I hinted at it in an earlier post about an error message some people may have seen because of the upgraded text editor.
I have been working very hard to wrap up the improvements installed and "de-glitched" over the past day.
These are changes that have been in the works for months. It is not a simple task to keep a web site with this much traffic performing smoothly and quickly, which is why many of the improvements to the site are focused on performance and ability to handle more traffic. "Not easy" is really an understatement.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to try and summarize some of the changes, so you can see some of what has gone into it. The Web site changes were installed on July 30 at approximately 1:30 AM, and small bugs that became apparent after the full load was place on the site were identified and fixed throughout the day.
As I stated, the changes made to the site were mainly done to enhance performance, efficiency, and capacity of the site.
Along the way, I have made many small improvements on nearly every page. You may notice some of them, and many changes are subtle, so you may not notice.
I'm going to forget to mention a lot of things, but here's a representative list:
- NEW: The rich text editor was upgraded to the latest release, 3.1.0.1. Several people were experiencing problems with the last version of the editor, so hopefully this upgrade will help. I am noticing myself that the editor feels more responsive. With the last one I was having characters being occasionally "eaten" by the editor — I type a sentence, and some of the characters did not appear. Fortunately, I don't see that happening anymore.
- ENHANCEMENT: I have continued to improve the server processing of posts, which takes place after you click the "Post" button, but before you see it in the forums. It is something that most people have no idea is happening, but it is a very complex and important function. For example, I am constantly improving its ability to detect spam vs. allow posts that are not spam (but may look like spam).
- NEW: I have done a lot of work in condensing and compressing the files and data that gets downloaded as part of every web page. In some cases I have basically re-written parts of the Microsoft code responsible for sending files, with the new version "minimizing" (removing all excess paces and such) and compressing the file (like a zip file does) — all done on the fly. My new program code also takes multiple style sheet and script files normally "injected" into the page by Microsoft and combines them into a single download, which improves performance. I have also done a lot of work in figuring out ways to cache files that get downloaded as part of most pages, so that your computer does not keep downloading the same files again and again.
- ENHANCEMENT: The pages and script code has been restructured in order to "paint" the web pages as quickly as possible, and to hand off control of the page as soon as possible to you. I am still struggling with the fact that the banner ad being served at the top of the page is a resource hog, and I am working around that as best I can. Without the ad there the page would just fly, but I do have to pay the bills. ;-)
- NEW: Birthdays of all Lottery Post members have been added to the Event Calendar.
- NEW: Native jackpot amount (where available) are displayed prominently, as the primary jackpot amount, with the US dollar equivalent shown alongside. When sorted into the main list of jackpots, native jackpots are sort by US dollar equivalent amounts, so the worldwide list can be compared accurately. Performance of Jackpots page has been greatly increased.
- NEW: Some support for the Amazon Kindle web browser has been added.
- NEW: iPhone edition: the drawing results page has three new buttons at the bottom instead of a single option to show last 10 draws. The three buttons are for showing the last 10 draws, showing the last 10 jackpots for the game, and for generating Quick Picks for the game.
- FIX: iPhone edition: Fixed the Home button so that it does not require two presses. Also, Home button does not get shown on the Home page, and the Back button disappears when it is on the first page.
- FIX: the smooth scrolling operated more smoothly and consistently across all web browser brands, even on the iPhone.
- NEW: All major web browsers — IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and more — can now copy directly to the clipboard, and will not see a warning message generated by the web browser. This is a rare feature found on very few sites (the ability to copy to clipboard from browsers like Firefox, as well as not seeing a warning message in IE7). For example, links can be copied with a single mouse click, and numbers sets can be copied with a mouse click in Lucky's Followers System. I really like this feature.
- FIX: The Opera browser will now properly display Lottery Post's blue popup windows in the correct location, and will not leave remnants of a closed popup window on the page.
- FIX: Popup windows are placed in the correct location for the Safari web browser.
- FIX: Fixed bug that sometimes caused the cursor to be placed in the subject line, rather than in the text editor, when replying to a private message.
- FIX: On the Log In page, users of all browsers can now press the Enter key on the keyboard to log in, rather than needing to click the Log In button on the page. Previously, only IE correctly allowed the Enter key to submit the form.
- ENHANCEMENT: iPhone edition: Many pages on the main site are more iPhone-friendly, by removing the sidebar navigation, removing several ads, and zooming the text larger, most times eliminating the need to "pinch" the screen larger.
- FIX: iPhone edition: Popup windows now work correctly on the iPhone, and even animate like they do when viewing on a regular PC.
- FIX: iPhone edition: Smooth scrolling now works on the iPhone, as well as the "go to bottom" button when viewing a topic thread.
- ENHANCEMENT: Image Manager (available to premium members) now displays in a Lottery Post popup window when the Browse button is clicked in the Change Avatar page. Previously, it would open in a operating system popup window, which could be blocked by a popup blocker, and would appear inconsistently in different browsers.
- ENHANCEMENT: All topics in the Help forum now display in more streamlined, text-friendly pages. For example: https://www.lotterypost.com/thread/178423
- ENHANCEMENT: The display/copy link popup window has been made consistent everywhere it is available, and always offers the ability to copy the link to the clipboard (now available in all browsers, not just IE), to navigate directly to the link, or to close the window.
- FIX: The Form/Topic link button in the Contact Us page now works correctly on all forms and self-help topics. Previously, if someone did not submit enough information and an error message was displayed, the Form link button would stop working.
- ENHANCEMENT: Updated/added help text available on all pages with a text editor available (help text is available by clicking the Helpful Tips button near the top).
- ENHANCEMENT: The vTracs Lottery Results uses AJAX technology to quickly change the page to different options selected, with a page refresh, and the selection of the calendar uses a new AJAX-y "please wait" display after selecting an different date.
The list above is pretty big, but I know I've left some things out. No joke: it was a big update. I am VERY glad that I have finally been able to wrap it up and install it.
It has now become a big deal to do a site update, with a load of testing and planning that must be done every time.
For my next updates I hope to focus more on some new features. However, as much as everyone likes the new features, if I did not focus on updates like this one, we'd all be crushed under the weight of ever-increasing web traffic. Then those features — no matter how many there were — would not be very fun.