Version History for 2010 This is a complete version history of the XOWComics.com site for the year 2010. Other years are available by using the links listed just below.
You can also use the "Versions" rollover menu, just below also, to quickly jump to individual release version. The release dates for each version are listed in the rollover menu for your convenience.
You can see quite easily how quickly the site has progressed. Your feedback has driven this success and rapid development!
This update contains some additions to the tools for editors in My Whiteboard. Also, there are some key bug fixes and the correction of a surprising oversight. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added new editor tool, "Move Up", to allow for an Issue to be moved to any Series, even a Series in another Publisher. Move Up tool also allows for individual Issues to be moved on and off of My Whiteboard. Stories and Cover Images obviously move up with the Issue.
Added Move tool for editors when on the Publisher Detail page for a Publisher on My Whiteboard. Effectively, this allows for a Publisher to be moved off of My Whiteboard, with enclosing data in the hierarchy obviously moving with the Publisher.
Added the automatic creation of a publisher and series on My Whiteboard when an editor initializes the My Whiteboard functionality.
Added Publisher column, with country flags and full sortability, to the Browse by Series page.
Added deletion of avatar images from a user's library of personal avatar images.
Corrected bug with the storing of a newly selected avatar which caused the selection to fail to be stored properly.
Changed Apply to be an Editor link to redirect to the View Privileges page for users that are already editors.
Added manually activated admin. routines to generate SEO optimization documents for objects in the database.
This update contains final changes and tweaks for the release of an amazing new editor tool: My Whiteboard. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Finished adding My Whiteboard editor tool.
Corrected bug with the saving of Edit All editor tool for Issues.
This update contains important changes for a slew of new features that will be added to the site in the new year. It also rounds off many of the previous structural and functional changes needed for deployment of the My Whiteboard feature for editors just before Christmas. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added support for ISBN numbers at the issue level. Added routines throughout site to properly set, handle, and validate ISBN numbers. Set database level cleansing of data stored in this new column. Added full support for setting ISBNs on the Issue Detail page.
Added ISBN column to the Series Detail, List Issues page in the second view. Full support for sorting by this column was obviously included.
Add 3 new story types specifically for different configurations of cover images: wraparound, gatefold, and wraparound with gatefold.
Changed generation of window titles to support including directly in the HTML the window title and added the name of the detail object in the window title when on a detail page.
Added support for multiple changes in imports from one of the external data sources: created story types count column in the issues table and supporting new classifications table and classifications column in the series table.
Cleaned up the layout of the Glossary page in the Help section.
Change volume column in the issues table from an integer column to a text column. Updated all handling throughout the site to handle this change.
Removed extra tables for genders, browsers used, interface labels and web links from the primary database cluster.
Corrected bug with extraneous non-printable bytes that were common in a particular column of data was causing incorrect change log records to be created within change collisions with editors' work.
Fixed a bug with a missing width_800 directory in a few primary cover image storage locations.
Fixed bug related to not removing all imprint column values when a publisher that is an imprint is deleted.
Fixed bug where the window title and crumbs in the Issue Detail, Sort Stories page were not being shown.
This update provides the last round of changes needed before full deployment of the new whiteboard tool for editors (to be enabled in the next release). Many structural changes were included to spread the load of the site across multiple database clusters and some important security updates have been included in this release. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Changed all cover handling routines for imports to now work with "width 800" images as if the rule is now "maximum width of 800". So, all cover images loaded into the site henceforth will have an "Extra Large" image created for an sizing that is greater than width 400 pixels, up to a maximum of width 800 pixels.
Installed second PostgreSQL database cluster for sharing the load for the site between multiple installations.
Updated all core database access routines to now handle multiple database clusters and multiple databases.
Moved tables for browsers used, genders, glossary, interface labels and web links to secondary database cluster.
Updated all core database access routines to now access moved tables in the new database cluster.
Changed database connection routines to now be conditional upon needing to connect to each database and database cluster during the HTTP transaction, no longer defaulting to open the connection immediately upon a request.
Added Facebook Like box on main page in new content section.
Made certain all security checks existed on all modalbox pages.
Made certain all security checks existed on all automaton pages.
Renamed most JavaScript objects into an "xow_" library to reduce the possibility of name collisions across different tools that may be installed in individual browsers in the world.
Placed all contextual content manager code into a JavaScript library for central management and access.
Added test page for parameter passing and modalbox tracking for debugging individual problems that may be reported.
Corrected bug with web links entry for Site Map to no longer direct to an invalid page.
Corrected bug with web links entry for Glossary to no longer direct to an invalid page.
Friday, December 17th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated December 1st, 2010, into site.
This quick update has what will probably be the shortest change list ever. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added My Changed Objects editor tool, accessible from the Editor menu in the navigation bar.
Corrected bug with searching by publication type, causing the search to fail completely.
This update included more changes throughout the core code and site to continue preparing for the addition of a large, new editor tool. Significant work was also done on increasing the speed of the site and reducing the number of individual requests required for displaying each page. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Duplicated the pagination bar on all pages throughout the site to now show at both the top of a listing and at the bottom.
Modified Add Favorite functionality for all Detail pages to now include the name of the data hierarchy item being display on the current Detail page when creating the new favorite for a user.
Added a flush() call immediately after the headers and navigation bar for each page in the site, speeding perceptive display of all pages for users.
Enabled GZip compression for all CSS, JS, and HTM pages in the site, significantly reducing the total throughout needed for accessing all pages and functionality in the site.
Conglomerated many individual JS documents to reduce by over 50% the total number of requests required to load all of the JS libraries used on every page throughout the site.
Added access to the Create Publisher editor tool to the Browse Publishers and Search Publishers pages.
Added access location documentation and restrictions for every editor tool on the View Privileges page.
Implemented pagination controls on the Editor Change Log page.
Created a dynamic Summary Counts table for easily maintained counts throughout the site. Summary Counts (sc) system is self-maintaining with variable settings for whiteboard state, deletion state, table by name, and specific match column and value for each maintained count. Maintenance and access was installed through global functions, stored functions and triggers throughout the database.
Corrected bug with the assignment of the Parent Editor Change Log row value in the new global function for creating Editor Change Log rows.
