In VSCode, I always use the split pane. One thing I’ve always wanted was to always keep both split panes open.

Turns out it’s possible. First, set closeEmptyGroups to false.

Second, add a custom key binding that will disable cmd-w on an empty group:

{
	"key": "cmd+w",
	"command": "-workbench.action.closeGroup",
	"when": "activeEditorGroupEmpty && multipleEditorGroups"
}

Progress tonight: Made simple preferences window in SwiftUI. So simple!

Inspired by my friend Jess Martin, I tried to record myself coding and posting on YouTube. Here’s my most recent episode.

Not because I would expect anybody to watch. But it’s an amazing way to get yourself in the zone.

I would set out to do it for 1 Pomodoro, and because I’m talking to an audience (in my case nonexistent), I have to stay focused for those 25 minutes.

And it’s fun! I get to have my own opening line. I somehow started using “Hello world! I’m back…” And it’s so stupid, but no one watches! So I get to say whatever I want.

I’m really enjoying making these videos. For myself, really – but if you watch, I’ll be glad!

SwiftUI on macOS after a week

Last weeked I started reworking my oldest app, Tomato One, in SwiftUI.

What I’m excited about:

• It’s truly rapid prototyping (I’m not working with a DB yet)
• Making layouts is dead simple - knowing Flexbox helps a lot
• Customizing UIs with your own design is very easy
• Sharing simple views between iOS and macOS! I can build my “circle progress view” and easily share it between platforms.
• You can share even more complex views between platforms. But I’m generally against Catalyst approach, I think you should design from scratch for both platforms, and then share what you can (This approach is very easy in SwiftUI too)

Limitations I found:

• I couldn’t create a multi-line TextField. I left it as one-line, gave up.
• I couldn’t get my TextField to focus automatically. There is a Stack Overflow thread about this, and I copied the solution from there. But it’s basically falling back to native NSTextField.
• Couldn’t bind “Return” and “Escape” keys to Buttons. Ended up falling back to native NSButton (StackOverflow thread)

I’m going to keep working on this. It’s pretty amazing. I think I can easily ship this simple app in just a few days.

Trying micro.blog. Pretty interesting idea. Longer than a Tweet, shorter than a blog post. That’s about perfect for me.