A diagram is worth … a thousand words

We all love diagrams (well, pictures). Sitting back and admiring works of art can take us to a peaceful place where we can reflect … yet I digress.

The ability to have a visual display of our project can aide in understanding the ‘big picture’ (pun intended) and help identify issues before them become … um … issues. CodeNeighbor has begun researching how to generate diagrams for XCode projects, models for data design and other such fun stuff.

Our roadmap takes us all over the land before us and project diagramming is just the tip of the iceberg – but we do need the ice. Thoughts of pretty pictures which represent our own mobile works of art is just the beginning … you will have to stay tuned to see what lies ahead (hopefully, not an iceberg).

— Pete (landlord)

Searching … for the haystack

Finding a needle in a haystack – that proverbial elusive thing (needles are not expensive, just buy another one). First, one has to find a haystack – those should be easy enough and CodeNeighbor has lots of haystacks. But … that tiny needle, how did we lose it in a haystack anyway ?

After finding that needle, or in our case an asset, notifications will be sent to our neighbor through the channels they have chosen. Search results can be reviewed to validate whether the located assets align with the search criteria and can be added to their asset library for later use. These types of searches can be automated by adding the search criteria to our machine learning minions and once they locate those needles, have those results brought to your attention.

The search feature has been enhanced to search for assets by library (or kit), further improving the changes of finding exactly what you are looking for. Multiple kits can be used to search across multiple vectors to locate those assets you require.

Has your machine learned anything yet ?

Machine learning. It brings about thoughts of computers playing chess, identifying food (hotdog / not hot dog) or finding information from a mountain of data. At CodeNeighbor, we focus on the value of our assets and have begun research on identifying valuable content that matches your needs and expectations.

A short questionnaire is provided to learn the types of assets you are looking for and that is used to seek out those assets automatically and notify you when they have been found. We know that everyone’s time is valuable and what better way to save time than to have those metal servants find the things we are looking for while we enjoy binge watching Silicon Valley.

Voting is your right

CodeNeighbor is adding a voting capability to voice your thoughts on features that should be added, removed or enhanced. This platform is for you and is only valuable if it provides … value to you. In order to maintain this value, your input is crucial to ensure each neighbor has what they need to build their next masterpiece.

Topics will be gleaned from the neighborhood and those topics will be voted on, for what features are in demand. Those will then be voted on regarding priority and specifics for how they will be provided. CodeNeighbor, from its’ inception, was to provide a portal to what the neighborhood needs and to learn and grow to support those needs. A healthy neighborhood is one that grows, keeps neighbors talking and occasionally keeps the grass mowed at the correct level.

Chatting up the neighborhood

Chat is such an important feature and CodeNeighbor likes to stay with the hip crowd. Chat is being added to the Mac OSX app as well as the iOS app to allow neighbors to stay connected wherever they are. Features like this are only available with a subscription but there is a trial option to test drive this capability before purchasing.

iOS Mobile app development has begun

A mobile app is being developed to provide remote features to CodeNeighbor. The ability to search for assets and be notified when saved search criteria has located assets is one of the primary features of this app. Collaboration with your neighbors via chat is also a feature that will keep you connected and provide communication on demand.

Versioning snippets

Versioning … a crafty way to make updates and keep previous changes around. A novel idea – it takes us back to childhood, when we gave our siblings hair cuts with safety scissors and then showed our mother our new skills – that would be a great thing to revert to a previous version.

Change is inevitable and allowing for the versioning of our snippets is paramount to maintain our intellectual property – versioning allows for us to update to the shifting winds of our requirements but maintain historical values of our assets.

Change is good !

Mac OSX app started – XCode integration

A Mac app is being developed to provide integration with the web based assets. Through this integration, snippets and other assets can be incorporated directly into an XCode project. Template generation can also be accomplished either directly from the app or from the web, once generation has completed.

I have been dragging, now its time to drop

We all feel like this … in the morning. Until that first cup of coffee, we feel like we are dragging, and then that first drop of caffeine arrives. In a similar fashion, as developers (as most of us rely on coffee) like ease of use, CodeNeighbor has added the ability to drag code into the editor window and drop it in for use.

We aim to provide these type of features, while in this case, not earth shattering, undeniably is a great thing to provide ease of use – this is the outcome we expect:

but not this:

Template generation development

One of the primary purposes for creating CodeNeighbor was to enable builders to build faster, with more standardized procedures (best practices) and simplify the traditional boilerplate code that exists is most applications. While this is not new, CodeNeighbor provides the ability to find those chunks of code (snippets) to either add to a template or simply add to your code directly (in XCode).

Template generation, the CodeNeighbor way, enables you with a green field / clean slate approach. You can use existing templates, build your own or a combination of both. You identify the snippets, if any, to include in those templates and then you click a button and sit back while the magic happens.

Traditional sites which enable the non technical individual to build mobile apps is something that was once very popular, but that popularity came at a price. The app stores started rejecting those apps based on various criteria, the apps were generally no more than brochure-ware quality and to be honest, those apps that require the thing that makes them stand out, well, was not possible with those site generators.

We do not approach app building with that philosophy, rather, we enhance the building of apps through these templates and snippet inclusions directly while allowing the mobile developer to focus on that which makes the app a work of art, a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

— Pete (landlord)