Corrected bug that would manifest under particular conditions wherein the Next and Previous navigation on the Issue Detail page would switch back and forth between having and not having the Stories Listing shown.
Corrected bug with navigation from one Issue Detail page to another in which the user preference for Issue Detail pages would override the current display format.
Added not null constraint for extra logic check to the newly added Whiteboard ID columns in the Editor Change Log table.
Added global function to control automatically redirecting access for specified admin pages to the covers.* domain.
This update concentrated on cleaning out some key functional areas of the site to prepare for a very large editor tool to be included into the site soon. Many changes were made throughout the site, including shortening of many of the URLs within the site and a large speed improvement across all database access through incremental improvements that culminated in this release. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added next and previous page navigation links as icons to all browse and search listing pages.
Shortened all URLs parameters used globally throughout site. Changes made to global processing of request were done to maintain full backwards compatibility with older URLs.
Implemented constraints on all "deleted" columns value to not allow null values. Updated all SQL accessing site to reflect lack of null values in the "deleted" columns, improving access speed to the database significantly.
Added not null constraint onto covers_count column in the issues table.
Updated all SQL accessing the covers table from issues to use the new covers_count column, as appropriate. This speeds significantly the accessing of issues throughout the site.
Added Global Tools section to View Privileges page for editors. New privileges created and implemented in site.
Added new editor privilege for Notated Covers in site. Enabled new privilege for all existing editors.
Added Notated Covers page to site for editor, controlled by new Notated Covers editor privilege setting for each editor.
Added new editor privilege for Whiteboard in site.
Added old and new whiteboard ID columns to the Editor Change Log for future use in the Whiteboard tool for editors.
Created new global PHP function for creating Editor Change Log rows. All row creation for the Editor Change Log throughout the site was changed to now utilize this global function.
Corrected bug with the Group Edit (mass change) editor tool for setting the brand or indicia publisher for issues when there were no brands or indicia publishers to choose from within the current publisher.
Corrected bug in which covers that had been deleted were not showing in the Editor Change Log.
Corrected bug in which the storing of listing sorts, users_stored_sorts, for users could inappropriately report a failure to store the sort when in actuality the storage succeeded.
Corrected bug in which the TSV maintenace triggers for the series table were not in place. Added TSV triggers for series table to import routines (they were missing incorrectly). Corrected data issues associated with missing TSV triggers for series table.
Built admin page to manage the setting of the covers_count column in the issues table.
Built admin page to manage the setting of the stories_count column in the issues table.
This minor update concentrated primarily on some bug fixes and improvements in internal systems. Some of the bug fixes required our fixing some of the data within the site which had unfortunatley been set correctly by different errors in our routines. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added framework page for Detail Pages Help under Navigatin Help section.
Added framework page for Listing Pages Help under Navigatin Help section.
Updating links in navigation bar to Facebook Like interface to new location, thereby speeding access to this feature on every page.
Added new column within issues table to store calculated count of cover images for speedier access in many areas of site. Modified code throughout site to maintain this new column of data.
Corrected bug with iFrames in HTML preventing pages from completely loading. If a page was to automatically refresh (many of the admin pages do this), the automatic reloading would halt without the page being completely loaded. Added switch to allow overriding this area on specific pages where it is needed.
Updated external cover loading code to now use the new REMS system.
Corrected bug in core function library that would incorrectly update the wrong rows in the Editor Change Log when replacing cover images in the site.
Manually corrected Editor Change Log rows that had been incorrectly set due to previously noted bug.
Added tracking of download date-timestamp column to rems_covers table to more accurately track external cover retrievals.
Corrected bug in core REMS library function that caused duplicate covers rows to be repeatedly created under specific circumstances related to image sizes.
Removed extraneous covers rows that had been created within site due to previously noted bug.
Updated admin routine for integration of rows in the Editor Change Log to send output results to a log document instead of to the browser for more permanent storage and easier handling as the site continues to grow.
This minor update concentrated primarily on changes to the internal handling and support structure for handling content from remote site. A few additions were also made to the Help section and a bug corrections were made within the site. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Built Remote Site, REMS, handling system and completely populated with existing data.
Added Main Navigation Help page within the Navigating Help section.
Added tracking of the total bytes of the original documents for cover images.
Added tracking of the document extension of the original documents for cover images.
Added indicators wherever covers are displayed for an issue to show a cover has been externally marked for replacement.
Corrected bug wherein creating cover images was not recording any initial caption or notes in the Editor Change Log.
Corrected bug in improper column reference in Users Have user function that sometimes made series references fail.
Corrected bug in improper column reference in Users Issues user function that sometimes made series references fail.
Corrected bug that commonly caused the Has Gallery flag to not be set for a Series when data was changed.
Saturday, November 6th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated November 1st, 2010, into site.
This minor update corrects some important bugs that have been oustanding for a while, adds content to the Help section, and adds support throughout the site for uploaded progressive JPEGs. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added support for progressive JPEGs in all uploaded images throughout site, though definitely not storing images as progressive JPEGs for serving.
Changed all image resizing throughout the site for uploaded images to now resample the image as it is being resized.
Added Press Releases page within the About Us section of the site.
Added Data Sources page within the About Us section of the site.
Added Change Navigation Options Help page under My Account, My Preferences.
Built framework page for Navigating Help section of site.
Corrected bug in which the series id was not being maintained for covers rows, throwing off many calculations for whether a series had a cover gallery.
Added document upload test page for diagnosing problems with uploaded documents.
Corrected bug in which cover uploads were tempoararily failing do to the rewrite of the core directory functions in the previous version.
Corrected bug in which primary image flag, caption, and notes for new brand images were not being recorded in the editor change log.
Corrected bug in which a particular editor was having problems with uploaded cover images (progressive JPEGs, thank you MicroSloth).
Corrected bug in which the request uri and browser identifiers were not being properly truncated from the main page of the site.
Corrected bug in configuration of Apache in which a particular override was not being allowed at the directory level.
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated October 15th, 2010, into site.
This update concentrates on adding support for disclosure widgets throughout the site to streamline the interface. You can learn more about disclosure widgets at this sample page, containing both before and after screenshots. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added Change Display Options under My Preferences. Page includes account settings for automatically have open or closed (default) disclosures for Detail pages, Stories, and Listing pages.
