and error for me. And captions will be a future challenge.
Then I was trying to use Mac's TextEdit as the text editor, but it was set as Rich Text Format default so everything got messed up. Now I have TextEdit preferences set as Plain text and it will open HTML files as code instead of formatted text. Charlie says he prefers Atom, but I'll use TextEdit for now. One thing I am sure I will trip over in future is the fact that all these files are titled index.html and I need to make sure I'm writing in the right one.
I'm writing this in week 4 and have paid attention to others' webpages. Neil has emphasized constant documentation, also of little steps and learnings, so I'm now trying to adopt that routine. Actually I've always had the habit in Mac of using Grab to do screenshots and screen selections but Charlie reminded me of the shortcuts which do indeed make things easier and faster. Command Shift 3 for a screenshot and Command Shift 4 for selection.
I haven't had any problems with the basic git routine as long as I follow my cheat sheet (hand-written notes in my notebook). Charlie also developed a super way to explain the procedure and made a post about it on his page. (Photo right, aka: Git for gits.)
A few years ago, when Massimo Menichinelli still lived in Finland, I attended one of his Open P2P Design workshops. We were using Subversion then. I did achieve some vague understanding of version control then but technical details are still lost on me. As a researcher I focus more on how these things affect what people do, how participation actually 'happens' in practice, what 'governance' and 'access' means in p2p work. I'll try to understand these procedures technically as much as I can in order to inform my understanding of them as social interactions. I presume a lot of people are also concerned about how these procedures, which began as a way for FLOSS developers to collaborate, translate when people are collaborating on tangible objects and designs.
On Project Management and project plan - to be continued. Must decide on my final project.
Notes and reflections to come.