Following up on the announcement made back in April, I have continued to focus on performance, efficacy, and optimisation that improves the site. Whilst improving on existing features, and bringing in new ones to offer more to the community.
Before I dive into this, I just wanted to apologise for the down time yesterday. PON experienced the issue twice, although this was my own fault and I won't be skipping the live dev site in the future. All resources and chages will be tested there, however, to explain I do local testing which I felt was meaningful enough but this ultimately wasn't a wise idea.
This was quickly shared on the PON Status page, quickly investigated and not long after resolved: https://status.prideofnottingham.co.uk/
I have improved numourous resources which all focus on making them to the highest grade in terms of their performance as possible, for about a week and a half I have had OPcache running. This alone makes a signicant improvement, as it can improve demanding PHP pages alone by 30% up to 70%.
By going through the demanding applications that make up PON, this further makes a massive difference to the way the site performs and loads.
Some might have noticed whilst visiting the site that the status page has a nice badge button, and a new one has been added for some time that delivers a new experience - called 'What's New'.
These badge buttons have been added now to the mobile navigation.
So, what does the page do?
It's a new hub that focuses on live, and new content.
This isn't a replacement for the dashboard, or any other areas. It is intended to suppliment the community, by offering a different experience, that allows you to stay tuned with what is happening, where your time could be spent to help discussion content but also to ease the time you may have to joining in more.
The page updates automatically every 60 seconds automatically. It efficiently handles this without impacting the site by focusing only on new content and changes which have been made. At the top, you will see latest topics, items unread, items without replies, items that are active and status updates. So you don't lose your place: all content opens up in a new tab.
If you pause, or become inactive, the page will queitely halt until your session becomes active again. This is a smart way of protecting resources, and it means nothing is wasted. All you need do is re-engage with the page for it to resume.
Please help support other community members by trying to spare some time for discussion which might not have gained traction.
You can view the what's new page here: https://prideofnottingham.co.uk/whats-new/
Just one or two comments can impact a discussion, and lead to further responses as it develops and interests readers.
Throughout the site, it also adds a badge to encourage activity and if discussions are actively replied to within 15 minutes, a live badge will show making the topic as an area of activity happening right now.
Status posts now will show on the all activity page.
This is a useful way to express how you feel, what you are doing and a way for members to get to know you better outside of discussions. This is a feature which I use, but will be using more of.
I have made signicant custom improvements to the moods application, and whilst I focused on optimising it. Adding a very important feature called 'Lazy loading'. I enhanced it by including a search field, which will automatically suggest a mood if your term isn't found or it will show you the exact mood you want.
I will ensure the search field is added to the responsive nicely, as I have just checked and it isn't working as intended. I'll have this patched ASAP, later on.
Topic Surveillance is back, despite the name it's just a mode for topics which slows down the responses and can lead to approval if things gets out of hand. It's a very important tool for moderation, and to avoid upset.
Coming Soon:
Community Notifications: This will allow me/team members to send a custom inline notification to members.
Automated Newsletters: Choose how you would like to get newsletters, weekly and specials. These will focus on site content, but it will be down to you to choose what makes the cut so you can personalise them. This won't replace the newsletters I intend to send out to those who subscribe, which will feature guest writers. This is a different newsletter scheme, which will be introduced ahead of next season. Automated Newsletters, will include my own take on what's happening around Notts, but the rest will be down to what you want to see.
Monthly Awards: Returning the Member(s) of the Month, plus other acknowledgements such as Best Post of the Month - including rewards for certain ones at times.
Explore Feeds: Will be another means to engage with content, as this will be geared to match day content, and grouping site areas into active feeds that members can cater to their browsing habits.
Content Limits: This will be introduced after the Play-Offs, only guests and NewPie members will be effected. Participating can provide NewPie members with additional daily limits. This is built and ready for deployment, but I want the season to be concluded before I introduce it. The Jimmy Sirrel stand forum remains open without limits, meaning guests can read all the content posted there but will hit limits in other areas.
Groundhoppers: This will allow members to mark which of the 92 teams and grounds they have visited, not just this, but you can mark off historic grounds and your profile will display relevant information. You can have it set to public, private or to followers only. Some information will be public, the majority will be based on your preference though. You can even leave comments about grounds, past-games which are private to you or your preference.
History: I will be bringing all of our club's history into the site, past seasons, fixtures, goalscorers, and all that historical good stuff.
There's a few more, which will gain more attention during the close season.
Stay tuned; please continue to join in and help spread the word! Thank you for taking the time to read this announcement, and please let me know your thoughts + what new feature you like the most.
It's not far at all @Fan of Big Tone, I used the 0.5 option on my phone so it zooms out a bit. You get a nice panoramic pic but everything looks further away than it is!
Ah, that would explain it.
The regular league programme concluded last week. Alongside Schalke, the tiny SV Elversberg are promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time ever. I saw them play in the fourth division a few times and they certainly had good resources for that level. After reaching the Bundesliga playoff last season and subsequently losing their head coach to Werder Bremen, nobody really fancied them to do well this season, but they've actually gone one better.
In Bundesliga 2 the relegation scrap went down to the final kick, with just two goals on goal difference separating the last safe spot (Eintracht Braunschweig), the relegation playoff (Fürth) and automatic relegation (Fortuna Düsseldorf). Düsseldorf, seen as a promotion contender, went into the last game at Fürth needing to avoid a three-goal defeat to stay up. They lost 3-0.