Added disclosure widget on on Detail pages for Notes columns content.
Added disclosure widget on Issue Detail, Stories Listing page for each Notes column within each Story content.
Added disclosure widget to all Listing pages for Notes columns content.
Added disclosure widget to Brand Detail page for Notes columns content of each Brand Image.
Added disclosure widget to Icon Legend page.
Added Review Site and Ask for Support icons to Icon Legend page.
Added icons links to main navigation bar for Review Site and Ask for Support forms.
Added DTS to Ask for Support form submissions for improved tracking.
Added Help page for Data Updates.
Added Help page for Change Display Options.
Automated parsing of external import documents for quicker integration into site.
Corrected bug wherein Indicia Names could display twice inline on Indicia Listing pages.
Corrected bug where empty Notatiion field for Cover Images would fail to save any data.
This update concentrates on upgrading the core database engine used within the XOWComics.com site. A few minor corrections and changes were also included in this release. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Upgraded PostgreSQL to v9 in both production and development. Upgrade in production required c. 2 hours of down time for the site scheduled for the morning hours of this release.
Upgraded all support and development software to the latest releases as of this release data.
Added triggers throughout the database using column level conditionals available in new version of database engine. This centralized a lot of code used throughout the site and removed a great deal of extra functionality from PHP, thereby improving performance significantly.
Added generic user functions in database engine for My Collection maintenance, centralized a lot of code into a single location.
Updated all TSV triggers in site to use generic user functions in database engine.
Changed bug tracking system from Bugzilla to MantisBT for greater compatibility and flexibility within XOWComics.com site moving forward.
Corrected bug in which the Attribution History table showed with no lines if there were no Attribution History lines to show and a logged in user was displaying My Collection data on any Detail page.
This update concentrates on expanding the Attribution History to full support throughout the site. The Attribution History is now complete in the data it displays and is integrated into every Detail page in the site. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Made Attribution History available on all Detail pages in site.
Updated Attribution History display, adding styles and more specificity for users; removed timestamps.
Removed limitation on some users displayed in Attribution History due to incomplete data integration and migration.
Added tracking table for some Attribution History data to speed integration and display.
Updated data import process to automatically integrate with the Attribution History.
Created triggers for integration of imported data with Attribution History.
Cleaned out extraneous data in Editor Change Log resulting from incorrect comparisons of different data types.
Updated interface labels for extra columns used within site.
Corrected bug in which My Collection totals were showing on Detail pages even if a user was not logged in.
Corrected date typing bugs in the Editor Change Log that resulted in many failed comparisons.
Monday, September 21st, 2010: Integrated external data set dated September 15th, 2010, into site.
This update provided an expansion of the displayed information for all users of the XOWComics.com site. In particular, a "change history" was added to the Series Detail page, entitle "Attribution History", showing the history of changes made to individual data entities within the site; this format will obviously be used on all other Detail pages in the site in the near future. To support this functionality, account options for attribution format and avatar choices were added for all account holders. A small library of existing avatars was supplied and the ability to maintain a private library of avatars was included, too. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added support for avatars within accounts.
Added global avatar library for use by all users within site that have an account.
Added support for private avatar library for each account within site.
Added support for display format of name for all attributions to a user in site.
Added support for setting maximum number of attribution history rows to display.
Added Change Shared Information page for all accounts. This account preferences page allows for selecting display name format, manage avatar selection and private avatar library, and maximum rows displayed in attribution histories.
Added Attribution History section to Series Detail page. Built as a template to spread to other Detail pages in the site in the very near future.
Added Help page for new Change Shared Information page under My Preferences of My Account.
This minor update was geared primarily towards cleaning up the user interface under Internet Explorer browsers previous to version 8. Particularly, IE6 and IE7 were tested within the site and much cleanup was done to handle all of the bugs that exist in these browsers. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Cleaned up layout in all areas of site for IE6 and IE7, making certain no exception code was integrated into site. Rather, the bugs with these browsers was handled by paying particular attention to the problems, especially regarding inheritance in CSS and in the DOM.
Added triggers to brands and indicia tables for TSV columns. Removed code for manual maintenance of these columns.
Added a complete counts page to the administrative section of site for future integration into public section of site.
Added adminstrative message for editors for when editor tools have been globally disabled (usually only done during particular updates to site that require static dataset).
Created global site rule for redirection to use when site being updated and the whole site needs to come down for a maintenance period (to be used obviously very infrequently).
This "milestone" update provides a wonderfully new, and powerful, search tool: Search Everything. Essentially, it searches every field in the site that is searchable and provides a list of issues that match the search terms you enter. Most cool, most useful, most fast, and it is now the default search for the site. There are loads of other functional updates throughout the site, too. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Add "Search Everything", that searches all individual fields already searchable within the site and provides a mathcing list of issues for the search value entered. Made this the default search in the site.
Added intelligent search for brand names and indicia publisher names searches, so now all individual field searches all now use the intelligent engine.
Added Next and Previous icon links in the header of the listing on all Listing pages for convenient paging through data.
Added Next and Previous icon links to all My Collection pages.
Removed all Has Cover Image columns, as appropriate, throughout site. Included instead the cover image icon conditionally to indicate the presence of a cover image for an issue and also for direct viewing of the cover image. Kept sorting option for column, obviously.
Added Has Cover Image icons and sorting option to all appropriate My Collection listing pages.
All image icons on listing pages for viewing the cover of an individual issue are now conditional, based obviously on whether the issue itself even has at least one cover image available for viewing.
All non-Issue Detail pages have had My Collection counts added for issues of Haves and Wants. These display both total counts and unique counts of both Haves and Wants. Unique counts are links to display in the listing area of the same page just the issues of either Haves or Wants in that detail, respectively.
All Have and Want counts shown on Publisher, Brand and Indicia Publisher listing pages are now linked to show the Detail pages for the listing entity with the listing source set to only Haves or Wants, respectively.
All listing pages have had the volume/issue number display columns combined with the series name in the list, eliminating another column from many listing pages. Headers set to continue to allow for sorting by either the series name or the issue number.
