# Dot

The desktop pal for The Modern .NET Show (https://dotnetcore.show), by WhiteFish Creative. Page: https://palstudio.whitefishcreative.co.uk/pals/dot/

> “500 opinions about your code, live on air.”

The Modern .NET Show's roving co-host. Wanders your desktop with a microphone, 500 .NET hot takes, and news of every new episode.

Dot is The Modern .NET Show's desktop pal: a small purple robot with thick-rimmed glasses and a microphone it is not afraid to use. It strolls along the bottom of your screen, stops for a look around, and every minute or two pipes up with a tip – some useful, some less so, all of them about .NET.

It's the paperclip you remember, rebuilt for people who know what a `ConfigureAwait(false)` is – and when a new episode of the show comes out, Dot will be the first to tell you.

## At a glance

- **500** .NET tips and hot takes
- **1–2 min** between chats (or tell it to be quiet)
- **4 views** front, left, right and back
- **1 feed** The Modern .NET Show – nothing else

## What it connects to

One thing: The Modern .NET Show's public episode list.

- https://dotnetcore.show/llms.txt – the show's public summary page, which says where its podcast feed is
- https://thedotnetcorepodcast.libsyn.com/rss – the podcast feed it points to (the show's public RSS feed)

- **When:** About 15 seconds after Dot starts, then once an hour.
- **Sends:** A normal web request for those public files, like any podcast app. No account, no ID, nothing about you or your computer. Its only label says “PalStudio/1.0 (+feed reader)”.
- **Why:** So Dot can tell you when a new episode is out (the very first time, only the latest episode, and only if it is under three weeks old; after that, anything it has not seen before), and now and then suggest an older one.
- **Turn it off:** Untick “Check for new episodes & posts” in Dot's menu and it stops. Offline? It stays quiet and tries again later.
- **Links:** Dot only opens a web page when you click “Yes please” on an episode – and only links that came from that feed – in your normal browser.

No analytics, no telemetry, no ads – that's the whole list.

## Sound

Dot doesn't make any sounds – it only talks in its speech bubble.

## The menu

Right-click Dot, or click its icon in the menu bar (Mac) or system tray (Windows).

- **Say something helpful** – Dot talks now instead of waiting.
- **Let Dot wander** – Untick it and Dot stays put wherever you leave it.
- **Quiet for 30 minutes** – No tips for half an hour.
- **Come here, Dot** – Dot walks over to your mouse pointer.
- **Check for new episodes & posts** – Turns the podcast feed on or off.
- **Appearance** – Match my computer, Light or Dark.
- **About Dot** – Version, and who made it.
- **Close Dot…** – The plea, then goodbye.

## Things Dot says

- Saying hello: “Hi! I'm Dot from The Modern .NET Show. It looks like you're writing C#. Would you like some unsolicited opinions?”
- A tip: “I noticed your test is called Test1. Would you like me to rename it to Test1_ShouldWork_WhenItWorks?”
- A tip: “It looks like you've injected a scoped DbContext into a singleton. Would you like me to name it 'Captive' and bring it snacks?”
- A tip: “The # in C# is a musical sharp, not a hashtag. Please stop trending it.”
- A tip: “Fun fact: conditional breakpoints exist. Would you like me to set one on `i == 9999` so you can stop pressing F5?”
- After “Don't show me this tip again”: “Done! I've set `ShowTip = false`. It's in a config file that gets overwritten on every deploy.”
- A new episode is out: “🎙️ NEW EPISODE! "…" just dropped. Would you like me to open it? I've already listened to it twice.”
- From the back catalogue: “Deep cut from the back catalogue: "…". Would you like me to put it on?”

## Getting Dot

- **Pal pack for PalPlayer** (Mac, Windows and Linux): available from https://palstudio.whitefishcreative.co.uk/pals/dot/#download
- **Standalone app** (Mac and Windows, no PalPlayer needed): available from https://palstudio.whitefishcreative.co.uk/pals/dot/#download
- Free. No account, no email address, nothing to sign up for.

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From PalStudio – Desktop Pals by WhiteFish Creative Limited. Web page: https://palstudio.whitefishcreative.co.uk/pals/dot/ · The whole site for AI assistants: https://palstudio.whitefishcreative.co.uk/llms.txt