Status update, July 2023 - Cookbook and more

This is my first attempt at a monthly update. Let's see how regular I will be...

Cookbook project

I created a cookbook for a wedding, collecting recipes from all the guests. I made extensive use of free software:

Simple.css to style a landing page, explaining the concept and inviting the guests to upload recipes

Nextcloud to provide an upload-only folder to collect the recipes

Scribus to create the PDF (special shout out to the Python API, see below)

Synfig to create a flip book animation in the bottom right corner of the book

Inkscape to prepare the objects for the aforementioned animation

Simple.css (CSS framework)

Nextcloud (hosting files)

Scribus (publishing software)

Synfig (vector-based 2D animation software)

Inkscape (vector graphics editor)

I didn't have any prior experience with Scribus or Synfig, but I was able to get started with them quite efficiently.

The part I enjoyed the most, was the flipbook animation in the bottom right corner. After planning and counting the frames for a short animation on paper, I modeled it in Synfig. I then exported all the frames as PNG files (animation.####.png).

Thanks to the scripting capabilities of Scribus (and the documentation found online), I wrote a short program to ensure that each page had an image frame linked to the correct file (so that I could quickly update the animation if I moved some pages around or tweaked the flipbook).

I mainly (mis)used the object attributes (which also allowed me to automatically update 2 tables of contents for the different meal types).

Scribus Python script for flipbook and Table Of Content generation

Forgejo NLNet Grant

I applied for an NLNet Grant with other Forgejo contributors, which was awarded. The Memorandum of Understanding was finalized, to be able to receive the funds at some point.

NLNet Grant process on Codeberg

Gophercon EU

I went to Gophercon in Berlin. It was quite interesting, but also very "enterprisey". I think that my current focus is more the hope of building a "free software copyleft sharing world" than an "everything is a business opportunity world". Maybe I should try to go to dedicated FOSS conferences instead.

Scouting

I am a more or less active scout leader in Germany (DPSG), and in June we had our annual camp as well as a 24-hour mountain hike. Lots of (exhausting) outdoor fun!

Föhnsturm (in German)

📅 2023-07-25

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