Added switch in site to temporarily disable editor tools, for use when particular site or data updates are running.
This update focused mainly on adding a few more usability improvements in the interface and finishing a couple more Help pages. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Removed all separate usage of the volume field from the site and integrated it with the number field for all issues. This compacts display considerably and removes an extra column from many listing pages.
Added Next and Previous issue navigation links to Issue Detail and Cover Detail pages for convenient paging through issues in a series.
Updated Create Account and Change Personal Information pages to use datapicker interface widget for selecting DOB.
Added separate Latest News page under About Us.
Updated all usage of "Indicia Name" to now be "Indicia Publisher Name" for greater specificity throughout site.
Added Change Personal Information Help page.
Added Create Account Help page.
This update focused mainly on cleaning the main navigation at the top of every page in the site. Streamlining and reoganization reduced significantly the amount of space this area used on every page in the user interface. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Streamlined significantly the main navigation bars at the top of every page. Many items moved into rollover menus and even removed the editor navigation bar completely in the reorganization. Site crumbs also moved into a rollover menu.
Added My Preferences Help framework page.
Added Change Username Help page.
Added Change Password Help page.
Removed enclosing Search framework page from site.
Monday, August 30th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated August 29th, 2010, into site.
This update provides some new features for My Collection and some new options for My Account, as well as some additions to the the Help section of the site and some general clean up of some existing pages. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added full support for Default Box in My Boxes section of My Collection. With a default box set, all new issues added to My Collection are placed automatically in the default box.
Added support for custom sorting of My Favorite Pages.
Added support for dividers in My Favorite Pages.
Cleaned up the "Backcover" story type for full use moving forward in the site.
Added Automatic Page Refresh time option to Change Account Options in My Account. This allows for the refresh time for pages within the XOWComics.com site to be set for each user.
Removed the automatic page refresh from all "sort" editors within the site.
Built My Account framework page in the Help section.
Added Login and Logout documentation pages to the Help section.
Cleaned up My Account, Login and Logout pages in site.
Add Facebook "Like" to location navigation toolbard for every page, though it is a global Like for the site and not individual for each page.
Added full Open Graph support to the site.
This update provides many significant additions to the site. In particular, there is now a "view" option for listing pages, on the Series Detail, Issues Listing page, allowing for different "views" of the data with additional information. The editor tools for Edit All have been completed throughout the site, and we have also added an Edit Group editor tool to make mass changes of data. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added "view" as standard navigation parameter throughout site.
Added View Next and View Previous icons as standard navigation icons for all users.
Added sort options to Series Detail, Issues Listing page to now allow sorting by Brand Name, Indicia Publisher Name and Indicia Frequency.
Added new view page to Series Detail, Issues Listing page to include Brand Name, Indicia Publisher Name and Indicia Frequency, along with standard issue identification columns and My Collection columns used on every issues listing view.
Created and added Edit Group tool to Series Detail, Issues Listing page for Volume, Price, Brand, Indicia Publisher, and Indicia Frequency.
Added Publisher Detail, Edit All page.
Added Brand Detail, Edit All page.
Added Indicia Publisher Detail, Edit All page.
Corrected bug wherein drop down options on the Series Detail, Edit All editor tool would fail under WebKit browsers.
Cleaned up layout and flow of the Series Detail, Edit All page.
Removed links in data that was inappropriate left on the Series Detail, Edit All page.
Cleaned out all "option" HTML tags in site to close properly.
Monday, August 16th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated August 15th, 2010, into site.
This update was relatively small and focused on fixing a few outstanding bugs and adding a few more editor tools. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added Edit All tool for editors to Stories.
Added Edit All tool for editors to Series.
Added support for automatically setting issue boundaries within a series to all editor tools.
Updated import routines to properly set issue boundaries within a series.
Corrected bug with count setters in data import routines to handle orignating NULL values properly.
Corrected, lazily, bug with series not found on Series Detail page.
Updated User Favorites Pages to now use relative instead of absolute URLs.
This update was small and focused on two particular features. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Updated interface to soften considerably the presentation and more obviously group content areas on the pages.
Added an "Edit All" Editor tool for Issues.
Sunday, August 8th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated August 1st, 2010, into site.
This update was focused primarily on supporting larger cover images within the site. An example of a such "very large" covers can be found here. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Add support for "Very Large" cover images of width 800 pixels, for those images which have enough resolution to support such a size.
Made many additions and added many linked items to the Editor Change Log.
Updated display of publication date on Issue Detail page when edited to now be correct by publication type.
Started cleaning of CSS to make core additions for more complete handling of attributes throughout all tags. Change primary font user throughout site. Change main color scheme to soften for upcoming redesign that will be implemented progressively.
Cleaned display of deleted rows on all detail pages.
Fixed directory bug related to uploaded covers permanent storage directories.
Fixed bug related to deleting series with the editor tools.
Cleaned out some deprecated HTML tags from site.
This update was focused primarily on completing the full integration of publication types within the site. In particular, the search options for individual publication types has now been completed. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Completed all search routines by a source of publication type.
Added "Fanzine" as a new publication type.
Updated all Browse and Search source and help pages to document publication types.
Added links in link navigation available on each page to new Facebook and Twitter accounts for XOWComics.com.
Changed core date entry editor tool to now accept the typing of a properly formatted date value of the format 'yyyy.mm.dd'.
This update was focused primarily on a complete and thorough testing of all of the Editor tools to identify and correct any bugs introduced in the previous release related to moving all of the editor functionality into libraries. A complete set of test code was generated to automate the testing of the editor functions moving forward. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Corrected many bugs related to Editor tools now using libraries for functionality.
Added timestamp to subject of support requests for easier tracking moving forward.
Corrected bug with setting internal date column for Issues where Publication Date was edited.
Corrected bug with Favorites when a user has no Favorites stored yet, a blank link was shown in the drop down interface and on the Manage My Favorites page.
This update provided a large rewrite of back-end data import scripts for the site. Every Editor tool was affected by this rewrite with the internal functionality being reorganized to accommodate the new integration of the Change Log during imports. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Updated all import routines to centrally handle all editor functions in a single library of code.
