Getting to Know Custom CSS Properties

Lawrence Chabela Articles, CSS & HTML, Development Technologies & Tools 1 Comment

CSS custom properties are very powerful way for you to spice up your style sheets. They are a way to separate JavaScript behavior and styling, as shown in the ability to set information in the JavaScript for the CSS to use for its styling.

Even if you’re using a preprocessor for your CSS, there is still a place for CSS custom properties to be directly embedded in your CSS.

In this blog: we introduce custom CSS properties, show why you want to use them, how to define them, and how to change them with and without JavaScript.

Using Docker + AWS to Build, Deploy and Scale your App

Brandon Klimek Articles, AWS, Cloud, DevOps, Docker, Python, Spring, Spring Boot, Tutorial 8 Comments

I recently worked to develop a software platform that relied on Spring Boot and Docker to prop up an API. Being the only developer on the project, I needed to find a way to quickly and efficiently deploy new releases. However, I found many solutions overwhelming to set up.

That was until I discovered AWS has tools that allow any developer to quickly build and deploy their application.

In this 30 minute tutorial, you will discover how to utilize the following technologies:
– AWS CodeCommit – source control (git)
– AWS Code Build – source code compiler, rest runner
– AWS Codepipeline – builds, tests, and deploys code every time the repo changes
-AWS Elastic Beanstalk – service to manage EC2 instances handling deployments, provisioning, load balancing, and health monitoring
-Docker + Spring Boot – Our containerized Spring Boot application for the demo

Once finished, you will have a Docker application running that automatically builds your software on commit, and deploys it to the Elastic beanstalk sitting behind a load balancer for scalability. This continuous integration pipeline will allow you to worry less about your deployments and get back to focusing on feature development within your application.

Programming With Stenography

Garrett Hopper Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, Programming, Python 8 Comments

As developers, we spend a ton of time typing, so any small improvements in speed or comfort are well worth it.

If you’re anything like me, then you spend a full day typing at work only to come home and continue typing into the wee hours of the morning. With so much of my life spent typing, things like RSI are a serious concern. I’ve tried a variety of different ergonomic keyboards and I’ve even switched to Dvorak, but none of it made any significant difference in speed or comfort.

In my search for alternative text input methods, I discovered stenography. In this blog, I will give an introduction to stenography and how programmers (like me) have implemented it in an effort to make typing more comfortable and efficient.

See Keyhole at KCDC 2017

Lauren Fournier Bogner Articles, Community, Company News, Educational Event Leave a Comment

The Keyhole Software team is excited to once again be involved in the Kansas City Developer Conference from both a sponsorship perspective and as conference speakers! As a Platinum Sponsor, we will have a booth at the conference during the pre-compilers and main conference days. Stop by the booth to enter for a chance to win an Amazon gift card. Keyhole Software team members Brice McIver, Jaime Niswonger, Billy Korando, and Chase Aucoin will present talks at the conference…

Building Applications Using the backbone.khs Framework Extension

John Boardman Articles, BackboneJS, Development Technologies & Tools, JavaScript, Node.js Leave a Comment

Backbone is a very powerful application development framework. However, it can be a little “close to the metal” in terms of how much work is needed to produce a working application with it. I see Backbone as a low level framework that could use some help in making it a bit easier and faster to use.

Keyhole has released an extension to help! The backbone.khs framework extension npm module (available by clicking the link) does its best to minimize the work necessary to get a Backbone application up and running.

The extension makes it easier to deal with:
• browser history
• root level non-Model Object implementation
• caching
• session support
• regions (which break pages up into more workable segments)
• a top-level Application object to manage the application
• modules to help with page and URL routing
• a Backbone View extension to seamlessly integrate Backbone Stickit and make Marionette templates easier
• a Collection View to enhance working with groups of items.

In this blog, I’ll describe these enhancements with some code examples…