Update Log: #1

Planned

September 9th, 2023

The main web server is getting a storage upgrade from 120GB to 1TB.

Roadmap

A new revamped roadmap will be added by October.

Help Wanted!

Podcast

A new podcast is being created that focuses on open source, privacy, and more. If you are wanting to join the podcast, contact me at [email protected].

App Development

I need a developer who is experienced in React Native to help out with Penpot App (Android / iOS).

New Documentations

A new part of the website has been added for documentations for both Nexus Polestar and Penpot Desktop. I was originally going to build a documentation template in Astro from scratch, but went with the new Starlight tempate instead.

There are plans to revamp some projects found in SudoVanilla Code and will have their own documentations as well.

The documentation part of the website is new and is therefore uncompleted, Penpot Desktop section is expected to be completed by mid-September.

Penpot Desktop Documentations / Nexus Polestar Documentations

Domain

Homepage Update

A couple of months ago, the homepage for SudoVanilla has been transitioned from Bridgetown to Astro. So far from what I’ve seen, the website does load and build faster, along with amazing components built-in to Astro.

There are plans to rewrite the website, remaining in Astro.

Sub-Domain Merges

Over the past year(2023), most sub-domains have been merged into the root domain. Before SudoVanilla Code was code.sudovanilla.com and now sudovanilla.com/code/.

Merged: Archives, Documentations, Content(CDN), Code, Panels

Across-Site Update

In some areas of the domains, like SudoVanilla Code, the global header/footer has been added. I have plans to apply this across the entire domain.

Currently planned: Archives, Documentations, Panels, and more.

Projects

Nexus Polestar

Some major changes are coming to the template, on the new Pluto branch. Mainly changes such as folder structure, configurations, framework updates, and code revamps.

One thing that I’ll never expected to do, which I should of done sooner, was switching over to TypeScript. The Electron section of Nexus Polestar is now using TypeScript to better implement configurations from the developer and more.

The configuration will be getting more options for the developer in the Pluto branch, especially in the Electron Builder section, new configuration options are:

• Sidebar
  • headerFontSize
  • tabFontSize
  • tabHeight
  • tabPositions
  • size
  • enableToggle
  • enableSearch
• Window
  • width
  • height
  • minWidth
  • minHeight
• Update
  • channel
  • url
• Linux
  • category
• macOS
  • category
• Windows
  • requireAdmin
  • silent
  • allowToChangeInstallationDirectory
  • displayLanguageSelector
  • createDesktopShortcut
  • deleteAppDataOnUninstall
  • identityName
  • publisher

Penpot Desktop

One of the exciting things that has happened recently, is that Penpot Desktop has finally arrived on Flathub. This was a big deal for me as having your own app on Flathub means that your app can reach more operating systems such as immutable Linux distros. I’ve also added more download options for Linux suchs as .freebsd and .pacman to better support BSD and Arch.

Stable release is set for 2024, before we get there lets talk about the survey I provided back in May. According to Typeform, 72 users have filled out the survey.

Here are the parts of the survey I paid close attention to:

• Settings Design Appeal - Winner: Pop Up Layout
• Tab Design Appeal - Winner: Tie
• Do you guys want vertical tabs? - Yes 72% / 28% No
• Do you use Penpot Desktop offline: - Yes 60% / 40% No
• Where should you seek help for any problems using Penpot Desktop? - Most go the Penpot forum (Wrong Answer)

And of course, who is using what?

• Windows: 43%
• macOS: 30%
• Linux: 27%

Settings Design

I’ll go ahead and change the settings layout from a dropdown menu to a pop up.

Settings will be lay out as following (Planned, not final):

• Instance
  • URL
• Appearance
  • Theme
  • Color Scheme
  • Tab Design
  • Tab Layout (Horizontal/Vertial)
  • Titlebar Style (Linux Only)
• Infomation
  • *This section will just display helpful and basic information.

Tab Design

Do, two designs tied. Although, I’ve thought about this more and designed to add a setting where you can choose the design yourself within the new appearance settings I plan to add.

The following style will be added:

• Default (Current)
• Rounded
• Sharp
• Metro

Vertical Tabs

So, that’s gonna be a tricky one. I assume toggling a CSS script should do the trick, but the tab library isn’t meant for this.

Offline Usage

Seems the offline feature of Penpot is quite popular, a more in-depth tutorial will probably get added to the Penpot Desktpo documentation.

We(SudoVanilla and Kaleidos) have chatted about adding a way to implement Penpot Docker into the desktop app somehow, but this is very tricky and will need additional developers to get help with this feature. We are looking into this for the Snap release, since Kaleidos has reached out to Canonical about this, but I personally want this feature available in most formats as much as possible. If this takes a long time to implement, then I’ll plan a release for this in Penpot Desktop v2.0(far future, probably).

Reaching for Support

Most of you said, if you need help with Penpot Desktop, you’ll resort to the Penpot forum for help. This is the wrong answer, for Penpot Desktop you want to reach out to SudoVanilla or submit an issue on the repo.

I’m going to update the setting to make this very clear, as Penpot Desktop is not official software of Penpot or Kaleidos.