Weeknotes for 25th November 2019 – 1st December 2019
For my second #weeknotes blogpost, I’ve continued with last weeks “theme” of collecting up my browser searches and publishing the interesting bits. I spent most of my time this week either in meetings or at home waiting for a heating engineer, so I didn’t actually have much time to do any searching for cool projects and instead I just ticked along some existing projects.
🔎 vscode browser & 🔎 code-server
As part of my ongoing effort on turning an iPad into a ‘proper’ computer for development, I continued searching for a way to run an IDE like vscode remotely from my home server. This week I came across the code-server project which runs a ‘full’ copy of vscode in a browser tab. Interestingly, it can be run in a docker container and connected over an HTTPS reverse proxy, providing a secure connection to an editor hosted on my own server.
To test this program out, I set it up as a container on my laptop and launched it in Firefox. I then put the tab in fullscreen mode and used it to edit this blog post. It worked! It’s not quite the same as running the editor on my server and editing on the iPad, but it’s getting pretty close. I even managed to bring up the interface on my iPhone and enter some text, but the small display, coupled with the on-screen keyboard meant it wasn’t really a go-er.
[][5]🔎 logitech slim folio & 🔎 brydge keyboard
The iPad’s on-screen keyboard takes up a fair amount of vertical space and isn’t really suitable for long typing sessions, especially for coding with all of the required alternative characters, etc. Really, I’m on the lookout for a physical keyboard to go along with the iPad. I’ve pretty much dismissed Apple’s Smart Keyboard straight away as it has zero key travel. I thought it felt terrible after 1-2 minutes use in the Apple Store, so I can only imagine I’ll hate it even more after any serious coding sessions. I also spend a lot of my time typing on my lap and I don’t like how flimsy the ‘laptop’ mode appears. It just seems a bit too ‘floppy’ for my liking.
To work around this, I’ve done some searching and disovered the Logitech Slim Folio Pro and the Brydge Pro. Both of these devices appear to do what I want, but both appear to have some tradeoffs when put head-to-head with one-another. I’ll need to see if any shops near me have some in stock and get a hands-on test with them, but until then I’ll just have to check out any reviews I can find.
2019-12-02