Devlog #5: Build guide screen, project types, and caching!

Heyyy! I’ve been putting off writing this devlog, since there’s a lot off stuff I need to talk about. So, picking up from where I left off in devlog #4, since I said I’d give the build guide it’s own screen and fix the colors, that’s mostly what this devlog is about.

The build guide now renders as a seperate screen with seperate sections (Overview, Components, Wiring, Build Steps, Code), pulled from the AI call that returns structured json. I also fixed the fact that the build guide screen was using a blue theme instead of my olive green one, which was because I was using bootstyle="primary" that pulls from ttkbootstrap’s default theme instead of my custom styles.

I also added a project type dropdown in the beginning of the home screen, so the user can choose whether they want a hardware or a software project. Picking software, hides the budget field (since software projects are mostly free), and relabels the components field to programming language.

I fixed another annoying bug where clicking “Build this!” twice on the same project, re-called the AI every time, instead of using the old response. To fix tat, I added a small cache keyed my project name, so if it detects that the build button has already been pressed for the specific project, it displays the old instructions instead of creating new ones every time. I also fixed a small bug with the “Back to ideas” button and debugged some typos.

Next time, I’m thinking of letting users upload a photo of their components drawer and having the AI think of ideas using those components. That’s it for now, see you on the next devlog!