Changed all editor tools to utilize new library of code for editor functionality.
Added timestamp to subject of bug reports for easier tracking moving forward.
Corrected bug with modifying Publication Date on an Issue to now also set internal clumn of type date correctly.
Wednesday, July 14th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated June 1st, 2010, into site.
Wednesday, July 16th, 2010: Integrated external data set dated July 1st, 2010, into site.
This update provides some significant structural and functional changes, though not very significant just yet as new data is entered. In particular, the addition of a "Publication Type" for series to apply to all issues in a series is not available; for now, only "Comic Books" and "Comic Strips" are available as editors work to add comic strips into the data. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added Publication Types support in site for series, applicable to all issues in a series. All instances of issues and series throughout site now display the publication type (all existing data was set to comic books to begin).
Added support for setting publication type as editor tool on Series Detail page.
Implemented browse functionality for publication types.
Cleaned completely the publication date displayed for issues throughout site. Now only use external data for publication date if set as text, otherwise use calculated value for publication date (works mostly, though not completely for when no direct data available to determine). Editor tools will always set a valid publication date moving forward.
Added publication types to browse and search interface for direct navigation of all data in the hierarchy based on publication type. Search is present but disabled as the functionality for it will be enabled in the next release.
Update display of publication date to be dependent upon publication type; for comic strips, the full date value is displayed.
Corrected bug with sorting on publication date on many listing pages. Now uses solely the calculated publication date value.
This very minor update is the definition of maintenance release. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Corrected landing pages for a few of the editor tools (primarily, creation, moving and cloning).
Fixed bug with story type editor tools failing on particular conditions.
Changed background color of main navigation to primary green to match logo.
Added links on detail pages to Become an Editor form.
This minor update addresses a few bugs and deficiencies we have recently discovered in the site. As well, the addition of three new issue level fields of information have been added. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added Editing, Notes, and Indicia Frequency fields to the Issue Detail page. Editor tools for managing these fields were enabled.
Added new story count field for issues to store the total number of story rows within an issue, regardless of story type. Updated all editor tools to maintain the new column value. Updated all display locations of story count to now display the full story count value with the existing story type count (a count of stories in an issue that are of type story, as opposed for instance to advertisements, letters, etc.). Ran update routine to correct values stored for story type count finally.
Created custom not found (404) error document and configured web server to now use new custom error document. Framework developed for adding further custom error documents, as needed
Built and implemented global story list and story type query tools for use throughout site to speed usage of stories and story types.
Fixed a bug in the Delete Cover Image editor tools.
Fixed a bug in the core routines for setting modification flags of externally sourced data in the editor tools.
Fixed a bug where editing an URL column for any type of hierarchy data would result in an error.
Fixed bug with rewrite rules wherein requests not at the root of the rewrite directories were not being rewritten.
Set default reload for all pages in site to 10 minutes.
This minor update addresses many maintenance and upkeep tools we need on the backend of the XOWComics.com system, putting into place a lot of code to be used for future features. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added index on issues.series_id for quicker maintenance and lookups.
Configured tools and resource libraries under covers.* domain.
Added set of admin tools to the covers.* domain.
Added nvps table for transitory data storage. Added access routines for new table.
Moved core phtml into new directory structure for easier portability and maintenance.
Fixed bug in Delete Issue editor tool.
This minor update shows that we have taken a small break from the big push of the previous couple of weeks. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Cleaned up formatting of Site Map page.
Fixed bugs with Has Gallery value for series throughout site not being set correctly and not being updated properly.
Tightened compliance with licensing sources throughout site.
This update contains a final list of updates directed towards editors. The promise a mere two days ago to hopefully finish the editor tools within the next two weeks has been changed: the editor tools are now done less than two days later. We do have some "tweaking" to do to the Editor Change Log to add additional tools, but the editor tools to manage the data within the XOWComics.com site itself are now complete with this update. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added move series tool to Series Detail page for editors.
Added clone series tool to Series Detail page for editors.
Added move brand tool to Brand Detail page for editors.
Added clone brand tool to Brand Detail page for editors.
Added clone publisher tool to Publisher Detail page for editors.
Added clone indicia publisher tool to Indicia Publisher Detail page for editors.
Added automatic versioning to root javascript and styles directories to force updates in client caches with each new version of site posted online. Control of versioning is set in a global setting that will be incremented with each site update posted. Added global site rewriting rule in Apache to handle versioning of javascript and styles directories.
Added domain redirect from root domain, xowcomics.com, to subdomain www.xowcomics.com. This should now be in effect for all pages and resources in the main site as permanent redirect.
Disabled directory listing defaulting from site.
Fixed a bug in the series editor tool.
This update contains another significant list of updates directed towards editors. We are quickly nearing completion of all of the needed editor tools with the additions provided with this release. In all likelihood (no promises, we should have the editor tools completed within the next two weeks). The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added editor Move tool for Indicia Publishers to the Indicia Publisher Detail page. Moving indicia publishers is limited to indicia publishers which have no issue set as containing the indicia. Moving indicia publishers is moving them between publishers.
Added editor tool to edit brand images, allowing now for the setting of the primary brand image for each brand.
Added editor Delete tool for publishers to the Publisher Detail page.
Added editor Move tool for brand image to brand detail page. Tool limits movement of brand images to only brands in the same current publisher.
Added editor Delete tool for brands to the Brand Detail page.
Added option to editor Clone tool for issues on Issue Detail page to allow the cloning of enclosed stories when cloning the issue.
Corrected bug where indicia publisher name and link was duplicated within listing on Browse Indicia Publishers page.
This update contains a respectable number of additions for editors. Many of the editor tools have been finished off completely, allowing for every action possible now for issues, covers and stories. Work on the higher levels in the data hierarchy had much of the core code written and implemented in this release, also, so those editor tools can be completed in all functional areas in the near future. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added delete series editor tool to the Series Detail page.
Added remove imprint editor tool to the Series Detail page.
Added edit indicia publisher editor tool to the Issue Detail page.
Added clone issue tool to the Issue Detail page.
Added move issue editor tool to the Issue Detail page, allowing an issue to be moved to another series in the same current publisher.
Added move cover editor tool to Issue Detail page.
