FrankenTongues began with some very specific features in mind - features that I couldn’t find in other tools - and it’s taken a while to get here, but today was the day I finally got to play with two of the biggest.
A while ago, I mentioned that, to manage production of multiple language versions of Unforgettable, I needed a more robust system for organizing the cartoons. They’re currently just in an Anki deck, which I still use for studying, so I was hoping to have it all by finding a robust database that would run on my phone, and that I could still use as my daily study tool.
Well, I never found that magical solution, and with the project preparing to kick into a higher gear now, I need to buckle down and find a way to manage the data and editorial workflows. So I’ve dropped the “phone-based” and “study tool” requirements, and suddenly the decision has become much easier.
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The new platform is a fairly simple web-based system built with Python, Flask and SQLite. I’m not wasting any time making it pretty, because I expect to be the only user, but I am spending time to ensure it displays well on mobile too, so I’ll still be able to use my phone for quick edits if I notice a mistake during my daily study.
For now, the system is just a SQL search box that generates a paginated display of matching records, where each row is the data for a single cartoon in a single language edition. I can edit any field in place, see the associated cartoon, and view a more visual page mockup.
This should be enough to get me started, but it’s also designed to let me add other tools and displays easily as I uncover new requirements.
It’s starting to look like it might be fun.
