The Midiano landing page gets a new look!
This isn't the first redesign of the Midiano landing page. And it probably won't be the last, but this time there were a few more things happening behind the scenes.
A large part of the change has already happened with the app itself moving to app.midiano.com a month ago. I did this to decouple the codebase of the app from that of the landing page. Until now, the code generating the landing page was in the same project as the app's code itself.
This meant that changing any content on the landing page also required redeploying the entire application. Moreover, someone visiting midiano.com had to download the entire Midiano codebase even if they didn't open the app.
Now the app is only served on app.midiano.com and visitors of midiano.com get served a much quicker to load landing page. It also has the benefit that returning users can jump directly into the app by directly going to app.midiano.com, skipping the landing page altogether.
The main reason for the change however was that I am planning on creating more content on midiano.com and wanted to use some kind of content management system (CMS) for this purpose.
I ended up building my own system, which allows me to write articles and content in text files using a custom markdown syntax as well as some LIQUID-inspired templating features.
Roadmap
Development of new features and the app itself will keep going as usual. Feature wise, there are two larger projects I really want to tackle soon are
- Introducing different play-modes. This would include a mode where the player is scored on their performance.
- Create smaller exercises for different aspects of playing piano, like rythm or sheet reading exercises.
I'm also considering the possibility of creating a back-end with an account system. This would open the doors to lots of cool things like sharing songs or performances, practicing together and so many more.
However, at that point I'll probably have to think about a way of monetizing Midiano in some way to cover the costs of running such a service.
Right now Midiano doesn't require an server interaction, the app resides entirely on the users client, which I really like since it also allows you to use Midiano offline. And it means the costs of running Midiano are quite low at the moment.
In addition to continuously updating and improving the app itself I also want to start creating more content on midiano.com in the form of articles and exercises on music theory that don't require the full Midiano app. I have lots of ideas and will be experimenting with this a little in the coming months.
It's also long overdue that I create some help pages to explain some of Midianos more complex features.