Cover Image WIP: Made with Houdini, GitHub, Python, JSON, Karma (scroll down for details)
This is the last DevLog of the year, and what a year it has been!
With over 7,382 Git commits and 303 files over 270 days, it would be an understatement to say that 2025 was busy. CAN has undergone a transformation—what was once a blog is now a community infrastructure! We are extremely proud of what we have achieved, and none of it would have been possible without you. Thank you! 🙏
As much as we would love to break down every single file 📄 update, modification, and addition here, we have instead created a dedicated page where we (or you) can track major changes to CAN 📈. Also included are our aspirations, wishes, and hopes for CAN. Visit the V6 Roadmap 🚏 for more.
To celebrate 🎉 this past year, we’ve also created the image below to show the incredible amount of work that has gone into it. The image visualizes all the code commits: every file modification and every file update or change. The clusters 🍡 represent days (270), the points ⚪️ represent commits (7,382), the colors represent files (303), and the lines 📉 are the life of each file, passing through commits.
In summary; We did many things, but the core focus has been the Community 👥 and Access 🚸. The complete V6 overhaul brought reader-centric features like customizable layouts, saving projects / people / tools / members, progress bookmarking for long reads, quick search, and latest book releases. Crucially, the community experience has been rebuilt from ground up: all members now have profile pages, integrated with People pages, they can share projects without restrictions, make city-based connections, use live CAN data, and enjoy a whole new Event section (with locality in mind). Our most significant community undertaking, though, has definetly been the new Activity, designed to better our interaction with each other! Alongside this, the Access barrier was also removed: all articles are now universally readable and shareable via direct URL, ensuring maximum availability of CAN’s extensive community archives 📚. There is still much we want to do, but for that, we need your continued support!
Git Commits
7,382
Version 6 has been our largest undertaking yet. No previous version comes close to the vast scope of features that V6 includes. Note: We do not run a local copy of CAN, so all changes are deployed directly to the live version.
Files
303+
There have been many duplicates, deletions, tests, and versions, among other items, culminating in a final count of 215 files. This total does not include custom plugin files, which account for many additional files (74+).
Days
270
73% of the days in the year were spent building things. This is nearly every working day, at least one commit, one fix, or one update!
Plugins
8
can_calendar_plugin, can_member_daily_count, can_save_article, can_activity_logger, can_article_progress, can_newsletter, can_csv_export_files, can_matomo_user_analytics
Articles
+385
From Articles to Events and Job listings, the CAN Community Archives continue to grow. The scope and range of work covered is amazing and as diverse as ever—including workshops, installations, NFTs, objects, initiatives, and festivals.
Activity Logs
+1,587
We launched Activity over four months ago, and it has been incredible. To see so many of you take part and interact with the content on CAN has been a real pleasure. While there are many yet to discover Activity, we look forward to seeing you engage with it in the new year.
New Members
+432
Many members have joined, but unfortunately, some have also left. Since last year, the total member number has grown by around 10%. Let us hope that next year we can do better. Sadly, we are still a long way away from our goal.
All dev-log updates are here or see the timeline of them here.
Creating the Featured Image
The image was created with Houdini, in combination with PHP/Javascript tool to download a JSON file using GitHub’s API. The main idea was to show the ‘life’ of files through their evolution (commits). The project file is available for download if you want to try it yourself using your own GitHub data.
The Process
(1) Setting-out Clusters (2) Day Commits in Clusters (3) style.css life (4) functions.php life (5) archive.php template life (6) All the files and their (life) trajectories (303)
The Technical
| 1 → | 2 → | 3 → | 4 → | 5 ↓ |
| Determine how many days of development took place (261). | Create an object and extract the same number of points from it (261). | Parse the JSON file and replace every commit with a point and cluster the points if they share the same date attribute. | Each cluster is assigned to the source object point (2). This creates 261 point clusters. | Each point has a property files which is an array. Stored in this array are file names that were modified with that commit. |
| 6 → | 7 → | 8 → | 9 → | 10 |
| Once the points are sorted into groups, draw a line (in the order of date property) between each point in the group. | The end result are a series of lines (random colours) that run through (commit) points, representing a ‘life’ of a file and it’s history. | Copy a box to every point, passing on the colour of point. | Using Bounds SOP, determine th extents of the geometry and draw a box around it. | Render with Houdini Karma. |
This is a member-only download. Preview Houdini SOPs / PHP Git Visualizer
Git commits in JSON format required. Example provided:
[
{
"date": "2025-09-06T09:04:04.000Z",
"message": "Message Goes Here",
"author": "Name Lastname",
"sha": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
"files": [
"template-parts/content-grid.php",
"template-parts/content-list.php",
"template-parts/content.php"
]
},
]Did you know?
- We’ve just completed a guide to show you some basic functionalities on CAN. You will see it in the pop-up or on the Activity page but you can also try it by clicking here.
- Did you know you can download CAN data to play with, posts, members, people, tools etc. Its all available here.
- Update your location to localize events and see who else is in your city.
- Did you know that if you have published projects on CAN you can also track how many views they get?
- Did you know that we have a members-only newsletter sent out every Monday?
Last but not least, we wish you a wonderful 2026 and look forward to connecting with you next year in even more exciting and meaningful ways –– Onward! 🤶🏻🎄🔔🎆
Not a Member already? Please support us by becoming one or by donating. With the personal membership priced at only $20 per year (less than $2 a month), you unlock a heap of community features available only to Members. Please help us keep this platform and community alive, and thriving! 🚀
