Logs Archive

Update Logs!

  • [25/12/20]

  • [24/12/20]
  • [20/12/20]
    • [DISCORD NOTIFICATIONS] As seen in !bobaland, Discord servers can now receive feed updates when threads are created in certain categories. This is just for the webmaster's exclusive set up for now, but will be configurable by everyone in the future.
    • [LOCKED BOARDS] Boards can now be logged in only! !volunteers is the first of such type. (!salt will likely soon follow, as discussed in the past.)
    • [NOTIFICATIONS] We now have a concept of "outdated" notifications. That is, if you've visited a board without clearing notifications, and NO NEW UPDATE has happened since then, the notification dot color will be darker. If no new update has happened on any board, but notifications are still present, the menu red notification will turn white. This is somewhat experimental, let me know what you think.
    • [YEETING] Click on dabbing bobatan to get yeeted to the top of the thread.
    • [RANDOM FIXES] Fixed index page decorations on iOS, right margin spacing on lists, and removed muted threads from personal feeds.
  • [13/12/20]

    Happy holidays!

  • [12/12/20]
    • Post from anywhere: you don't have to decide where to post something before starting to type! From now on, you can select the right board *after* the post is written and done!
    • Reverted the icons to the pre-Halloween theme: what it says there. Goodnight, sweet princes & princesses & other assorted royalty.
    • Bug fixes: readded text selection (oops), personal feed can now go beyond one single page, and the home/board buttons are present at all sizes.
  • [12/06/20]
    • Swipe to open side menu: we're officially living in the future. I also reworked how the opening animation works, so it should be more performant than before.
    • Updated header bar: the updates indicator is now single-color, and the buttons and spacing have been reworked. You'll notice a new "compass" button on mobile that you can use to... ->
    • Easily bring up the sidebar on mobile: you can easily open the contextual sidebar while mobile browsing no matter where you are! Try it on threads or the personal feed.
    • Personal feed filters: you can now select whether you want to display only the updated threads in "feed view", or even just the ones you originated. The UX isn't great yet, so expect (and suggest) improvements.
  • [11/30/20]

    Small Announcement: If you haven't already read the announcement in !bobaland (heed the content notices), just know I'm temporarily focusing on some personal issues and updates will be slower and more "serendipitous" for (hopefully just) a couple weeks.

    Speaking of serendipitous updates, I've made two changes I've been thinking about for a while:

    • NEW TAGS SHORTCUTS: I know a lot of you had already gotten used to ! for searchable tags, but I decided to do a switcharoo and change it to... #. There was really no reason for the whispertags to have that symbol, and this will curb down confusion for newcomers. Rest assured ! will also find its place: I'm currently thinking of using it to crosspost between different boards. All previous posts have automatically had their tags changed, without you needing to do anything.
    • NEW TAGS SHORTCUTS (2): cw: has been renamed into cn:. You can still use cw:, and even squick: (or sq:), but it will automatically change to cn as that is the "canonical".
    • Tumblr-style full-width images: I've changed the way posts display, so now images and embed span the whole width of the post (kinda like they do on Tumblr). *clenches fist* *cries* it looks so good...
    • 12/2/20 SPECIAL:We now have realm-wide roles and you can post as special identities in comments too! Not doing a separate update because... well, it's just for me :P

  • [11/18/20]

    Small Announcement 1: join other Boobies for a Tokyo Babylon Watch Party this Saturday November 21 @8PM EST.

    Small Announcement 2: I will likely revert avatars to their pre-halloween version soon. Say the goodbyes you want to say.

    Actual updates: After 3 days spent deep into debugging thread performance I bring you... absolutely unrelated bug fixes.

    • Edit tags: only show the option to edit your own tags. Not that you could edit other people's, anyway, but you sure could have tried.
    • Sidemenu fixes: Fix sidescrolling issue when board name is longer than the space allowed, and fix bug on recent unreads where the last board you visited always showed on top.
    • Post header updates: Improved spacing/lettering of post headers. Also, posts in gallery & timeline mode also have options dropdown now.
    • Automatically show comments in timeline mode: What it says on the tin. Timeline mode will now always show comments (while gallery only shows updated posts').
    • Other bug fixes: fixed "old images added before a certain bug fix are hidden if they appear at the end of a thread" (obscure, I know). Plus, a small hidden change I don't expect you to find for a while :P

  • [11/14/20]

    The harbringer of good updates to come.

    • Edit tags: yes, you can edit post tags now! Get hype for this extremely basic piece of functionality. (If you haven't heard about the reason we're getting this now... well, I'll let you guess why this has suddenly become more urgent). Temporarily only available in thread & single post view.
    • Edit default thread view: did you regret not making a thread be a gallery or a timeline? Not anymore!
    • Partial Load on Galleries & Timelines: gallery and timeline view will now load posts in batches, loading more as you scroll down. Paired with the update above, it should make it possible to once again reopen some really long threads (until I get performance REALLY under control).
    • Copy link on inner posts: ever wanted to link someone to a specific post? Now you can do it from within the post's menu!
    • Other bug fixes: the dropdown overlay should now disappear when hiding threads. If I fixed anything else, I forgot.

  • [11/07/20]

    🇺🇸 🇺🇸 I can't make you happier than the news, but I can give you some updates! 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

    • Tons of fixes on the sidemenu: I had gotten it to work, but CLEARLY not well enough. What you get now: recent unreads are in the right order (with the most recently updated displaying first), pinned boards are also in the right order (by pinning time), and board filtering is now case insensitive!
    • Better display for muted boards: people have rightfully complained that the UI state for muted boards wasn't clear enough. Well, not anymore (hopefully)!
    • (A Personal Fave) Board Preview on Linking: if you link a BobaBoard board or thread to a friend, they'll now get the board image and description as part of the preview. Fancy!
    • Fixed Special Roles: my work on "improving" our board updates handling had messed up our permission settings. While almost no one but me has special permissions at this moment, just trust me that it's working now.
    • Other bug fixes: setting a new username should now be fixed. If you hadn't been able to change it, please go ahead! CWs left alone on their own row are now pushed to the topmost row. Improved spacing on dropdown (but overlay is still not disappearing when hiding posts... I've been temporarily bested, but I'll try again tomorrow).

  • [11/04/20]

    The Halloween decorations are gone... so dry your tears with these cool updates!

    • New side menu! New side menu! New side menu! We're officially in a glorious and radiant future in which our sidemenu is actually decent. Thank you for putting up with my previous "hastily-thrown together" one for so long.
    • Board pinning! See that empty space on the left of your shiny new menu? Pinned boards go there. You can find the option in the boards' sidebar dropdown.
    • Server Side Rendering I've begun taking the first step into pre-rendering pages on the server. What this will mean in the future is improved loading times for all of us (plus some cool bonuses you'll learn about with time). But what this means for now is that you won't see the board color flash from pink to the actual one on first load ever again.
    • Server Cache I'm now caching the results of some database queries, which means I won't recalculate them every single time. This should lead, with time, to better and better load times. And also, very likely, to a bunch of bugs along the way (caching is hard).
    • Small fixes: Fixed YouTube embeds from youtu.be. You should now be able to add from any YouTube url.

  • [10/30/20]

    Bug fixes & Announcements!

    • Join us for our Boba Horror Picture Show watch together on October 31st at 1PM and 3PM PST! Details on !bobaland.
    • Our userbase is increasing and the database is dying. Sorry for our slower-than-usual loading times! I'll be doing some performance work in the following days. 🤞🤞🤞
    • LIMITED TIME SPECIAL: I improved the "popping" boos animation.
    • Editor spacing has been improved again. It's a bit workaround-y in that I'm trying to simulate "line break" on one new line, "paragraph break" on two consecutive new lines without that being supported by our editor. Boba girls make do.
    • Small fixes: Backdrop overlapping board description on mobile, changed look of login text fields, avatars "cutouts" are now actually transparent, and I added some extra padding at the bottom of threads so the "new comment" button won't overlap the reply one.

  • [10/22/20]

    Mostly cosmetic changes

    • Changed look & feel of dropdown, especially on mobile (say thanks to the contractor!).
    • You can now click on category tags to filter by them on boards. This works even when that category is not "showcased" in the sidebar.
    • Added "welcome guide link" on dropdown and invite page. Oops!
    • Muted boards will now appear muted also on main page. Better mute indicator upcoming.
    • Personal feed link is now hidden for non-logged in users.......
    • Fixed paragraph spacing for posts on boards.

  • [10/20/20]

    Quick & Dirty, late at night:

    • Look at your top right (or, if on mobile, to your side menu)... We now have a feed of everything you've participated in! Extremely basic functionality for now, but expect more and more things there (and feel free to suggest ideas)!
    • I have indeed moved CWs up before the post. We'll see how that goes.
    • If you've been using category tags in a thread, you'll now get them as suggestion in new posts!
    • And last... because people asked... and because this website didn't yet have a konami code easter egg..... just remember: ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A, index page only.
  • [10/16/20]

    It's time for... more editor shenanigans!

    • New format types: inline code, code block and block quote! Also, there's a new size of heading (H3) for even more fine-grained control, and bolding one works correctly again.
    • Images now retain their extension upon upload. There's even an actual loading indicator as they're being added to the editor.
    • Fixed bugs with adding links to comments. Add away, and let me know if problems persist!
    • Random Fixes: tags CSS has hopefully been FINALLY conquered, timeline view should display updated comment threads automatically, Boos are now moving around even on older iOS versions, and the board highlight should resize correctly as you move across them.
  • [10/14/20]

    Happy Spoopy Season!

