Latest posts
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Automatically publishing your build artifacts
Intro
The idea: whenever your CI builds the code from your main branch, do not ditch the build results: publish them instead. This makes it easy to provide QA engineers or bug reporters with new builds to try.
Jenkins
I first experienced this setup at work, where we use Jenkins. Jenkins is not my preferred CI system, but to its credit, it makes it super easy to implement this feature: add a step to archive artifacts, either using the GUI or using the archiveArtifacts pipeline command.
We actually do this for all builds at work, not only master branch builds. It makes the life of our QA engineers much easier. Our workflow looks like this:
- Git Hub pull requests (PR) trigger builds on the CI;
- developers review the code;
- when developers consider it ready to QA, QA engineers download the artifacts produced by the PR build and use them to validate the work.
Doing the same on GitHub
I thought it would be a good idea to setup something similar for my own projects, which are hosted on GitHub and use GitHub CI.
I expected a feature like this to be readily available, but I could not find exactly what I wanted. GitHub provides a way to download artifacts from a build but it's not ideal:
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May 2021 status update
This month I spent my time on Git Bonsai and Pixel Wheels.
Git Bonsai
A user reported a bug with Git Bonsai: when working on a repository checkout with multiple work trees, Git Bonsai would crash (#5).
I fixed this and released version 0.2.1. This version fixes the crash and comes with reworked, more Rust-like error handling as I am still using the project to teach myself the Rust language.
Pixel Wheels
The rest of my time was spent on Pixel Wheels. Here are the player-visible changes:
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Pixel Wheels 0.19.1
When I announced previous Pixel Wheels release, I said I expected the next one to be 1.0.0. But that was before Google Play rejected the game for not complying with their terms of service. I wrote a snarky article on that topic, but sarcams aren't going to fix the problem, so here is version 0.19.1. This version comes with two flavors for Android: the Google Play flavor links to the project home page and does not mention support. The Itch.io flavor links directly to the [support page]. The Google Play flavor has been accepted by Google Play, so I think we are good there.
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Google does not want you to tell your players about your donation page
I recently updated Pixel Wheels banner image on Google Play. That triggered a review of the game: shortly after the update I received a message telling me Pixel Wheels was "not compliant with Google Play Policies". What nefarious activity does the game engage in? Sneak on users? Mine bitcoins?
Nope.
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Tend your Git garden with Git Bonsai
If you are like me, your git repository checkouts have a tendency to accumulate lots of branches over time.
Git Bonsai is a command line tool to help you clean this bush.
What does it do?
Git Bonsai can perform the following tasks for you:
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Fetch remote changes, then loop over all your tracking branches and update them to their remote counterparts.
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List merged branches and let you select which ones to delete.
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Do the same for duplicated branches (when you have multiple branches pointing to the same commit).
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Pixel Wheels 0.19.0
Pixel Wheels 0.19.0 is out! This is the first release of 2021, and it might be the last 0.x.0 release: the game is a bit light on content (12 vehicles, 6 tracks, 3 championships) but I want to "finish" this project so unless I change my mind, next version will be called 1.0.0.
What's new in 0.19.0?
The most important change is... music!
I spent much time on opengameart.org looking for free music and ended up picking 5 pieces from FoxSynergy:
I was surprised how adding music really gave the game a more "finished" feeling:
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Pixel Wheels 0.18.0
Hey, Pixel Wheels 0.18.0 is out! This version brings a new track to the game: "River". This track completes the "Country Life" championship: now all championships have two tracks. It's not much, but I think we can agree it's better than a one track championship, right?
0.18.0 also comes with Android TV support, making it easier for you to play the game in your living room.
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Speeding up the compilation-startup cycle when fine-tuning your code
Our computers are getting faster and faster, but compilation and startup times are still something we want to avoid.
One situation where waiting for compilation and startup to finish feels like a waste is when you are fine-tuning an aspect of your application. For example when you are adjusting spacing or colors in a user interface. Having to wait between each iteration not only costs us time, it also makes us less likely to do more experiments.
In this article I am going to show a few tricks to reduce these pains.
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Nanonote 1.3.0 released
I just released Nanonote 1.3.0, my minimalist note-taking application! This release comes with two new features:
First a search bar, implemented by Pavol Oresky:
Second, the ability to reorder selected lines using Alt+Shift+Up and Alt+Shift+Down. This is very handy to order lists:
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Pixel Wheels 0.17.0!
I just released Pixel Wheels 0.17.0. The main focus on this version has been the graphics, lot of work has been done on the various background tiles: roof, roads, trees, sidewalks, bridge, sand have been improved.
I spent way too long time working on the roof tiles in particular, to the point where I was starring at roofs every time I went outside, looking for inspiration. You can see the evolution of the tiles in this short time-lapse:
