Serious Setback

Let me preface this devlog by saying that this time the gloomy colours in the image are definitely representative of the situation. Three days after I published the last devlog, a tragedy occurred in my personal life that made me lose all footing, motivation and drive.

I have not been able to work on the project since, so this devlog will be another short one. Here are a couple of features I managed to add before disaster struck.

New Features and Fixes

ID Generation from Template

The Unique ID field gained the ability to generate the ID based on a template provided by the developer on top of the already existing options to use the filepath and a UUID. This should make it easier to create pseudo-unique, but human readable IDs.

This uses the same underlying system that is used for generating internal URLs based on templates, allowing a large amount of flexibility.

Easier UpdatedAt Fields

Date fields now have an option to always set the current date after a non-draft content item is saved. You can use this to have a field documenting exactly when a content item was last modified, similar to how you might configure a database to always update an updatedAt field whenever an entry is modified.

Since this option overrides all other options, you’ll likely want the field to be hidden for content editors, though, as their changes to that field would always be overwritten as soon as they hit “Save”.

Make Content References and Internal Links Clearable

Due to an oversight it was not possible to clear an internal link or content reference once it was set in multiple places in the UI and while editing content. This has now been fixed, allowing these types of fields to be cleared if necessary.

Documentation Updates

The new properties and abilities of fields were documented and the “Working with Content” section gained a first article on the user interface of Mattrbld. I have started work on an article on content editing, but unfortunately I couldn’t manage to finish that.

Moving Forward

I will need some time to recover from this tragedy and I cannot say how much. Since Mattrbld is my BA thesis project and the deadline in the middle of October is coming closer, I will now focus all my remaining energy on writing the theoretical part of the thesis since the practical part is already so advanced.

This means that Mattrbld and the documentation likely won’t be updated at least until I’m done writing that paper. I apologise to all those who were excited about the prospect of a public beta in the near future and anyone who has followed this project with interest.

I don’t mean to disappoint anyone, but my physical and mental health are more important to me in this trying time. I hope you can understand. I’m still occasionally available on Twitter for any questions or comments and I’ll try to give another status update in two weeks time.

Thank you for your patience and understanding!