Writing & thinking.
Collected articles from our team.
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Takeaways from the book Multipliers
Dinesh has written a summary of his takeaways from Liz Wiseman's book 'Multipliers'.
dineshpandiyan.com
7 Things I ❤️ About Keystatic — A Thread 🧵👇
·14 min readAfter using Keystatic full-time for about 5 months, I thought I'd share some of the things I really like about it. The talk was at the SydJS meetup, held on the 21st of June 2023 at the Atlassian HQ.
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Track: The Best Layout Component That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
“Track” is a layout component for distributing content horizontally. It has two “rails” (one on each end) and a flexible “center”. Once you start using this component, you realise you can use it everywhere.
Luke Bennett
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Using Keystatic as a CMS
Over the years I've experimented with numerous Content Management Systems. I believe Keystatic has the most potential to make blogging stick for developers like myself.
Luke Bennett
Accessibility at Thinkmill
·4 min readHow we approach the multi-faceted world of accessible design, and how improvements made for one user group can benefit all of us.
What we learned applying the Thinkmill Method to a complex accounting app
·7 min readWe recently wrapped up delivery of a feature for a client’s complex accounting app. The project presented a valuable opportunity to battle-test our thinking around how we build products. We implemented a range of activities and techniques from the Thinkmill Method, and came away with valuable insights related to where it shines, what’s needed in order for it to do so, and how to improve it going forward. Here‘s what we learned along the way.
Visualising a schema-led approach using FigJam
·1 min readThinkmill uses a schema-led approach to design, which involves building visual representations of data structures to help teams understand the underlying relationships and dependencies. Recently, we used the Schema Nodes FigJam Widget to visualise the schema and relationships.
How we think about research at Thinkmill
·4 min readThe true goal of conducting user research is to test the assumptions that have been made, and bring confidence and clarity to a project and its vision. However, organisations often perceive research as a long, drawn-out process that won't bring value for months. At Thinkmill, we focus on designing user research that can be acted on immediately and will make a substantial difference to your team today.
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Visualizing the N+1 Problem in GraphQL
Dinesh explains the N+1 data fetching problem and walks through the solutions in REST and GraphQL world.
dineshpandiyan.com
Route Map - a lightweight schema for defining a UX blueprint
·3 min readA Route Map is essentially a lightweight URL schema for an app or experience. This is how we use it.
The $64,000 question to create more accessible and inclusive experiences
·8 min readEmpathising with your blind users to create better experiences for all.
Shared understanding: why it’s important and how to fast-track it in your project
·8 min readTips and tricks to get your team’s collective intelligence buzzing in product development.
All about Artefacts
·9 min readArtefacts are a guaranteed by-product of software development and managing them effectively is important. This article aims to give deeper insight into what we mean when we say artefacts and highlight some key shortcomings as well as the strategies we’ve found to overcome them.
Orienteering: A framing for software consultancy
·9 min readOrienteering aims to better align a consultant’s mindset with the real-world experience and evolve their way of thinking in a more sustainable way.
Building layouts with placeholder components
·2 min readAn approach to rapidly building and evolving layouts as a project progresses and becomes more defined.
The Thinkmill Learning Loop
·2 min readHow the work we do in open source and client services drives our craft to new levels.
Our Philosophy of Working
·5 min readThe mindsets, principles, and enablers that shape how we build great products.
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Produce traditional and vertical videos with the same footage!
Simon V has a new article that shows you how to produce landscape and portrait formatted videos from the same footage.
Better Dev Screencasts
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Use Keystone in Next.js applications
Dinesh gives a run-through of how you can use Keystone as a data layer in a Next.js project.
KeystoneJS.com
Building a share text selection to Twitter feature in React
·7 min readMedium has a feature that lets readers share selected article text straight to Twitter — without having to copy, paste and edit. It’s a cool way to support sharing without drawing the user too far away from their reading experience. But, that same nifty sharing feature isn’t available for all the great content on the internet.
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Keystone has a Blog
Stay connected to all the latest news and developments in our open source app backend framework.
KeystoneJS.com
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Singletons have arrived to Keystone
One of the community’s most highly requested features. Singletons give you an easy way to work with lists that will only ever have one item. Think website configs, global navigation, and user settings.
KeystoneJS.com
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Static blogs with Keystone
Dinesh has a great post about making static blogs using Keystone.
Dinesh's blog post
A day out at DDD Perth 2022
·5 min readHighlights from Perth’s annual inclusive conference for the tech community.
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Keystone now supports MySQL
We’ve added support for MySQL to Keystone’s list of DB providers, bringing the total number of supported DB types to three.
KeystoneJS.com
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Customisable Admin UI
Custom navigation components & custom routes have landed in Keystone
KeystoneJS.com
ReactConf AU, one year later
·5 min readWe put on Australia’s first ever React Conf in February 2020. You won’t believe what happened next!
Illustrations for ReactConf AU 2020
·14 min readA unique illustration for each presentation
How to safely inject HTML in React using an iframe
·2 min readIf you need to inject HTML into your React app and you don’t want to use `dangerouslySetInnerHTML`, this article is for you.
Progressive Rendering — The Key to Faster Web
·6 min readProgressive Rendering is the technique of sequentially rendering portions of a webpage in the server and streaming it to the client in parts without waiting for the whole page to rendered.
Thinkmill in Space
·7 min readThe year is 2225. Thinkmill has taken to space. Currently orbiting the moon, sending explorers to discover the universe.
Introducing Preconstruct
·3 min readPreconstruct is a build tool for JavaScript packages with first-class support of monorepos and strong opinions to get you back to work faster.
React Dev Tools - Debug like a ninja
·6 min readHands down console.log() was, is and will always be the greatest debugging tool of all time.
Introducing Keystone 5
·5 min readKeystone 5 is a scalable platform that allows you to create a highly customised CMS and API in minutes.
Prototyping: Solutions vs. Interactions
·7 min readDesigning and prototyping the solution is different to prototyping interactions. Appreciating the distinction will help you pick your tools and be more effective at both.
Making the case for Progressive Javascript
·3 min readI’m crediting Mark Dalgleish for this one, but I want to make the case because it’s the best alternative I’ve heard to “Isomorphic Javascript”.
My first year of Open Source Commitment and KeystoneJS
·5 min readIf you want to do something, do it every day. This is the story of my first year writing open-source software.
Prototyping UI Animation
·11 min readInteraction design with Edge Animate
We’d love to work with you
Have a chat with one of our co-founders, Jed or Boris, about how Thinkmill can support your organisation’s software ambitions.
Contact us