Added target issue selection tool for issues in the same current series to the clone story editor tool on the Issue Detail, List Stories page.
Added hierarchical actions support to the editor change log storage engine.
Change editor clone story tool to add hierarchical editor change log entry when option to move story to another issue is selected.
Added support for deleted series, brands, indicia publishers and publishers throughout site in preparation for editor tool to delete these items in the data hierarchy.
Corrected bug in which the issue count for publishers was not be decremented when an issue was deleted with the editor tools.
Updated DNS records for site to include SPF records for accurate determination externally of valid email sources for domain.
Cleaned email routines to make certain all line endings are RFC compatible in all locations.
Removed double quote wrapping from formatted email addresses for compatibility with some external email clients that do not support this RFC standard.
This update contains changes that are few in number but are somewhat significant changes in themselves. Autmated emails have been changed to deal with bugs within the Yahoo email web interface. The main navigation bar has been upgraded with drop down menus for quicker navigation through the site. For editors, the ability to move stories between issues in a series has been added, too. The detailed listing of updates follows:
Added Move Story tool for editors to the Issue Detail, List Stories page; allows stories to be moved between issues of the current series only.
Emails from the system have all been changed to use CRLF at the end of each line directly instead of relying on the code libraries to automatically make this conversion.
Duplicated all URLs in emails from system so the copy can be wrapped in brackets, solving problems with some email clients.
Added contextual message to main page of site for older browsers (e.g. IE 6 and below) to indicate that older browsers do not support the technology used in the site.
Added contextual message to main page of site for browser windows that are not set wide enough (1000 pixels).
Converted all PNGs of images in the site to GIFs to make certain transparency is properly displayed on older browsers (e.g. IE6).
Reorganized all images and icons used throughout the site to categorize in directories by size.
Compacted logging of browsers, platforms, and browser versions of visitors to the main page has been added.
Update all JavaScript calls A HTML calls to now have the HREF attribute set to the pund character only. This corrects bugs with some robots in the world and browsers that have JavaScript disabled.
This quick update contains a single, though significant, change. The primary cover scans directory has been moved off to a separate serving domain for increased capacity and throughput. All code related to serving images has been updated to handle this new configuration for serving the primary cover images directory.
This update includes some development work that provides a framework for additional documentation and help integrated throughout the site. Specifically, an contextual help links can be viewed in the main navigation bar for seaching (look for the green comic book bubble to the right of the search enterable area). Contextual glossary entries can be viewed also on the new Data Structre Help page (look under the "Indicia" entry, the word "indicia" dynamically displays glossary definitions). These are examples of integrated help that we will now slowly spread throughout the site. We also added a public "Cover Notation" feature, available on any Issue Detail page; this allows for notes being made regarding problems with individual cover scans for us to address moving forward, allowing you to easily and directly let us know of problems that exist with individual cover images. We added a set of new preferences for user to control how navigation within the site functions, allowing users to select exactly which "type" of detail page is to be displayed by default for each level of data within the site. Finally, for editors, we have added a cloning tool for stories. The complete details for this update follow:
Add Cover Notation tool, available publicly, to set a problem "reason" and problem "notes" for individual covers, available on the Issue Detail page.
Added framework for contextual glossary help.
Added framework for contextual help links.
Added Data Structure page to Help section.
Add Navigation Options for account holders to specify landing pages when navigating to a detail page, settable for each level in the data hierarchy.
Add Clone Story tools for editors in the Issue Detail, List Stories page.
Added full support for UTF-8 in all email routines.
Corrected a few remaining bugs with UTF-8 encoding, specifically in the editor tools.
This update provides again what on the surface is a very limited feature list. But, the depth of changes required for this again affects almost all areas of the site. Essentially, this update provides for the deletion of issues by editors. An important bug related to extended characters entered not be interpretted correctly throughout the site was also corrected. We also started building the Help section of the site, with the addition of the framework page for Help as well as specific pages for a Glossary of terms, an Icon Legend, and Searching Help. The complete details for this update follow:
Built Help framework page and enabled linking throughout site to new Help section.
Add Glossary page to Help section.
Added Searching documentation to Help section.
Added Icon Legend to Help section.
Added support for the deletion of issues for editors.
Corrected bug related to extended characters in queries used throughout the site that could cause query failures, data updating errors, etc.
This update provides what on the surface is a very limited feature list. But, the depth of changes required for this affects almost all areas of the site. Essentially, this update provides editability of covers, specifically the creation (i.e. uploading of scanned covers) and deletion of cover images. To make this happen, we expanded every area of the XOWComics.com site to now support as many cover images per issue as we have available (before, there was a limit of only one cover image per issue). For editors, this finishes all of the essential tools needed to change all areas of data throughout the site, though we will still be adding more editor tools to simplify this even more in future updates. The complete details for this update follow:
Changed code throughout site to support multiple cover images per issue. Interface added, as needed, to notate, display or navigate through multiple cover images for each issue, as applicable.
Added editor tools on Issue Detail pages to allow the creation, and uploading of scanned cover documents, and deletion of cover images.
Removed need for captcha entry on all forms throughout the site if a user is logged into their account.
Added HTTP Referer entry in request to all applicable feedback forms (e.g. Report a Bug) to automatically enter the previous page the user was on into the form, as applicable.
Added "Bug Critter" to User Navigation so the Report a Bug form is available by one click from anywhere within the site when a user is logged into their account. This link to the Report a Bug form is the only link that pops a new window with an internal link.
Added new issue creation tool for editors to the Series Detail, List Issues page to allow for the creation of up to 100 issues within the series in one action.
This update is primarily a maintenance release for the site. Quite a few bugs with the latest editor tools have been identified and corrected. And, a couple of bugs with the site in general have been squashed. There are a couple of updated features, also, including a clean up of the Editor Change Log (for editors only, obviously) and the addition of cover notes and cover captions (fully editable by editors, obviously. The complete details for this update follow:
Add full support for displaying the cover caption field wherever a cover is displayed throughout the site, if a caption is available.
Add display of cover notes on the Issue Detail and Cover Detail pages.
Added editor tools on the Issue Detail page for cover captions and cover notes.
