I've been working with Flutter again for less than three months now. And in that time span, I've created three apps which are at least semi-functional, not to mention several others that I've started but not finished.

The three apps are:
1. A FediClient which is mostly complete. It works for my needs but doens't have content warnings and shortening of long posts.

2. An EPUB viewer. This one needs work because the viewer works but doens't have searching or ability to highlight words in a book and take actions with the highlighted content.

3. A Scrivener file analyzer. This ones my latest and was started yesterday but already pretty close to what I want.

Given that a Flutter app can be multiplatform and I've gotten so much done within such a short time, I think I'm definitely sold on switching over to Flutter for all my personal projects 🙂

#Coding #Flutter #Swift #Decisions

Okay, so it's now been over a _year_ since my last contract ended, and this is now officially my longest stint of unemployment ever in my life.

@moira and I are still getting by on our extremely tight budget, but it sure would be nice to have a bit more pocket change.

So Mastodon, if anybody out there would like to hire me for any of the following for freelance work, I'd love to hear from you:

- Proofreading or beta reading for any authors
- One-shot test pass of your website
- Consulting with you about how to set up a Wordpress website, or helping you with questions about the one you have

1/

#Proofreading #BetaReading #WebTesting #Freelance #GetFediHired #Writing #Authors

Our latest indie/small press releases:

https://www.limfic.com

The Secret of the Martian Girl
Colin Alexander
Sci Fi

https://www.limfic.com/book/the-secret-of-the-martian-girl/

Ham and Echo: Encounter the Kitchi Mizhe
M. Jay Williams
Fantasy

https://www.limfic.com/book/ham-and-echo-encounter-the-kitchi-mizhe/

------------

Sunflowers In the Snow
Dawn Bonanno
Fantasy

https://www.limfic.com/book/sunflowers-in-the-snow/

Sign up to be notified of new Limfic.com releases weekly!

https://www.limfic.com/join-our-email-list/

#NewRelease #ScienceFiction #Fantasy #Writing

A very long time ago, I wrote a Word macro to help writers detect specific types of words (adverbs, passive voice etc.) in their writing. You can still find that macro here:
https://absolutewrite.com/forums/index.php?threads/helpful-macro.26020/

I was talking to somebody on here about it a day or two ago and I realized that my current writing tool, Scrivener, does not really let me do something similar. I looked into it and it turns out that Scrivener does not have any macro or scripting functionality, but the developers are OK with others writing third-party apps which access the Scrivener files and do stuff with the data.

So I thought I might as well work on that this weekend 🙂Thanks to the helpful Scrivener developers, I was able to figure out how to access the Scrivener file and read only the data I wanted fairly quickly.

The issue here was that a Scrivener file can contain many types of textual content besides your manuscript — there can be notes, research, thoughts, quotes, whatever.

You don't want all that text to be analyzed. You only want your manustcript text to be analyzed for particular types of words. That part (getting only the manuscript text) is now functional 🙂

Now I have to figure out how to do the actual word analysis. My original Word macro was pretty basic. I feel that there might be better ways to do this now. So I'm going to look around a bit and see what approach might work better.

If I go back to the original word lists approach, that's pretty simple to implement. But hopefully, I can find something a bit more automated which doesn't involve people typing in lists of words?

#Coding #SideProject #Flutter #Writing #Scrivener #Authors
A macOS application screen show…
A macOS applicatio file showing…

"Indian 2" (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8066940/) looked good at the beginning, faltered in the middle, and got really bad towards the end.

Same old melodrama. Apparently, people don't understand that their actions have consequences and will abrogate responsibility when the actions come home to roost. They want a saviour, but won't do anything for themselves. Just annoying, because it's true 😛

Also, the movie doesn't give you a satisfying end and sets it up for another movie which apparently brings up the tired old, "what the British did" story ....

Movies #Tamil #Indian2

@Emmacox I was curious and took a look at the options available with Scrivener. Apparently, they don't provide any way to script or to add plugins. So apparently that path is out 😞

However, they do have an option under Edit > Writing Tools > Linugistic Focus... which allows you to find some types of words. But not words from a custom list.

The Scriverner documents are just RTF files. So it should be possible to simply load the files in a separate app and do any kind of search you want. I might look into this if I have some time.

@Emmacox Yep, me too 🙂I mean once I switched to Scrivener, I stopped looking into whether there is any scripting/automation capabilities ....

You've given me the motivation I needed to look into this. So will probably check into it this weekend. Will let you know if I find anything useful.

@Emmacox When I used Word, I had a Word macro which would find all these words (or a specific type of word) when I ran the macro 🙂 I just had to add a new word to the list and I was (mostly) done ...

Haven't actually figured out what to do now that I've switched away from Word.

