recent website updates

i wanted to take a moment to sum up the main updates i've brought to this website for the past year. although it might look like it's quite unchanged since its going online ~1.5 years ago, i'm still pushing commits regularly. here is a github capture to indulge your eyes with simple but sweet graphics.

a calendar showing git contributions all across the year

i think i remember saying in an old blog entry that this is the closest thing i have to a home. well, not sure i've said it before, but i've thought it nonetheless. i believe that taking care of it is taking care of myself, even though sometimes it means working in the middle of the night and getting restless about some unfinished feature, + putting in time and effort that won't go into more lucrative endeavours... it's hard to find a healthy workflow, etc. anyway, here is a list of updates:

migration from mongodb to the django-native sqlite. i had a few reasons to try out nosql for the critique app two years ago, but django-mongoengine has been long dead, also djongo is nowhere near production quality. seeing as my database is relatively small and not under heavy load, i could notice no significant performance drop. basics are fine enough here;

mostly by getting rid of mongodb, i was able to bump the server to debian 10 and django 3.0.2;

private password-protected photo galleries, to be shared with friends and potential clients;

lazy-loading on photo galleries: to speed up requests, full-res pictures are not loaded until they're actually needed. in the meantime, we load light placeholders precomputed with sqip (7kB vs 450kB, see below). if your connection is fast enough, you may never notice them;

full rework of the navigation in the photo app, to support more public galleries;

two whole pages dedicated to light painting and prints information (french only, for now);

i made the critique app more responsive, so that most pages may be edited from mobile devices;

code snippets in blog articles, formatted with pygments and a custom theme;

there's slightly more documentation! and also, some logging!

too many template/script/style tweaks to be accounted for;

trompe-la-nuit.ink has definitely expired, oriane.ink is my only domain now;

internet explorer 10/11 browsing might be broken, sorry about that, but not so much, right?