Added a submit command with keyboard equivalent (Shift-Control-S) to core editor pane for text areas.
Created Icon Legends page for editors for easy reference and documentation.
Cleaned up the Editor Change Log page for editors, finishing all interface labels and field display options. Fixed all detail links on page to now link to the correct locations.
Fixed default cover displayed for a series to again be the first issue in the sorted series.
Fixed bug with Search by Series Name not working properly when a user was not logged in.
Fixed bug with Story Type not updating display when changed by an editor.
Fixed bug with incorrect display of page count when changed by an editor.
Corrected bug with creation of account missing a new column added in the last update.
Ran corrections on editor change log where some linking data was not fully included in the change log.
Cleared over covers table to remove extaneous records that existed for instances of no covers.
Expanded editor rights classifications to now include Move and Clone for future tool updates.
Updated all production and development tools, libraries and servers to latest release version.
This update, no joke, contains a lot more tools for editors. Editors can now create publishers, create brands in publishers, create indicia publishers in publishers, create series in publishers, create issues in series, create stories in issues, delete stories in issues, delete brand images, edit story types, set the sort of stories within issues and set the sort of issues within series. We have also streamlined much of the SQL code in the site for improved performance and completely removed the outdated concept of imprtins from the site. The complete details for this update follow:
Added support for the creation of publishers on the Publisher Detail page for editors.
Added support for the creation of brands on the Publisher Detail page for editors.
Added support for the creation of indicia publishers on the Publisher Detail page for editors.
Added support for the creation of Series on the Publisher Detail page for editors.
Added support for the creation of issues on the Series Detail, Issue Listing page for editors.
Added support for sorting issues within a series from the Series Detail, Issue Listing page for editors.
Added support for the creation of stories to the Issue Detail, Story Listing page for editors.
Added support for sorting stories in an issue from the Issue Detail, Story Listing page for editors.
Added support for the changing of the story type on the Issues Detail, Story Listing page for editors.
Added support for the deletion of stories on the Issue Detail, Story Listing page for editors.
Added support for the deletion of brand image on the Brand Detail page for editors.
Updated Brand Detail page to highlight the primary brand image.
Removed Imprint Publishers from the site completely except for the display of already set imprints for series on the Series Detail page. No editor tools will be created for imprints except to remove them from being linked to other data in the site.
This update may have a short list of changes, though it does contain one major one: adding and editing of Brand Images. Brands now can have multiple images associated with them, and editors can both add (including uploading scanned pictures) and edit the brand images. Quite a view bug fixes and tweaks also went into this update, including a new way the issues within a series are sorted (it is better, though still not perfect). The complete details for this update follow:
Add Brand Images associated with Brands. Multiple Brand Images can be related to a Brand, including a scanned image upload, caption, and notes for each.
Added editing tools for editors to both add Brand Images and edit the textual fields of Brand Images.
Cleaned up Change Log page displayed for editors.
Modify sorting of Issues within a Series to now sort on the sort_code column, relieving an SQL join to the covers table and improving sort accuracy.
Added centralized interface labels tables with associated routines for use throughout the site. Only implemented use of the new tools on the Change Log page for editors, though.
Various minor bug fixes and interface tweaks to the layout throughout the site.
This update squashed quite a few bugs introduced with the editor tools in the previous version. As well, all of the existing editor tools for "flat fields" were finished, completing some data synchronicity needs for allowing the editing of these fields. Clean up was also done on much of the styles used throughout the site and some additional tools for editors were added for this release. The complete details for this update follow:
Finish synchronicity code for existing editor fields of titles, names, story details, and publication dates.
Added date selection interface for editing publication date on issues.
Added support for editing Language and Country for all levels in the data hierarchy for editors.
Add Apply to be an Editor page for all users.
Cleaned up formatting and details on View Privileges page for editors.
Add spinner to modal interface for times in which loading is somewhat slow.
Added appropriate image to indicate any links within the site that target new windows (mainly external pages).
Centralized much of the site styling within the CSS.
Added user storage of login and usage points within the site.
Fixed bug with Safari browser in which URLs are translated incorrectly if they contain particular sequences of bytes.
Corrected alignment issues with labels and content that became exacerbated by the addition of the editor tools throughout the site.
Corrected many minor bugs related to editors tools and account usage within the site.
Removed all data table visibility code and links throughout site as it provided no significant benefit to the interface or usage.
This update, though listed as a somewhat significant set of changes, will not impact most people. The primary change to this update is the ability for individual users to be designated as "editors" and to then be allowed to update the data within the XOWComics.com site directly. This is our first step to allowing direct updating of the content of the site by users. The amount of changes and additions to the site to allow for this was our largest update yet, though it may not be directly obvious.
If you would like to participate in editing the data within the site, please do write to us to enable "editor" privileges on your account. The more people providing new data and verifying the existing data in the site, the better it is for all.
All of the detailed changes and additions to the site for this update deal with the editing of the data and the administrative tools to allow for this functionality.
This update provides about a dozen bug fixes we noticed throughout the site as we developed and tested the new XOWComics.com Toolbar for Firefox and XOWComics.com Search tool. There are no enhancements or additions to the site with this update.
This update provides a few more key changes to managing My Collection. The View My Comics page now allows for switching of the view contents of comics to any box in My Boxes; you can view the contents of any individual box, view comics not organized in any box yet, or view all comics you have in My Collection. Login options have been improved now, too, allowing for bookmarked URL following when logging in and the setting of a default login page from My Favorite Pages. The detailed version notes follow:
Added drop down item to pagination navigation of View Comics to choose which box contents to view in the listing. Options in drop down allow for choosing any single box contents, unboxed (not set) contents, or all comics.
My Boxes page now has comics count set as links to view the contents of each box.
Add cover price to edit details page of View My Comics, so the cover price is displayed when editing the details of each individual comic you have in My Collection (i.e. when entering the purchase price of the comic).
Added account option to My Account Options page to enable or disable the automatic following of bookmarked links when coming into the site and not having logged in yet. If enable, after logging in, the original URL that had redirected the (previously) not logged in user will be automatically be used as the "login landing page". If disabled, the "login landing page" will be displayed on the standard login page for single click usage.
