And we're back again with another recap! We'll be covering November 12th to November 19th. Lots of changes from the past week.
Features
@gautamkrishnar added a nice touch that prevents a reaction from being misclicked. It works really well with last week's optimistic rendering. Thanks, Gautam!
Link to PR@ben added a new badge to easily see organization posts in the feed. Check out the PR for more details and a screenshot.
Link to PR-
Analytics are also now available to everyone! See Ben's post for more details:
We now have official documentation on organizations. PR by @peter
Link to PR@johnwoodruff91 added a StackBlitz Liquid tag, which lets you embed the StackBlitz editor into your posts and comments. Thanks, John!
Link to PRWe've implemented a more visible way of showing comments that are low quality or non-constructive. PR by Ben
Link to PRMore accessibility improvements are here! We've removed
outline: 0in most places, and now you can access the navbar menu via your keyboard. PR by Ben
Link to PR@lightalloy added proper pagination to your reading list. You'll be able to see a "LOAD MORE POSTS" button if you have more than 45 posts in your reading list. Thanks, Anna!
Link to PR
Bug Fixes / Other Contributions
@mariocsee has been helping us a lot with testing our front end code. Appreciate all the work, Mario!
Link to PR@rhymes fixed a bug where the
#symbol was encoded when sharing a post to Twitter. Thanks for the fix, @rhymes!
Link to PR@maestromac wrote more tests for our onboarding modal. Hooray for more tests!
Link to PR@harsh8398 fixed a typo. Thanks, Harsh!
Link to PR@alex_barashkov made our favicon properly render in retina displays. Thanks, Alex!
Link to PR
New Issues/Discussions
In the iOS repo, we have three new issues:
-
We'd like to add universal link functionality to the app. To quote Ben, "If I click a dev.to/ben link on the web, I'll be brought to the app, but it will just show the page I had open."
Add universal link functionality
#99
benhalpern posted onWe already have the universal link mapping on the web app, so the phone knows to open the iOS app.
But currently we are not supporting the functionality where the actual page is opened.
If I click a dev.to/ben link on the web, I'll be brought to the app, but it will just show the page I had open.
I imagine that this can be handled similarly to how we're handling opening notifications on the appropriate link. It should be fairly easy to open a specific web page given that our app is only a single
wkwebview. -
Two bugs were reported by email. This first one involves clicking
mailtolinks, which crashes the app.
Clicking mailto links crashes the app if there is no mail app setup
#97
Zhao-Andy posted onDescribe the bug This is reported by someone via email; details are as-is.
I did not set mail app in my phone. I clicked your email in the app "yo@dev.to" app crashed. I think you don't control if mail app is set in the device. Then you are trying to open mail composer. It crashes because of nil reference.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Have an iPhone with no Mail app setup
- Visit a page with a
mailtolink, like https://dev.to/contact - Click on the mailto link
- App should crash
Expected behavior The app should properly handle mailto links. This might be helpful in getting to a solution:
I think you don't control if mail app is set in the device. Then you are trying to open mail composer. It crashes because of nil reference.
Smartphone (please complete the following information):
- Device: iPhone 8
- OS: 11.4.1
</div> <div class="gh-btn-container"><a class="gh-btn" href="https://github.com/thepracticaldev/DEV-ios/issues/97">View on GitHub</a></div>
The second bug involves unintended behavior and switching out of the app. More details in the issue.
Switching out of the app, using the Camera app and switching back crashes DEV app
#96
Zhao-Andy posted onDescribe the bug This is reported by someone via email; details are as-is.
I was writing reply a thread. I press home button and I opened the camera app then I took a photo. After returning back to the app, all I've written in uitextfield was gone. In fact app restarted itself. But If I go home screen from the app without doing anyting there, then returning back to the app, there is no problem.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Open the DEV app
- Go to an article
- Type a comment in the comment text field
- Go to the home screen
- Open the camera app
- Take a photo
- Switch back to DEV app
- Text field is erased and DEV app restarts
Expected behavior Ensure that leaving text in the comment field and doing the following will not wipe the text field nor restart the app:
- navigating to the home screen and back
- navigating to the home screen, opening the camera app (or any other app) and back
- navigating to the home screen, doing something in a different app (take a photo, send a text, etc) and back
Smartphone (please complete the following information):
- Device: iPhone 8
- OS: 11.4.1
From the main repo, we have several new issues:
-
Search results sometimes show results that are no longer accessible. This is mostly because of an indexing issue that the app isn't handling with Algolia. Thanks @tone-dev.
