Take Counter is an app to help track takes during recording sessions. It allows engineers to keep the current take visible on screen while working in another app like ProTools. Global keyboard shortcuts allow the engineer to change the current take without distraction.
Take Counter is available as a Universal MacOS app. A web version is also available.
- Increment, decrement, and reset the current take
- Type in a new take number
- Customizable global keyboard shortcuts
- Always on top display (togglable)
The UI for the application is kept in the web folder and the code for the desktop is kept in the electron folder.
To start developing:
cd electron
npm install
npm start
This project showcases my ability to create web and native apps using React and Electron. There are a few aspects of this project I'd like to highlight in particular.
This project uses Github actions for it's CI/CD pipeline. I've put together workflows for several major devops activities such as:
- Running tests every time a commit is added to the main branch
- Releasing the app when a semantic version tag is pushed, including:
- Checking the tag, web app version, and Electron app version all match
- Building and deploying the web app to Github Pages
- Building and deploying the Electron app to AWS S3
A custom Github Javascript action was written to check that the semantic version for the web app, Electron app, and git tag all match for every release.
This project came about while visiting my friend Ben, a recording engineer in New York. He wanted to build an app to help show the current take number on his computer screen during recording sessions. He explained that he wasn't quite sure how to get started, but that he knew what features he wanted.
I didn't have my laptop on hand, so we created a Github repository on his account. I was most familiar with React for building UIs, so we quickly setup a React app and within an hour and half had a working prototype.
Since then, with his guidance on what features were most important, I've expanded the app to include an Electron version and various other features. This is where the app is now. We have a list of features we'd like in version 1 of this app and the goal is to finish before the end of the summer.