I figured I'd start a thread to focus on the BIG CHANGES FA has made since the last time they tried to update the site.
As of right now, the "official" changelog is:
* Users can now edit their comments and responses.
* Some general fixes and improvements to the notes system (fixes to both how they work AND how they look).
* Smaller fixes and tweaks to how FA caches avatars (no more F5ing to see your updated avatar).
* Fixed the notes view to revert to the old system for people on smaller screens or mobile devices (viewports below 1280px width will get the old notes layout)
* Smilies on notes related pages should now be inserting at cursor position and not at the bottom of the page.
* Removed extra "RE: RE: RE: " strings from note titles. Only one "RE:" will ever be displayed.
* Comment editing is now showing the correct countdown timer. Premature hiding of edit links via Javascript on pages fixed.
* Added automatic highlighting of journal notifications with the word "stream" in them, as well as the "Select streams" button at the bottom of the journals list for quicker selection.
New Storage Server:
We've ordered parts for a new storage server (which comes equipped with 12X 4TB hard drives). Once the storage server is online we'll be able to remove FA's somewhat antiquated file storage limits and allow users both larger uploads file-size AND resolution-wise. No more 10MB limits.
You will notice that some of these, like editing comments and the "RE: RE: RE:" thing, are items pretty much covered in PHP 101 tutorials. The fact that it took 10 years for the "RE: RE:" thing to be "fixed" is embarrassing.
The new notes page is a good idea but absolutely horribly implemented. I have maybe 30 notes in my box (I never delete my FA notifications ever) and the page will occasionally take upwards of 10-30 seconds to load. Looking under the hood, you can see that whoever did this page has never bothered to learn CSS. This is an actual part of the page's source:
function row_mouseover(evt){
evt.findElement('tr').addClassName('hover');
}
function row_mouseout(evt){
evt.findElement('tr').removeClassName('hover');
}
This is odd considering FA uses the :hover CSS tag 31 times elsewhere on the site, according to the site's CSS file.
Further, the page doesn't use any modern technologies such as AJAX, instead it simply reloads the page to show the note in the pane. It uses Javascript magic to load a
different page with just the note if you're on a mobile device that it decides doesn't deserve the note viewer pane. Somehow they made the new notes page even
more like it was designed in the early 2000's.
And finally, the site is now being tracked by Google Analytics and Alexa, making me think that the "No donations ever again" comment is coming from a warped belief that legitimate advertisers are going to be flocking to advertise on this website.
