Raison d’être o el porque#

I built and deployed the Beta version of the critique wheel site in response to a need for the fiction writers in my writing groups to get faster and more actionable critiques on their short stories.

From my Github records, I added the .gitignore on 15 May 2021, so I consider that the start date of the project.

Razor Pages, MySQL#

The wheel is build on .Net 5 framework using Razor pages, running off a MySQL database. I cobbled it together over a period of months. It’s been a good Beta.

A little Ajax#

I’m most proud of the seamless autosave of draft critiques as they are written. This uses an ajax call every few seconds. This took me a long time to get right.

Identityfraaaammme…#

The wheel uses Microsoft’s built-in Identityframework to manage authorization and authentication, which I’m unhappy with. While it was relatively easy to implement it’s been a real pain to try and optimize. Logins are as slow as Monday mornings.

Look and feel#

The site looks great, thanks to a html theme I bought. When I finished the site, I discovered Tim Corey’s excellent youtube channel and courses. That’s when I realized I could and should rebuild a better wheel.) and customized for the site. After C#, I foolishly thought CSS would be easier. This was not the case. It’s working thanks to Kevin Powell’s CSS tutorials here.

Version 1.0#

The next iteration is planned to run on Blazor pages, continue to use MySQL (although I am toying with the NoSQL MongDB).

The user management system will use Azure B2C, although their login will require some fine tuning.

I’ll tag any future #critiquewheel posts as such.