  • [10/12/20]

    More stuff!!! More stuff!!!

    • Reworked mobile (and more) design of galleries + timeline views. If you try them out, let me know what you think! These are not as polished as threads, so do test them out and suggest improvements (and if you want me to change the default view of a old thread... by all means, let me know)!
    • A very requested feature that was extremely hard to get right (and I'm still unsure about its "perfection"). You will now be asked for confirmation when:
      • You hit cancel on a post/comment you're in the middle of writing (easy).
      • You navigate away from a page with the editor open (I have literally spat blood).
    • [Bug Fixes] Finally.... After months of pain..... The board name won't overlap the login button on small screens...... Oh, and also "mark visited" should immediately clear the notifications without refresh.
    • [Restyling] Still working on tags, small changes to columns... blahblahblah. I forget all I did.

  • [10/09/20]

    Small improvements all around:

    • You can now mark tweets (and only tweets) as spoilers. That kinda came for free with next update, which is....
    • You can now select whether you want the full tweet thread or the single tweet when embedding one.
    • Last, if a board has specific categories, these will appear as suggestions when adding one to your thread.
    • [Bug Fixes] fixed problem where board wouldn't get updated until refresh when hiding/muting threads; fixed problems with last bulletpoint of list losing formatting.
    • [Restyling] the editor formatting options should now look nicer on really tiny screens; please behold our new, beautiful tag input & display.
    • ...and last (but not least), I've finally figured out how to make ALL traffic be HTTPS on AppEngine! If you were going to BB only through HTTP, you might have to log in again!

  • [10/07/20]

    Might add more updates later today, but for now:

    • Added default view mode selection. Want to make a Gallery? A timeline? You can now choose! Of course, the other modes aren't as battle-tested as thread. Try them out, and leave feedback (in the login menu)!
    • Category filtering now works on boards. It's not automatic, as the board tags need to be added by the editor. You'll soon see an example in !bobaland.
    • Bunch of CSS fixes, including the tags indentation and... the iOS sidemenu flicker.... again..... hopefully.......
    (And if you're wondering, "can I change the default view of older threads/add tags?", the answer is: soon, I swear.)

  • [10/04/20]

    Most of you won't be directly influenced by these updates, but we've just unlocked our first batch of admin tools, and introduced the concept of Roles.

    What are Roles? Well, like on Discord, Roles can be assigned to users, and each of them can have a bunch of associated permissions. This means that, instead of dividing people in "moderators/admins" and "everyone else", we can create as many fine-grained roles as we want, filling many different purposes.

    Right now there's only two permissions: edit sidebar (yes, we're finally going to get sidebar descriptions), and "post as role". What does post as role do? Head to !bobaland to find out.

  • [9/30/20]

    It's time for two highly-requested features to make their debut:

    • You can now mute boards.
    • You can now dismiss notifications for a single board.
    What else there is to say? You're welcome.
    (Oh, right! The login menu has an anonymous feedback form now. Use it often and liberally!)

  • [9/25/20]

    A bigger update shall come in the following days (once the first contracted job comes in 🤞), but in the meantime enjoy a bunch of well-deserved bug fixes:

    • Added more formatting options for text. Just go see. (Also links are pink now).
    • More things can be clicked open in another tab: everything in the top header bar, thread links, pages in the login menu... Let me know if I forgot something!
    • Tags should now go to the next line.... better. No more splitting in the middle of the word unless necessary.
    • The flickering sidemenu on the new version of iOS has been fixed. The evil has temporarily been defeated once again.

  • [9/11/20]

    Still technically on hiatus and working on the volunteers onboarding, but I couldn't see you all suffer like this.

    Fixed the * button (I hope), testing a new method to get around Big Orange, and adding some fixes I had made for the TTTE gallery preview back into the main website.

  • [9/4/20]

    Invites time!

    We now have an invite flows, and people can sign up simply by using a link tied up to their email address! (Gasp! The future is here!)

    For things more relevant to you all... Click on the top right menu and behold the user settings page. You can change your username, avatar and... I'm not going to say more. Just check it out.

  • [8/30/20]

    Weather forecast: buggy.

    Today's update is huge. I've completely reworked the logic for displaying threads so it's not a crime against programming (as much), and added two view modes: gallery and timeline. In gallery mode, you can also use post categories to filter what you see.

    These modes are currently only available on larger screens (mobile is pending on me figuring out where to put the buttons). If all goes well, you'll soon be able to choose the default view mode when creating a new thread.

    While this doesn't defeat the Arcana thread yet, it's a step forward. Feedback & thoughts welcome (so hit that report button) (there's no report button) (use the usual avenues).

