Frequently Asked Questions or FAQ

What is Cartazzi?

Cartazzi is a developer productivity tool.

How does Cartazzi make you more productive?

Cartazzi puts all the links a developer needs in one place in an attractive toolbar optimized for easy and fast access. Let's say you need to get to Sidekiq Admin on staging to check the jobs -- boom! -- a toolbar link already exists for that. Let's say you need your pull requests --- or your issues -- boom! -- a toolbar link already exists for that. Cartazzi builds these links for you based on your input and by reading and parsing your Gemfile.

A terrible amount of developer time is wasted on nothing more than either trying to find an open tab that you know is there or on our all too fallible memory or on today's less good version of Google.

As developer's we use these links constantly -- let's have them at our fingertips.

Note: I say that Cartazzi makes you more productive because I've been using the current version for several months and this technique for multiple years. Cartazzi as a product now exists because I wanted other people to get the same benefits.

But isn't this just bookmarking?

That is certainly one way to look at it. But, no, it isn't. As the author of Cartazzi, I've tried for years to just use bookmarks -- they flat out don't work well:

Bookmarks aren't team sharable
Bookmarks aren't attractive
Bookmarks aren't color coded
Bookmarks are never well organized
Bookmarks always seem to be in the browser where I'm not
Bookmarks don't read your source code and generate links to things like the exact version of Ruby or Rails that you use

The way to think about Cartazzi is that Cartazzi is an application purpose built by developers for developers and fine tuned to make you more productive.

Alternatively you can think of it this way:

Cartazzi is a purpose built user interface to reduce the friction that a developer feels every moment of every day but never admits.

What is Cartazzi's Thesis?

Cartazzi's core thesis or founding principle is this:

To be productive as a web developer, for any project, you need between 10 and 20 links at your fingertips all the time. Cartazzi creates and organizes those links for you into a toolbar palette designed to make working on your project more productive. Not only are all the links you need at your fingertips but you won't forget that, say, Sidekiq Admin exists.

So let's talk this through with a concrete example in terms of the links you need to have handy:

You work on a Rails app that is deployed to staging and production and you develop locally. That's 3 links right there, one for each environment.
You always need access to your source code. That's 1 link.
Your organization works via pull requests and you are either reviewing other people's pull requests or submitting your own. That's 1 link.
Your communication is both Slack for chat and Teams for standups. That's 2 links.
You have email that you don't read as much as you should but you still need to get to it. That's 1 link.
You use a ton of background jobs so you need to get to /admin/sidekiq (but you have development, staging and production) so that's 3 links.
You are actually a contractor not an employee so you need to track your time with Harvest and your consulting firm has its own slack. That's 2 links. But, oh yeah, you need those visually separate from the rest since you use them much less frequently.

What is Cartazzi's Value Proposition

We write software, you use software, if you like it, you pay us. If you want to use it personally then enjoy it, for free, with my blessing. If you want to be a fan and help guide its development, get extra features, technical support, etc then I'd appreciate it if you bought a paid plan.

What types of information can Cartazzi keep track of?

Cartazzi makes it easy to manage:

Links to all your development tools
Links to all your development / deployment links for all your environments (development, test, production or create your own)
Component dependencies - we parse component files and make sure you are aware of any issues
Notes about your project / process like that magical snippet of text you need to use to spawn a Rails console on Azure

Do you sell my data?

No. I regarding the selling of personal data with a firm and violent loathing. That isn't going to happen.

Is there a security risk in putting all my urls together?

Nope.

Is there a free lunch / do I have to pay ?

Absolutely. You can just start using Cartazzi and enjoy the heck out of it. Yes I'd love it if you sign up for the "I'm a Fan" plan but, honestly, I know that's unlikely. But if you enjoy it, please bring it into your workplace.

What About Frameworks that Add Onto Rails?

Support for this already exists with JumpStart Pro support and BulletTrain support in the initial release of Cartazzi. For the lack of a better term, we call these "Application Frameworks".

What About Non Rails Frameworks like Hanami?

We are absolutely interested and just trying to prioritize resources. If you want this then telling me personally via email - fuzzygroup at gmail is the best way to get it.

What About Non Ruby Languages?

Given my more than a year descent into the depths of Python and machine learning, yep -- it is coming. As is PHP and Laravel support.

I'm a vendor and I don't like icon X

Yep. I hear you. As a solo, design challenged founder, I made choices that you may not like for your product. The core icon library for Cartazzi is Font Awesome and when I picked icons, this was the decision making process I used:

If Font Awesome has an icon for your product, I simply used it. An example is the Jira icon that I used from Font Awesome.
If Font Awesome has an icon for your company but not product, I simply used it. An example is that I use the Microsoft icon for Azure.
If Font Awesome has an icon consistent with your product's theme, I simply used it.
If there's an icon that seems to represent visually what you do then I used it. An example is the bug icon that I used for exception capture products like HoneyBadger, Sentry, etc.
Otherwise, I made my best assessment of the right icon for you.

Let's look at an example -- Sidekiq -- Mike's icon for Sidekiq is that wonderful, well, side kick. I said "sidekiq -- that's a martial arts thing. There's no icon for that but there is a Ninja icon" so, well, I made the Sidekiq icon be a Ninja. And, personally, I always think of Mike as a Ruby ninja given his skill set. Was that right? I don't know but it worked at the time. I suspect that if I was wrong to choose it, Mike will let me know.

Anyway -- if I chose the wrong icon, please let me know and I'll do what I can to get it fixed.

I'd also like to close by stating that tons and tons of people use Font Awesome and they have a program of allowing people to pay for an icon for their product to be created.