Search results returning unavailable users/articles
#1102
tone-dev posted onDescribe the bug
404 error returned when clicking on search result. I've only been able to replicate this for the affected article and the user that created the article - I believe their account either doesn't exist any more or has had an alias change.
"The page you were looking for does not exist (404)" appears in the title. "You have lost your way." appears in the body, linking back to the home page.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Go to 'any functioning page within dev.to'
- Click on the search bar and type in "python password"
- Scroll down to "How To Securely Store User Passwords" by Kasper Fredenslund, posted on March 30th.
- See error
Expected behavior Either for the post to display or for the search results not to return the article as no longer available.
Sounds so harsh, sorry! Just raising as might be an unknown issue - couldn't find another example issue.
Desktop (please complete the following information):
- OS: Ubuntu 18.04, Windows 10
- Browser: Firefox, Chrome
- Version: Firefox 62.0.3, Chrome 69.0.3497.100
</div> <div class="gh-btn-container"><a class="gh-btn" href="https://github.com/thepracticaldev/dev.to/issues/1102">View on GitHub</a></div>
We'd like ways of reporting users that have violated our Terms of Service or Code of Conduct. Thanks @puritanic.
Add a way to report a particuliar user
#1112
Puritanic posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. As I've heard you have a lot of spam accounts joining DEV.to lately, I guess that sometimes some accounts slips through your filters, and it would be helpful, in my opinion, if we have a way to report some users. Here's an example:
I've been followed by this yesterday, looks like a spam account. I've seen several of those in previous weeks, but they seem to be banned now.Describe the solution you'd like Add Report link to the user page, where we can report spam accounts like this.
Additional context Of course, there is an issue of using this in an unintended way, I guess that some troll users or users annoyed by a particular user could report him for something, which can cause some complications and maybe spam dev admins with bad reports
😕 Maybe hide report button in some drop-down context menu, as it's not a common action.Thoughts?
Title says it all: "When writing a post, text view doesn't follow follow cursor." There's also a video example in the issue. Thanks @trueneu.
When writing a post, text view doesn't follow cursor
#1109
trueneu posted onDescribe the bug When writing a new post, the text view doesn't follow the cursor.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Go to https://dev.to/new
- In the post text box, enter text large enough it doesn't fit to a single view without a scroll
- Try to scroll back up with your arrow keys
- See error and blinking header
Expected behavior View port does follow the cursor. Header doesn't blink.
Screenshots https://youtu.be/2ALeGuxrC7k . Watch the cursor. Each time the image twitches, an arrow key is pressed.
Desktop
- macOS 10.13.4
- Google Chrome
- v 70.0.3538.102
- Regular mode, Incognito mode (no extensions)
We added accessibility support for the navbar as mentioned above, but we'll need to add that functionality for other browsers. Thanks again @trueneu.
Profile menu (rightmost item in the header) is unclickable [UPDATE: Needs non-Chrome support]
#1110
trueneu posted onDescribe the bug Profile menu (rightmost item in the header) is unclickable. "Dashboard", "Write a Post", "Reading List" etc menu items appear only on hover.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Go to any https://dev.to/ page, including https://dev.to/
- Click the profile picture without hovering your mouse pointer over it. (With Vimium, for example)
- Nothing happens
Expected behavior All the menu items ("Dashboard", "Write a Post", "Reading List" etc) should show up on click just as they do on hover. They're inacessible without hovering the pointer.
Desktop (please complete the following information):
- macOS 10.13.4
- Google Chrome
- v 70.0.3538.102
Additional context https://medium.com/simple-human/why-hover-menus-are-problematic-b21d6c7de91c
@link2twenty requested a feature that allows you to easily follow others, similar to how Twitter handles it. Thanks, Andrew.
Quick follow option
#1122
Link2Twenty posted onWhen you hover over a users profile picture, be it in the comments or when looking at articles, it would be nice to see a small amount of information about the user and have an option to follow them.
@equiman reported a bug where uploading images in comments are a bit of a pain. See the issue and discussion in it for more details. Thanks, Camilo.
image upload on reply comments
#1123
equiman posted onDescribe the bug
- Link on Image upload icon is not clickable on all image, right side is not covered. Affects desktop and mobile
- When upload image, can't select url on input-box, so can't copy URL to use it on comment.
- On mobile devices when image upload input-box is visible cancel button is using same space as cancel button. Then if you try select image, there is no way to not click cancel button. Related to #188 issue.
To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:
- Open post
- Go to comment
- Click reply button
- Try click upload image
Expected behavior When click on any part of upload image button, works.
