Hey all! This edition will be covering January 6th to January 12th.
Features
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@timorthi added API secrets to your settings page. Stay tuned for our developer API endpoints! Thanks, @timorthi!
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Organizations can now update their usernames! Check out the PR below for the nitty gritty details.
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After a suggestion from @link2twenty, @ben pushed up the ability to collapse comments. Check out the changelog post for more details.
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@link2twenty also added a SlideShare Liquid tag. Thanks, Andrew!
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Thanks to @mariocsee, you can now use basic Markdown formatting in your chat messages. Thanks, Mario!
And in the iOS repo...
- @StriderHND added a loading spinner when starting the app. Thanks, Erick!
Bug Fixes / Other Contributions
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@mariocsee fixed some Connect message spacing issues. Thanks again, Mario!
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@link2twenty continues his journey of adding CSS variables for dark mode. Thanks for the multiple PRs, Andrew!
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@arun fixed a Rubocop offense: "fix braces around hash parameters." Thanks, @arun!
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@delbetu refactored our OAuth controller to avoid the previous metaprogramming solution. Thanks, @delbetu!
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@vnbrs properly capitalized the labels in your profile settings. Thanks, @vnbrs!
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@ben added sitemap generation for AWS:
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@ben also made some improvements to caching on the article page.
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@maestromac fixed an issue with the Tweet Liquid tag.
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@vinistock made a PR to upgrade us to Ruby 2.6.0. Thanks, @vinistock!
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We fixed a small bug where some links in Windows did not route properly.
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We also fixed an issue with podcast Liquid tags. If you used this recently, be sure to resave your article to update it.
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@jess refactored our banisher class and internal spam tool. :)
@aspittel added herself to our list of core contributors! 🎉 Check out her announcement post below if you haven't already:
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@abraham updated our Gemfile to use the published
buffergem version instead of the one from the GitHub repo. Thanks, Abraham! -
@lightalloy fix comment cancel button redirect url
New Issues / Discussions
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@vnbrs requested the ability as a tag moderator to merge similar tags. We technically have this functionality, but don't have the tooling for it yet. If you're a tag moderator and see a tag that should be merged, feel free to let us know in the Connect channel. Thanks, @vnbrs!
Ability to merge similar tags
#1469
vnbrs posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Recently I've posted "I want to learn functional programming: where to start?" and to tag it, I searched for what people were using to tag functional programming posts. I found out that there were two tags being used, "fp" and "functionalprogramming", but these two tags mean the same.
Describe the solution you'd like Stack Exchange deals with it very well with moderation features. They provide a way to merge and make tags as synonym, considering one of the tags as the main one.
For instance, if we choose 'functionalprogramming" as the "right" one, this feature would:
- Remove synonyms from existing posts, in my case it'd remove "fp" from my post
- Add the main tag ("functionalprogramming") to these posts, if it isn't tagged with it yet
- For new posts, auto-correct "fp" with "functionalprogramming"
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@vladkodmc opened up a discussion about UI and drawing attention to the right places. Check out the issue for the deets. Thanks, @vladkodmc!
UI contrast and drawing attention to the right places
#1470
vladinator1000 posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. The article view is hard to read because the UI makes you look to the right instead of at the article:
Because dev.to is about reading articles, the article should attract the most attention. The box-shadows are very flavouful, but when there's a lot of text to read it quickly gets tiring to read.
Describe the solution you'd like We can make it easy on the eyes by enforcing a visual hierarchy by tweaking color values, so that the user doesn't have to try hard to look away from the right (like I did). Basically the area of most importance (the article) would have the most contrast, the second area in importance would have less contrast (black would turn to gray), and so on...
Here's what I came up with in the browser inspector, I accidentally made the article text gray though, it should be black:
Describe alternatives you've considered Could also reduce the color value of every less important element, like text, not just the box-shadows, so that the article font is blacker and hence have more contrast than the less important stuff.
Additional context This reasoning is rooted in visual design principles, see section 3, titled Value, of this style guide.
Having a hierarchy of value ranges for specific elements can improve readability and accessibility. When I first saw dev.to I quite liked the bold box shadow, I think it adds personality. But with time I just naturally resort to the Firefox reader view because the article view is too straining for my eyes.
There is an issue related to this like #1273, but I think it doesn't make sense in the big picture. The overall experience should be non-straneous so that users can read more articles, only after this is accomplished should people think about how to get a better lighthouse score.
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@peter raise the issue where underscores in a username prevents @-mentions from linking properly. This is somewhat solveable with a Markdown technique, but we'll also want to implement a solution to handle this, too.
Paired underscores in a username prevents @-mention linking properly
#1491
pkfrank posted onDescribe the bug I tried to @-mention the user
_morgan_adams_(DEV profile) and noticed this issue. Instead of auto-linking to the DEV profile properly, it interprets the underscores as Markdown instructions to italicize. This is an issue both in both comments and posts.To Reproduce See GIF below.
Expected behavior The @-mentioned username should link to the DEV account properly.
