Site update

Jeconais posted on Sunday 5th February 2012 9:17am

So, finally, a few months later than expected, we have the long-promised code updates.

While every effort has been made to bug test this, there are probably some still floating around.  Alas, I don't have the resources I do at work to run full tests for all browsers.

The new site is very javascript heavy, but has worked fine on a 7 yr old computer (running Chrome), so it should be fast enough for everyone.  So, what's changed?

• Login with Facebook/Google.  If nothing else, this stops people from needing emails that are (currently) dodgy.  I don't store any of these details, I just match your email address with one in the site.  If no match is found, then it offers you a chance to either create a new account, or reclaim your original account.
• Improved story lists - you can now filter, or even do a basic search for stories.  I'd have liked to put in a full text search as well, but don't have the server resources to do so.
• Improved story uploading for Site owners - Finally switched to a DOM based parsing system (From the regex based one) that appears to be a LOT more robust
• Changed the translation system to be far more comprehensive.
• Complete visual refresh 
• Improved Font Size/Style, CSS and page width settings.  These are now available on all story pages
• Updated the user pages (to see all a users reviews) to be more useful
• FINALLY - fixed the problem with .mobi files, and Kindles.  New versions are being uploaded at the moment.
• Allowed better html customisation on reviews/comments
• Fixed the bugs showing chapters (On mine) before they were officially released.  This has been a long standing bug, that was discovered in December.  When I found the bugs, I delayed the release of the stories until i could fix it, but finding this meant re-tooling parts of the site, that just delayed everything.  I will be releasing the chapters "officially" for the few who didn't find them before hand shortly.

There are more, but I can't think of them right now.  What started as a quick hack to integrate Facebook/Google quickly grew out of control, and a lot of ideas were tried, then removed.

As always, IE support lags behind Chrome/Firefox/Safari - however, it looks like IE10 will support the URL pushState objects, bringing them into line with the other major browsers.  I've also dropped support from IE7, 8 is acceptable, just - but if you are stuck on Windows XP, it would be better to use a more up to date browser, if only for stability and security.

If you do find anything wrong/weird - please contact me.

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