  • [8/25/20]
    • I heard you like direct links to specific posts... (pppsstt: click on the posts timestamps)
  • [8/19/20]

    Today..... the editor rises!

    • [New Embed Types]: Pixiv, Reddit, Instagram and Vimeo!
    • [Embeds Size Saving]: We're now saving the size of the embeds, so you shouldn't see (for new posts) as much jumping around as the embeds load. This is a bit experimental. Cross your fingers.
    • [Removing Extra White Lines]: Extra white lines at the end are now automatically removed.
    • [Bug Fix 1]: Fixed bug with link auto-highlighting, where a simple www would result in the following word being marked as link.
    • [Bug Fix 2]: You can now right click to save images even when they're marked as spoilers!
    • [Bug Fix 3]: Removing an embed while it's still loading is now enabled.
    • [Bug Fix 4]: re-enable copy paste that was broken in some iOS versions, and re-enabled the pasting of images, which was broken in other browsers.
  • [8/15/2020]
    • [Category Tags]: you can prefix tags with + to turn them into category tags. Category tags will be searchable only within the context of a board or of a thread. Want to add a +Luigi category to your "fictional husbands" shrine without having every single post show up in search? Now you can.
    • [Content Warning Tags]: you can prefix tags with "cw:" to turn them into content warning tags. Other than a swanky yellow color that makes them more visible, I plan to have a couple features around them in the future, like showing them at the top of the post instead, or making sure synonyms are taken into account when deny-listing them.
  • [8/12/2020]
    • [Comment threads] We need to go deeper... It's time to start threading comments too!
  • [8/8/20]
    • [Comments chains] Started a comment but space is running out? Chain another one!
    • [Append Contribution] Want to add another contribution to a specific thread? You can now do so directly from the end of the thread. No need to beam up!
  • [8/5/20]
    • Quit my job!
    • Fixed "go to new comments/contributions" offset bug.
    • Changed spacing of comments. Longer comments should be much more readable now.
    • ...especially important cause now you have 300 characters for comments.
    • Also, the secret identity avatar assigned in each thread will now be visible alongside your real avatar.
  • [8/02/2020] Completely changed the underlying HTML/CSS layout structure. You will see a bunch of improvements all around (e.g. address bar on mobile should disappear, scroll position on page change should work way better).
    Stuff is also likely to have broken. Please do report anything that's not working right.
  • [7/28/2020]
    • New options for threads: hide & mute.
    • Older logs now hidden in the user menu.
  • [7/23/20] The constant reload of embeds at inappropriate times should be fixed once and for all. Forgive me for the trouble, I had angered the programming gods by being, well, an idiot.
  • [7/22/20] Try the small experimental new button on threads that will cycle you through all the new contribution. UX has a lot to improve, but I wanted to give it to you as soon as possible!
  • [7/21/20] Exactly 20 days after tags first appeared... we have indexable tags! Simply type ! at the beginning of a tag to make it searchable at some point in the future. Yeah, I mean, I said we had indexable tags, not USEFUL indexable tags.
  • [7/19/20] [PLEASE READ] A bunch of "crossing fingers I don't murder the whole website" updates:
    • I added the top-right dropdown on board threads again. If any of you gets flickering again, let me know so you can help me get at the bottom of it.
    • The library I'm using for query caching has a bug, and I solved it by re-implementing "load next board page" from scratch. Hopefully this fixes duplicates posts and doesn't break anything new.
    • Beam me up, Scotty! You can now click on the thread balls to go back up and answer more quickly. This update gave me the impression of causing degraded performance on thread rendering, which I didn't have time to investigate fully. I'll do more testing in the next days.
    • Updated tags logic in preparation for indexed tags. If you notice problems, you know where to go.
  • [7/14/20] [Spoilers Warning] We have spoilers now.
  • [7/10/20] Updates section goes down... updates section goes up... (What I mean is, click on that arrow at the bottom to expand)
    I hope with this update to have solved all our notification woes. Please do let me know if notification or "new comment/post" indicators don't act as you'd naturally expect.
  • [7/09/20] Sorry for the intermittent troubles today! A bunch of backend updates you won't even notice and... small experimental update on displaying read replies with a more subdued style. Onwards with better thread management!
  • [7/04/20] A lot of performance updates. And... did someone mention "opening BOARDS in a new tab"?
  • [7/03/20] Yesterday's update broke everything. This is take 2.
  • [7/02/20] I've attempted some performance optimization. I don't know if you'll see any difference in speed, but do report if things break. I might push more performance updates throughout the week so keep an eye out for weirdness!
  • [7/01/20] It's tags time!!! They do nothing, really. But you can chat in them! #what a userful feature #you're all welcome(I've temporarily hidden the threads dropdown as I fix a bug.)