Over the past few months, I have engaged with personal applications in Laravel, successfully developing an automatic posting system from Telegram and a semi-automatic photo-posting service that uses Creative Commons images from Flickr to various social networks. I plan on discussing these projects in separate articles soon.
This accomplishment motivated me to consider renewing my website using a Laravel-based stack. My website hasn’t seen much change since I built it a decade ago using Joomla ZOO CCK. While I achieved everything I initially aspired to, the site remained inconvenient to manage and update content. Given the technological advances, having such a dated personal website is almost embarrassing, not to mention the language of the content.
However, due to time constraints and personal preferences, I’m not inclined to build a website from scratch on a new framework. I initially considered Winter CMS, but it didn’t suit my needs after familiarizing myself with it via videos and documentation. An ideal system for me is straightforward regarding installation and maintenance. I don’t wish to spend time remembering complex update procedures, which I will forget after six months.
In the past, I have also worked on a personal project using Drupal that necessitated a comprehensive understanding of the system and was complex to update. I attempted a standard update, which resulted in hours of troubleshooting and fixing, something I do daily at the job and wish to avoid in my free time when I aim to create new things and relax.
An episode of the phpUgly podcast piqued my interest in Twill CMS, and following some research, I subsequently found several Reddit recommendations for Filament. The extensive documentation and a pair of Laracast courses on Filament caught my attention.
I have subscribed to Laracast since last November and have completed both Filament courses. Filament contains numerous pre-developed components functional for web app creation. It’s a hybrid of a framework and a CMS, which is beneficial as I intend to incorporate some unconventional elements into my website. These additions necessitate numerous adjustments to a ready CMS. Nevertheless, I can tailor these from scratch using Filament while saving me from having to program standard components.
In the coming days, I will start developing my website on Filament and try to share my progress. In the meantime, I need to familiarize myself with the TALL stack that Filament is using. This new venture has made me realize that I may have missed many technological revelations in recent years while focusing on enhancing my soft skills, leadership, and management.