Screenshots
Desktop (please complete the following information):
- OS: MacOS
- Browser: Chrome
- Version: 70.0.3538.102 (Official Build) (64-bit)
Smartphone (please complete the following information):
- Device: [e.g. iPhone6]
- OS: [e.g. iOS8.1]
- Browser [e.g. stock browser, safari]
- Version [e.g. 22]
Additional context Maybe a better site to image input-box it's down action buttons. I think.
@gabek requested an improvement to our RSS feed, where it has a
<category>tag that shows which tags the post has. Thanks, Gabe.
RSS Feed: Populate category with post's tags
#1128
gabek posted onIt seems like there's a request open for RSS feeds of individual tags, #201, but this is probably a faster way to get somewhat of the same outcome.
I use a RSS reader that allows me to filter based on tags, so it'd be nice to filter out certain topics I don't care about. It's kind of the opposite of #201 where instead of a feed per tag, it would allow people to stay subscribed to the global feed but filter things out.
Describe the solution you'd like In the RSS feed populate
categoryfor each post with tags assigned to that item.
@flexdinesh requested a concise list view for the home feed, since we've grown quite a bit and having a higher volume of posts. Thanks, Dinesh.
Conscise list view in home feed
#1138
flexdinesh posted onDev has grown tremendously and along with it, the number of blogs posts and topics a day as well. Back in the day, my feed usually used to have more posts that I'd prefer to open than today. This is mostly because we have so many types of posts these days (discussions, etc) and great many number of contributors. Back in the day, I will have scrolled though my entire feed and opened all the posts I wanted to read in a few minutes. But now, just going through all the posts is overwhelming as I have to scroll a lot and find significantly less number of posts I want to open.
I would like to have a list view option where the posts in the feed are listed in a concise view as in HN or reddit. This will give me the ability to skim through all the posts without having to scroll much.
TLDR: Concise feed view to fit in more posts in the window so the user doesn't have to scroll much.
Note: This is more of a UX improvement than a feature.
@link2twenty requested another feature where we could translate comments on the fly, also similar to what Twitter does. Thanks again, Andrew.
Translate comments
#1150
Link2Twenty posted onUsers should be able to read and write comments, and posts(?), in their own language. This helps dev.to reach more people.
Similar to twitter comments could be checked, if they don't match the display language an option to translate should be offered.
I think we've reached a point now where translation software is so good there is no need to expect users to learn English.
Twitter:
Dev.To: link to post
@ryankilleen brought up two accessibility issues:
- Provide content skip links for keyboard/screen reader users.
A11y: provide content skip links for keyboard/screen reader users
#1153
RyKilleen posted on
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. When users navigate a page with keyboard tabbing, screen readers, or other assistive technology, a useful pattern is to provide a "Skip to Main Content' skip link before navigation or long lists (Tags list, etc).
Describe the solution you'd like A visible skip link that pops up when a user has tabbed into an element like the nav or long tags list.
Additional context https://webaim.org/techniques/skipnav/
- Allow exiting focused navigation with the
escapekey. Thanks, Ryan.
A11y: Exit focused navigation with escape for keyboard users
#1154
RyKilleen posted onIs your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. When a user's context is focused in navigation, modal, or any other pop up menu, it's useful to refocus outside of that context on an Escape key press.
Additional context Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.
@johnwoodruff91 reported that the StackBlitz Liquid tag renders improperly in mobile, and seems to only happen in Safari mobile webviews. Thanks, John.
StackBlitz Liquid Tag Embed improperly sizing on mobile
#1155
johnbwoodruff posted onDescribe the bug
On a mobile device the StackBlitz liquid tag slightly overflows. (see screenshot)
To Reproduce
- Go to https://dev.to/johnwoodruff91/changelog-new-stackblitz-liquid-tag-187e
- Scroll down to the embedded StackBlitz iframe
- See how embedded content overflows to the right.
Expected behavior
Should properly size to 100% of the width (minus outer padding)
Screenshots If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.
Smartphone (please complete the following information):
- Device: iPhone 7s Plus
- OS: iOS 12.1
- Browser: Safari
That's it for this week! Thanks again to all the contributors!
Top comments (3)
Thank you to @gautamkirshnar @johnwoodruff91 @ben @peter @lightalloy @mariocsee @rhymes @maestromac harsh8398 @alex_barashkov @tonedev @puritanic @trueneu @link2twenty @equiman @gabek @flexdinesh @ryankilleen for your contributions!
Woohoo, great work!
Thanks for the thorough recap!