Facebook memories says it has been two years since MUT hit the App Store as version 2.1.0--which happened roughly a year after I began work on it. I thought it was a good time to look back on the last three years of development. Pardon the lengthy post.
The MUT is now open source
The MUT can be found on GitHub here: https://github.com/mike-levenick/mut
Open source is something that I have had planned for MUT for a very long time; however, I was hesitant to do so, because I was embarrassed. I have no formal programming training. I graduated from UWEC with a business degree, and began scripting because I enjoyed it.
The MUT was my project to learn how to create an "actual program" instead of just scripts. It was created by watching YouTube videos, copy and pasting from Stack Overflow, using Google to resolve error messages that came up, and piecing it together a bit at a time. The source code is ugly.
I know there are folks smarter and more proficient than I, and if I open source it, and others contribute, the scope of the project may quickly be over my head--limiting my learning. I was also hesitant because I am embarrassed of the code. However, I've decided to swallow my pride, and to do what's best for the end user--allow folks smarter than me to make MUT even more awesome.
After all, the developers of Celeste were brave enough to open source all of their player movement code, and many said it was messy beyond belief. But at the end of the day, it's a wonderful game, and now others can learn from their code.
The MUT v4.1.0 has been released
The MUT v4.1.0 contains a fix for an old issue that has long plagued users of The MUT. Previously, the library that I used for parsing CSV files did not process line breaks properly unless they were in a specific format. This required end users to format their CSV in "Windows Comma Separated" or "MSDOS Comma Separated" formats so the line breaks could be seen/parsed.
This issue is now resolved.
I will continue to work on MUT
Although it is now open source, MUT is, and always has been, a learning project for me--and I'm not done learning. Lately, I've been struggling with finding a way to allow updates of multiple fields simultaneously, while keeping the app user-friendly and streamlined. It turns out learning to design UX is almost as hard as harder than learning to actually write the code to make things work. Multiple updates is the goal, and it's one I will continue to work towards.
Impact
Weebly tells me I have around ~250 unique visitors every week, with on average 40-50 unique visitors per day to jssmut.com.
And Apple's iTunes Connect gives insights that there are App Store downloads all over the globe (30 rolling days and previous 30 days):
Thank yous
I've received tons of support in this project. From colleagues and friends. I've also had many emails/messages/people approaching me at JNUC/etc expressing encouragement and appreciation for MUT, but also giving critique and helping me on my learning journey. Thank you to all of you. I would not have created what I did, and would not have learned what I learned without you.