Book Promotion: Exciting new fantasy stories for your to download free and discover your next favourite author. #ladies #monsters #knaves #reader #readers #goodbooks #dwarves #elves #knights #sorcery #reading #witches #dragons #wizards #bookstodon #heroes #legendary #magic #amreading #dwarfs #writing #fae #rogue #fedibookfair (606e) https://books.bookfunnel.com/discover-new-fantasy-books/vpmc29vfpt?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

How Arthur C. Clarke forwarded my article to Tom Hanks ...

https://www.tiktok.com/@fahimauthor/video/7401095359490952453

#ArthurCClarke #TomHanks #Writing #Reminiscing #ScienceFiction

well, i've been laid off.

gonna sit here for a bit and lick my wounds. and i've got some runway but i'd like to get back into a job pretty quick.

if you're hiring for a linux admin/ops-heavy SRE role, i've been poking computers and networks professionally for a decade. hit me up.

edit: should probably include my linkedin here, at least. resume available upon request, ofc! https://www.linkedin.com/in/selectric/ #fedihire

@sam I considered doing this since I've written several different Fedi clients, but then I run my own instance and I can set how long a post can be and I set it to 8k characters and the feature didn't seem that important.

I know, it doesn't help you. But maybe that's why nobody has added this feature? I know that when I was doing Twitter clients, I did add this feature because it was hard to type long posts otherwise ...

Another periodic reminder that in addition to posting pictures of cats and dogs (and weird dogs), I write books. This is a book about an odd philosophy professor having to save the multiverse with the help of his annoying dopplegangers. There's no cats in this one, but a saber-toothed tiger plays an important role. (Twice.)

Amazon: https://geni.us/AlphaMax
or
Others: https://books2read.com/u/m0olnY

#InternationalCatDay #cat #cats #catstodon #book #books #SFF #SF #sciencefiction #humor #humour

Hi everyone! It’s August which means there is one month til #FallFinishAlong kicks off! Open to crafters/makers/doers of all kinds. Anyone who has projects to finish is welcome. #FiberArts #knitting #crochet #quilting #spinning #CrossStitch #crafting #leathercraft #sewing #writing #pottery #ceramics We will have our most active portion in September and continue into October for anyone who wants to keep going. Hope to see you all there! Find your WIPs now ;)

What if older adults were the ones who woke up one morning with amazing, uncanny superpowers, rather than teenagers?

What if so many people had powers that it wasn't even secret?

That's what life's been like in the world of Rough Passages since 1943, and the answers make for great stories.

https://www.amazon.com/Rough-Passages-K-M-Herkes-ebook/dp/B076HVH61B/

(also apple, kobo, B&N etc)

#bookstodon #books #Indieauthor #goodbooks #scifi #contemporary #fantasy #writing #readers #reading

Hey folks, I was just laid off from my job I'd worked at for 5 years.

I'm hurt, devastated and most of all scared. But I'm also ready to kick things into gear and bring my talents to another company or team.

I've been a Ruby on Rails dev since 2016 and have loved doing it.

On the side I've built a number of side projects to extend my skills.

If anyone knows of any opportunities I'd love to hear them, please repost or share with folks you know! Thank you.

#ruby #rails

Toss some coins to your writer?

Dragons pull spaceships at faster-than-light speeds in my new space fantasy novella.

🚀 cosy space exploration
🏳️‍🌈 all queer cast
autistic protagonist
🧑‍🤝‍🧑 character-focused story

It's Pay What You Want and the book is fully written and edited. We're now into 'it would be nice to get paid' and stretch goal territory!

https://ko-fi.com/post/Crowdfunding-Space-Dragons-Luxorians-Crew-A-cos-Q5Q0YG3UU

#vkofi

@WedaleBooks Tagging a few relevant hashtags - check out this independent bookshop in the UK. They've left Twitter and are looking to build up more community here!

#books #bookstodon #bookshop #scotland #smallbusiness #reading #readingcommunity #uk #unitedkingdom #twittermigration @books @bookstodon

Sharing this for two-spirit and Indigiqueer artists. Litmus Press is looking for cover art submissions for the cover of a volume of contemporary Indigenous LGBTQ2SIA+ poetry. You'll need to log into Submittable for the details. It's free to make an account there. https://litmuspress.org/about/submissions/ #TwoSpirit #indigiqueer #Indigequeer #IndigenousMastodon #IndigenousCreatives #illustrator #NativeMastodon

@davemark Yep, it's easier starting on the phone since then you can connect your desktop using the mobile app. Just scan the QR code that it shows on the desktop app (when you install it later) and it connects the two 🙂

I hardly ever use my mobile and so I think I turned off notifications on mobile.