GitPitch Tags for Dev.to

I have been revisiting my previous DEV posts to update content and build a consistent format between each post. Through that process -and as I developed additional ideas for what I want to achieve with my DEV journal- I began to see the need for something to help accomplish two objectives...

1. I wanted an extremely simple method to update a single post with more content, preferably through Github.
2. I wanted a method to embed a slideshow in a post, but something with fewer steps than using SlideShare or Speakerdeck.

After some quick research, I landed on GitPitch as the perfect option. With a GITPITCH.md markdown file in a GitHub repo, a presentation is instantly available through a GitPitch URL!

Check out this example from GitPitch!

Fortunately, DEV.to had Liquid tags for SlideShare and Speakerdeck but not GitPitch. I thought it was a perfect time and task for my first open source contribution. Given my existing knowledge of Ruby and ERB, it was simple enough to get a grasp of the process without getting tied up with researching the work itself.

I submitted a pull request to DEV.to explaining what I was hoping to achieve. With the approval, DEV.to provided a document to guide the creation of a Liquid tag. I hadn't come across any need for Liquid before and I was happy to learn a little about it through the process. I was on my way once I forked and cloned the DEV.to platform to run locally on my machine while I built the tag.

Let's get started!

I created an RSpec file to keep myself on the right track and meet the pull request requirements.

Next I built the tag methods. I used other Liquid tag source code for a little direction, but still found opportunities to write new code and refactor things down to a reasonable minimum.

I included a partial file to a simple iframe embed of a gitpitch tag. I looked at other partials to determine a reasonably consistent height for the iframe. Checkout the example below from GitPitch!

My last step was an extremely brief addition to the DEV Community Editor Guide! Peak inside the Gist below for usage instructions for the tag or the Editor Guide itself.

It was a lot of fun to contribute and I can't wait to start using the GitPitch tag! I realize now this fits pretty squarely within how I found software engineering- with a "need it? make it!" mentality.

That's all folks!