My most recent work originally started as just a small tweak to refresh some styles and achieve a more uniform look. As Budgetwise gets closer to the v1.0 release however, I knew that now was the best time to go in and change all of the things I had wanted to before, but held off on for the sake of feature development. This post will go over some of the changes and improvements I'm making, and what Budgetwise will gain from it. If all goes well, this next update…

So as I am preparing to deploy and launch the beta, it becomes more apparent that this is not yet in beta but rather "alpha", because features may still change, new things are being added every few days, and bugs may pop up a bit more frequently compared to beta. Generally, beta apps tend to be almost ready for public launch, with features or design rarely changing by the time it releases. It may just be semantics for most people, but I believe it's important to make that…

UPDATE After some reflection and extensive testing I realized it's not quite ready for beta yet, but can start alpha testing. It's just a name change but it's an important distinction so the right expectations are set. To read more about this, please see the post I am happy to announce that beta will be launching next Friday, April 6! There will be ~60 beta users who will be invited to test for bugs, check usability, and provide initial feedback in advance of the full early-access launch. Once it's ready…

Image via Nanobox The early stages of Budgetwise utilized Node.js for the backend (or is it back-end?), along with MongoDB for a database. While this particular stack is very popular among modern developers, my confidence wavered during the recent spate of security issues regarding MongoDB. I've had my eye on Elixir ever since I saw how sleek and powerful it was. Where your standard HTTP call might be answered in milliseconds, with Elixir it was now a matter of microseconds. The syntax is beautiful. Concurrent connections are handled with…

After spending lots of time planning ahead for the more complex features, I determined the app needed an updated interface. More thought has been given to the user's workflow as they create, modify, and track budgets. Aside from changing the color scheme entirely (there will also be a dark theme, by the way), I've made the text bolder and darker to increase legibility, condensed two buttons into one (for creating new rows), and tucked away individual goals and settings behind the settings icon to the far right. Clicking on a…