These are some of the things I have used this month that have made me a happy camper.

Redux Devtools

This is probably the closest I will ever get to time traveling.

Redux Devtools is a debugging platform for Redux applications. It gives access to time-travel debugging by allowing you to go to a point in time when a certain action in your application happened. It also has a feature that allows you to watch all the actions that have taken place in your application. All you have to do is press the play button and watch as your UI goes through a time lapse of events.

What I like most about it, is that comes as a GUI panel. I can only handle so much console debugging. Plus it’s super easy to install. In chrome, add it as an extension from the chrome web store  and in Firefox, get it from Firefox addons.

I am currently using Redux with React but there are a bunch of other frameworks to use it with as well as using it on its own.

These docs have been extremely helpful to finding my way around Redux.

Samsung Health

I don’t know about you but I just feel so much better when I can see the amount of calories I have consumed, the number of hours I have slept, how long I have been active for, the number of steps I’ve taken etc… Samsung health helps me monitor all this and I think it’s pretty cool and easy. Especially the part where I can log in my meals and it calculates the calories present in that meal, as well as breaking down the nutrients it has.

Django Crispy Forms

Sometimes I chose the lazy path and avoid writing CSS styling code. This application allows the forms in your Django application to be rendered looking all elegant and crispy. Unfortunately it only works for Django applications though.

No pain, Yes gain.

How to install in your django application:

pip install django-crispy-forms

Add CRISPY_FORMS to your INSTALLED_APPs in the settings.py file:

INSTALLED_APPS = (
...
'crispy_forms',
)

Finally, use the {% load crispy_forms_tags %} to render it in your html page.

‘Forms have never been this crispy‘

Abyss Visual Studio Code Theme

I have never been a lover of dark themes especially in a text editor, until I tried the Abyss theme. I may go back to good ‘ol light theme eventually but for now I am really enjoying it. It has a Christmasy vibe to it. The theme is already available in Visual Studio Code so no need to install or download anything.

Just head over to File --> Preferences --> Color Theme --> Abyss and have yourself a merry little coding session.

Till next time…