posts

From code to Canva: start structured, finish in the tool you like

Thu Oct 01 2026

Lay out an HSC folio in code, where page limits and type rules are easy to check, then carry it into Canva and keep designing there.

HSC major work - part 3 of 4

How the NESA Assessor works

Wed Sep 30 2026

An AI agent that marks an exported HSC Textiles folio against NESA's published criteria, and how to use it as a loop: export, mark, fix, and mark again.

Aardink goes multiplatform - part 1 of 7

What Kotlin Multiplatform is, using Aardink as the example

Mon Sep 28 2026

Kotlin Multiplatform shares Kotlin code between Android, the desktop, and the browser, and Compose Multiplatform shares the UI on top of it. Why I picked the pair for my Aardink code editor over .NET MAUI and the other ways to share code, and how they fit together in a real library.

HSC major work - part 2 of 4

Responsible AI and the HSC

Sun Sep 27 2026

Let the agent mark, and do the making yourself. How an example HSC folio uses AI for feedback against NESA's criteria without it touching the work.

HSC major work - part 1 of 4

An HSC major work example

Fri Sep 25 2026

A fictional HSC Textiles folio built like software, so a student gets marker-style feedback every time a page changes instead of once, after it is handed in.

The keyboard conundrum - part 2 of 2

Buying an ergonomic keyboard

Sun Sep 20 2026

Replacing a worn-out Logitech Ergo K860 with something that survives daily use, works on locked-down client laptops, and keeps its own settings. Harder than it sounds.

The keyboard conundrum - part 1 of 2

The keyboard conundrum

Sun Sep 13 2026

From the built-in keyboards of the C64 and Amiga 500 to the Microsoft Natural one. Why did finding a sensible ergonomic keyboard get harder to buy?

Updates to the Aardink editor v0.4.1

Sat Sep 12 2026

A small follow-up to the 0.4.0 release: the sample app mascot and launcher icon now render from themed vector layers, and the toolchain moves to the latest Kotlin and Compose BOM.

astro-reactflow 0.5.0

Wed Sep 09 2026

astro-reactflow 0.5.0 fixes diagrams that rendered as an empty box. The integration now injects the stylesheets itself, and there is a public styles.css export for when you want to do it by hand.

Updates to the Aardink editor v0.4.0

Mon Sep 07 2026

Aardink 0.4.0 is the biggest release yet: richer built-in language services for Kotlin, JSON, XML, HTML and TOML, a fuller LSP-style contract with code actions, rename and signature help, new editor UI to show it all, and a new module that connects the editor to a real external language server.

Why test things?

Wed Aug 05 2026

A diagram component shipped with a zero-height canvas and nobody noticed for months, despite hundreds of green tests. What tests are actually for, where coverage stops helping, and why staying on old dependencies is no longer a safe default.

astro theme toggle

Mon Jun 22 2026

A deep dive into @sjohansson/astro-theme-toggle - an SSR-friendly Astro theme system with light, dark, high-contrast, and color-vision modes, no flash of the wrong theme, and theming driven by either inline variables or data attributes.

astro react flow

Mon Jun 15 2026

A hands-on guide to @sjohansson/astro-reactflow - drop-in React Flow diagrams for Astro 6+, rendered as client islands, with focus mode, minimap, automatic theming, and PNG/SVG export. Includes live, draggable examples.

astro components

Sun Jun 07 2026

A tour of the Astro Components collection - a small set of self-contained npm packages that add diagrams, theming, and version notes to Astro 6+ sites, each usable as a plain component or a one-line integration.