TLDR #5 - November 2021

November 4, 2021 • MrAnyx • 4 min de lecture

📚 TLDR (Too Long; Don't Read) is a monthly post to help you discover some great and innovative github projects, youtube channels or blog posts.

Today's episode is about : a playful cursor library, a little tool to create cross-version python script, a unit tests GUI, a script to customize your Spotify client and a file manager for windows with the Fluent design system.

Blobity (Github)

As mentioned in the official repository, the cursor is the heart of any interaction with the web, and Blobity is taking it to a next level. Blobity is a javascript library to create some playful cursors animated with blobs. With all the options available, this librairy is suitable for all sites. You can also add many interactions between the cursor and the content of the page such as links, buttons, ...

Now let's talk about the price, it s fully free (under GPLv3 license) for open source projects as long as you are using a compatible license. But for commercial use, the indicated rate is $24. If you are interested about this project, feel free to check the official website.

Website : https://blobity.dev/

Compatlib (Github)

If you are struggling writing cross-version compatible libraries with python, well, Compatlib is made for you. Compatlib is a python utilities that will automatically execute the right function, within your python script, depending on the version of python you are using. Compatlib uses python decorators to indicate which version of python to use for a certain function.

For instance, suppose you have some function with the following decorator :

from compatlib import compat

@compat.after(3, 6)
def main():
    # Your code compatible with python 3.6
    return 3.6

@compat.after(3, 9)
def main():
    # Your code compatible with python 3.9
    return 3.9

Then, if you run this script with python 3.7. Compatlib will detect that 3.7 is a higher version than 3.6, then it will execute the first function.

This is currently a very young project but it will hopefully help you when developing cross-version python scripts.

Lode (Github)

Every developer should know that unit testing is crucial when developing a project. But sometimes, using a terminal and executing commands can be quit boring. Lode will solve this problem because it is an open source desktop application made with Electron and VueJS to manage unit tests with a beautiful user interface and great features.

You can visualize and run unit tests directly from the app which can be a huge time saver.

Lode is currently in a beta version, that's why there are only 2 test frameworks supported :

PHPUnit
Jest

But the developer team is listening since the community can submit new test frameworks.

For the pleasure of all developers, the application is available on all platforms : Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Website : https://lode.run/

Spicetify-cli (Github)

Spicetify in a little command line interface that will allow you to customize the Spotify client on Windows, MacOS and Linux. You can customize the background color or the accent color to perfectly fit your needs.

It is downloadable in several ways : Chocolatey, Scoop, Homebrew, ... So it is very easy to download on all platforms

You can either create your own theme or download one made by the community.

Files (Github)

As indicated by its name, Files is an open source file manager with a modern UI for Windows. It uses the Fluent design system made by Microsoft making it a very modern file manager with a simple but beautiful design. It is very customizable, it has multiple themes available with glass-like behaviour.

It already has some great features like :