In addition to our upcoming server move, we've been working on making Subeta faster and more modern on the backend, and a part of that process has been building an API that our front-end grabs data from.

TLDR

We're using a new API built on open source technologies that make grabbing information from the database much faster. We're hoping this provides a much better browsing experience and can apply this to more areas soon.

New API

An example of this is the new wardrobe item removal page. It loads fast and is pulling from one of the largest tables on our database.

This API powers upcoming wardrobe improvements, but we've been looking for other places to implement it on the site. Currently, forum posts load one at a time on the page, requesting over 20 times for data from the server. Most modern browsers will only accept 7-10 requests at a time, making this a slow process.

So, we've built out the API to return JSON for forum posts and that gets built into a template on the front end. This gives us greater control over both the front and back end. Before, we were returning pure HTML for each post on the forums :|.

These changes combined should result in a much faster forum experience, as well as a reduced load on our database server and back-end.

Known I removed the achievement and post count from under the user information. They were taking up additional space, and are available on the user hover. It's possible this will return, but in order to keep speeding things up returning the least amount of data possible is best.

Also, if you've got the preference for a condensed forum turned on, it will not display correctly right now.

Thank you for the updates!!

Thanks for the info! Anything to keep the site up and running is always good to hear about, and I appreciate being kept in the loop! :)

Rip 's gray user icon :(

[edit]

Oh darn I still show up blue :x

Edit2: I guess it only shows up weirdly above the avatar. The user= showed up gray, I'm guessing is purple

Thanks for the updates.

Forum posts are currently not loading at all on the mobile version of the site. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it, but I'm assuming so since it was working fine a few hours ago before you posted this change.

Requesting desktop version still works, but just wanted to let you know mobile's wasn't.

Thank you for the detailed update.

Another small problem, I seem to be having issues using the "like" buttons for avatars and posts on the forums now.

Clicking the heart by the avatar doesn't seem to work at all. The heart for the post appears to work at first, but after refreshing the page the like doesn't stay. The forum post like works after a couple of refreshes, but not the avatar one.

I'm using Chrome.

[edit]And the time on forum posts is way off now. It's 7 PM subeta time, but forum says it's midnight...

As an achievement collector, it's the only thing here that I like and want to brag about and tbh the only chance to show my number that I worked on very hard, is here on the forum.. It's like taking away my major identity here :(

Please consider in bringing at least the achievements count back or even re-modeling the posts and avatar likes (for example: moving the post like next to the ping button or after the date and hour and replace it with the achievements count..)

Blue Again! But can confirm no threads are loading on the mobile version of the site now

I just went to post on a forum where I was the last poster. I wasn't paying attention so I did not notice there is no EDIT POST option. I ended up pinging myself and the post wasn't posted -- nor did I get an error message telling me not to post twice in a row.

I'm not getting any hovers. I can hover over my name on the dashboard and everything comes up fine. But I hover on someone's name on a forum post and I get nothing. When I hover over an item - the [ item=item name ] code - I just get the +wishlist and no hover box.

You're OK! Your stats are on your UN hover. I saw 'Playing SuMo :D 5,493 2,175'. The Post and Acheivement icons don't show in the C&P but they're there in the hover.

I'm not able to open Spoilers in the forums. Any chance that can be fixed? Thanks.

an older version of firefox.

Thanks for the updates! :D 👍

I created this topic today and I'm not able to edit my post, but I can edit 's. When I click on her Edit symbol it appears a bunch of html o: Also, a Ping User symbol appears on my post instead of appearing on 's.

Here is my topic: Make the Item Hunt item hover-able :D

Thank you! :D

A not-very-related question, do these server changes affected the Avatar Likes count? o: I had 3295+ a few hours ago, and now I have 640 o:

[edit] I'm using Chrome o:

I'm also getting an option to edit other users' posts but not my own (for example, it gives me the edit option for 's post in this thread.

Super weird, hope this can get fixed soon.

[edit]Well, after I posted it seems to be fixed.

Just noticed that the time/date stamp on all these posts is out of sync. The posts are dated 11/30/16 but it is still only 11/29/16 Subeta time right now.

For what it's worth, I still can't open spoilers in posts, but now that I can see the relative time (from this post's header) it's been less than an hour, so I assume it's still being worked on.

Thanks for the updates! A couple comments:

1. It looks like the timestamps on posts are ahead by 5 hours; the post above me (by Laurey) currently says it was "Posted on: 11/30/16 at 1:00am" but I'm guessing that was actually at 8:00pm on 11/29/16
2. I see an edit option on both of Laurey's posts on this topic, but no other users' posts. When I click it, the edit box appears along with an 'Oh no! You do not have permission to edit this post' message.

[edit] Same as Laurey - once I posted I no longer see the option to edit her post. Looks like before posting, users have the option to edit the posts of the most recent user to post.

Not sure about any misc. issues but on my PC, the threads do load noticeably faster now. It appears to group all posts into one loading icon rather than before where each post had its own loading icon. Thanks for the improvements

EDIT: confirming that these are happening to me too: -Post timestamps are ahead in time -minimods have blue icons instead of purple -missing edit post icon unless I refresh? -my post is behaving like I have a gold account (showing leashed pet) but I'm not gold

Firefox. windows 7