Screenshots
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We brought up the discussion of allowing users to configure their own Markdown rendering. Feel free to chime in the issue. Issue by @jess:
Allow users to configure markdown rendering
#1492
jessleenyc posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Markdown can be handled in a few ways and some people will have preferences for certain things. Makes sense to let people choose how they want their markdown handled.
Describe the solution you'd like To start, let's add the option for our markdown parser to ignore certain line-breaks. See #575 for more info. This is a setting users should be able to toggle through their settings page.
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@link2twenty discussed adjusting how collapsing comments look in the mobile view. Thanks, Andrew!
[UI] Collapsible comments on Mobile
#1498
Link2Twenty posted onOn mobile, the collapsible comments arrow and summary are a little small.
Reddit, who also do collapsible comments, get around this by not having collapsible comments, on mobile, but rather only displaying base level comments with a button to reveal replies.
Once replies are revealed they can not be hidden away again.
This issue serves as a place to discuss the UI for mobile and any changes that may need to be made.
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@vinistock requested a feature where you can see in your dashboard the total number of reactions of the comments for each of your posts. Thanks, @vinistock!
Add comment reaction count to dashboard
#1505
vinistock posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Feature.
Dev already has a post reaction count in the dashboard page. I thought it would make sense (in my opinion, of course) to have a comment reaction count as well.
A lot of comments contribute significantly to the content present in articles so I believe it makes sense to include the count for them as well.
Describe the solution you'd like
Have the dashboard display the number of total comment reactions.
From a brief code analysis, it should be as simple as doing a sum over a user's comments' reaction count. The extensive part of the work is the design and the front end portion.
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@maestromac raised the issue of having better Liquid tag error handling.
Better Liquid tag error handling
#1511
maestromac posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Whenever there's an error in the liquid tag, the editor should try it's best to inform the author what went wrong and not display the dreaded
Liquid error: internal. This has also proven to be difficult to debug in development.Describe the solution you'd like Currently, we are making our individual custom liquid tag to raise
StandardErrorupon initialization if there's an...ArgumentError. We are doing this because any form of error that happens within#renderwill throw aLiquid error: internal.A better solution would be to let Liquid parse normally, ie
Liquid::Template.parse(sanitized_content), then check for errors withLiquid.errors. This also has the added benefit of catching multiple errors at once, letting them be added to errors to be displayed in the view.Describe alternatives you've considered There could be a better solution I've missed in this documentation.
Additional context This should also account both of our editor versions.
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@wuz requested a feature where you can create polls in dev.to. Thanks, Conlin!
Implementing polls on dev.to
#1512
wuz posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. There are many great types of content on dev.to, but I would love to see a way to gather information from the community. I think polls are a natural fit alongside things like #discuss topics and many other dev.to features.
Describe the solution you'd like I'd love to see a tag and liquid tag for implementing polls. To begin with it might be worthwhile to test out the feature with a #poll tag and an embedded poll service. If that goes well, a built in poll feature could be very cool. That would prevent the need for a separate service and could lead to some interesting statistics around the types of questions and answers that are created.
Describe alternatives you've considered As I said, using a third-party system is a good alternative to start with.
Additional context N/A
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@kurtz1993 raised an issue where the Twitter and Github links are too large on Safari's reader mode. Thanks, @kurtz1993!
Twitter and Github links too big on safari reading view
#1517
Kurtz1993 posted onI've always used the reading view in mobile safari to read articles in the webpage, but recently I found that Twitter and Github icons are being rendered at 100% of the viewport's width.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Go to any article in dev.to using mobile safari
- Click on reading view
- See error
Expected behavior The icons should be rendered at normal movile size.
Screenshots
Smartphone (please complete the following information):
- Device: iPhone 7
- OS: iOS 12.1.2
- Browser: Safari
</div> <div class="gh-btn-container"><a class="gh-btn" href="https://github.com/thepracticaldev/dev.to/issues/1517">View on GitHub</a></div>
@jess raised an issue where Tag liquid tag overflowing comment box in notifications.
Tag liquid tag overflowing comment box in notifications
#1520
jessleenyc posted onDescribe the bug Styling of the tag liquid tag is getting cut off / not minimizing properly.
Screenshots
@artemix discussed move expand/collapse indicators for the comments. Thanks, @artemix!
Move expand/collapse ticks into comment cards
#1518
Arteneko posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
When I first saw the expand/collapse ticks, I didn't understand the original purpose of them.
After hovering them, and seeing that it was not simply a bug in the website, but an actual action, I understood its purpose.
I think that the tick's not explicit, and its positioning wrong: it changes the comment card's state, I'd expect to find it in the card.
Additional context
For nested comments, maybe the parent card could contain child cards in design?
Finally, here's a screenshot of an example of ticks and nested comments:
We've got some good discussions going in the issues above, and any feedback on the new features is appreciated. Thanks for reading!
Top comments (1)
Thank you for your contributions @timorthi , @link2twenty , @mariocsee , @striderhnd , @arun , @delbetu , @vnbrs , @ben , @maestromac , @vinistock , @jess , @aspittel , @abraham , @lightalloy , @vnbrs , @vladkodmc , @peter , @wuz , @kurtz1993 and @artemix !