Coral version 2 March 2024 progress report
Plugins
I’ve been on and off of active development on Coral since the last article was released. However, today, I hit a big milestone on one of the major new additions: plugin expandability! To make Coral, and all my future apps, more modular, I have decided to focus on creating built-in plugin capability to provide flexibility for different use cases and customer applications. I plan on including the Malware Bazaar plugin with the initial release. After that, I will be releasing additional plugins here on the site and hopefully CodeCanyon (pending their review process for dependencies).
Atmos Dashboard
Throughout Coral development, I have been refining my new design system that I call: Atmos. It will be the foundation for all future application releases. Atmos is intended to be a small flexible set of CSS and Javascript utilities that work together without all the weight brought by a large framework. If you didn’t know, I am not a fan of Javascript frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular, and I do not intend to port any of my own work over to those frameworks. As you can see from the below screenshot, I have already fleshed out some of the basic options it will offer. It is still in a rudimentary form, but I expect to expand on it in the coming months.
You also might have noticed the first screenshot at the top of this article shows off the “project specific” color scheme with a centered window. With Atmos, you now have the option of toning that color palette down or replacing it altogether with your own custom colors. You can also maximize space by using the entire view port, and enhance readability by expanding your navigation. I am working on the ability to load and save your own fonts and font sizes and I expect to have both all these features fully fleshed out before launch.
Monitor Rework
With version 2, I am focusing on the feature and functions clients will actually need and find useful. Version 1 does a great job on the identification part, but it lacks in the “additional information” department, and for some it might be confusing. With version 2, scanning and interpreting scan results will be much easier. Each scan will provide you a breakdown of the finding, how it might impact your security, and offer different ways to fix it. Instead of just throwing a red box of code, you will get a detailed explanation of why Coral flagged the code, what security risks it might present, and what you can do to prevent it from happening. There will always be false positives, but with version 2, tracking expected stuff will be much easier. Getting rid of the noise will help you get meaningful reports that actually deserve your attention.
Tentative Release Date
As mentioned, I have been on and off CodeCanyon app dev over the last few years. Mainly, because the apps haven’t met my expectations, and I have a full time job that keeps me pretty tied up. So, I work on these as I can. Coral v1 will be end of life this July. The goal, for me, is to get Coral v2 out the month prior at latest, so that there will be an alternative in place for existing customers.
