Weekly bulletin: account groundwork

Weekly bulletin: account groundwork

Jan 24, 2022

At this point, I've spent the better part of a month wrestling with macros. I don't know that the work is entirely ready to be put to bed, but I certainly need to step away from it for a little while.

To that end, on Thursday I took my first baby step in a new direction: user accounts. I've long known that I would need accounts to give users access to new premium features (that is, cloud sync and API access/third-party integrations), but the signing up and logging in from a command line seemed difficult to do in a way that makes sense for people who aren't already comfortable with *nix commands like adduser and passwd. Furthermore, the step-by-step interface those commands provide seems unlikely to play nicely with password managers and screen readers.

The idea I came up with last week was to instead kick off user signup through Buy Me A Coffee. Upon making a payment, whether one-off or subscription, you would get an email containing a link to complete the signup process. Once you've picked a username and password, your brand new account would immediately be associated with the payment and given full access.

My wife: So you're taking some time off from fighting with macros.
Me: Yeah.
My wife: By writing microservices.
Me: ...Yeah.
My wife: On purpose.
Me: ...

To be clear, none of this is done yet, or even really started. But it does take me in a direction that is blissfully as far away from macros as can be right now. Once that is done, anyone who is currently a subscriber will automatically get access, and anyone who has made a one-time donation in the past can email me to get credit for premium access. (I could grant access automatically, but I don't want it to come in while your game is on hiatus or while that killer feature you've been waiting for is still in progress. Better for you to decide when you want it.)

As those who have been following along on Discord may have heard, the move that was supposed to be taking place in December got delayed. As a result, I ended up doing stealth backend work (ie. macros) part-time throughout the month of December, and will instead be taking the next few weeks off to pack and unpack. On the flip side, I am super excited to work from my new office!

Anyway, while I might sneak in a few quick wins over the next few weeks, I'll put these updates on hold for the moment. Thank you as always for accompanying me on this journey.

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