Added radio button column on My Favorite Pages page to select which favorite page for a user should be used as the "login landing page" when a user logs in. An single radio button at the end of the page allows the selection of "None". This setting then is respected when a user logs in as being the "login landing page" on all subsequent logins by the user.
Various bug fixes and minor interface improvements throughout the site.
This update provides important additions to the details of each comic in My Collection (Haves). Details for purchase data, purchase price, CGC graded, and box have been added to each comic. A new management page has been built to manage boxes used in My Collection. All of these new values are available on the View My Comics page in My Collection. And, when working with the details of a comic in My Collection, we are now displaying the cover of the comic for your convenience. Small changes for improved usage on portable devices have been made in the navigation of the site, particularly dealing with spacing and contrast issues. And, a few important bugs introduced in the last update were identified by a new users and fixed immediately. The detailed version notes follow:
Add storage for My Boxes for organizing comics in My Collection. A box can have a title and note associated with it. A new page was built for users to manage My Boxes.
Add fields for detailing purchase price, purchase date, CGC graded flag, and box were added for each comic. This information is displayed on the View My Comics page.
Updated editing of comic details to include the new details fields listed above.
Updated deletion of comics from My Collection (Haves) to now display the added fields listed above. Reworked this page to now more cleanly display the details of each comic of the same issue for choice during deletion.
Update deletion selection and detail edit pages for comics in My Collection (Haves) to now display the cover image if it is available.
Changed spacing in all standard navigation to use bullets instead of spaces. Added provisions to disallow wrapping of navigational function units on smaller displays (i.e. particularly for mobile devices). Changed background color of main navigation to provide greater contrast, important for mobile devices.
Corrected important bugs related to CAPTCHA images.
Corrected minor bugs related to retrieval and display of My Collection counts (Haves, specifically) in a few locations throughout the site.
This update provides some important feature additions to the site, primarily working with My Collection. Particularly, a new view of individual comics in My Collection show each individual comic you have marked as owning (Haves). Tools are available then to mark the condition of each comic and add notes for each comic. When removing comics from My Collection, the system will prompt which copy of the comic is to be removed if there are multiple copies of the same issue. The News section of the site has been greatly expanded and categorized into news type listing pages; many more RSS feeds from multiple providers have been added to the site. Finally, for each page where a listing of issues is supplied, there is now a direct link to view the cover while remaining on the page. The detailed version notes follow:
Built new View My Comics pages, showing individual comic copies marked as Have in My Collection. Links from the Voew My Collection page, for "expanding" and "collapsing" these "views" of My Collection were put into place.
Created new table for storing individual comic details for each issue marked as Have in My Collection. The storage currently is limited to Condition and Note for each comic.
Built a list of standard comic condition types for selection and use throughout the site.
Add My Collection preference for setting a default condition of new comics added to My Collection.
Built interface for editing Condition and Notes for individual comics in My Collection from the View My Comics page.
Updated all removal from My Collection routines throughout site to prompt, if needed, which individual comic to be removed.
Expanded News section of site, added categories of pages for RSS feeds and increasing the quantity and number of sources for RSS feeds.
Included more Links indexed in the site.
Added download links onto the View My Collection Gallery and View My Wants Gallery pages.
Added links at all locations throughout site where issues or comics are displayed to allow for a "lightbox" style display of the cover image. This provides direct and immediate viewing of cover images throughout the site.
This site update provided expansion of some of the tools for My Collection. Tools for downloading My Collection and My Wants, and custom views for both, were added. As well, a new preference allows for you to easily see "holes" in My Collection, allowing you to easily identify missing issues that you may want in your collection of comics. The advanced search was begun, and we realised that it did not even seem necessary; with some additions to the existing search, we should be able to provide much of the same functionality that should ever be needed for searching (we hope). Finally, a Current News page has been added to the site containing RSS feeds from around the comics world. A detailed listing of new and changed features follows:
Built View My Wants page, providing a custom listing page of issues marked as wanted in My Collection.
Built View My Want Gallery page, showing covers for issues marked as wanted in My Collection.
Built View My Haves Gallery page, showing covers for issues marked as having in My Collection.
Built Download My Haves tool, to download an Excel document containing a series broken report of all issues marked as having in My Collection.
Built Download My Wants tool, to download an Excel document containing a series broken report of all issues marked as wanting in My Collection.
Added unique and total display counts in the listing header for View My Want and View My Haves of My Collection.
Removed links to Advanced Search throughout site. Found in beginning to build this that it was not needed. Though, if you want to experiment, you can see the "work in progress" at Advanced Search.
Added Genres to basic search for searching issues by genre. This is a smart search.
Added new preference to My Collection Preferences to allow for a selection of options to modify listing displays of issues in a series (on the Series Issues and Series Issues Gallery pages only) for "holes" in My Collection of Haves. The options available are to disable this completely, enable it fully to show all issues not marked as Having in all series, or enable it "smartly" to only highlight issues in a series in which at least one issue is marked as Having in My Collection and issues then not marked as Wanting. The highlighting provided by this preference is a reddish tinge added only to the Want column.
Built Current News page with link to "News" in main navigation bar of site.
This site update provided some minor expansion of user options within their account and collections. Some key pieces within My Collection were added to allow for the rapid expansion of the functionality within future releases. Many minor bugs, not all listed here, were also corrected throughout the site as we noticed them during development of this release. Finally, since the last update, an update to the core data was integrated into the site (on Februrary 3rd, 2010) as well as the addition of more than 100,000 additional cover images added to the site (Februrary 5th, 2010). The following is a full feature list available with this version:
Added new account option for setting "Default Sort" for listing pages. Options available for this preference allow a user to use site default sorting, use only saved sort options for each listing page type, or remember last used sort for each listing page type. Added support for respecting user sorting options and user stored sorts throughout all listing pages in the site. Added a Remember Sort link in the main user navigation area, conditional on availability on a listing page, for saving sort options when a user is logged in and the Default Sort preference is not set to Use Last Sort.
Built a custom View My Collection page for scanning "haves" in My Collection. This allows for quicker expansion of My Collection functionality now within the site.
Completed the default search page to allow for direct initiation of searches in newly added enterable areas on the page.
Added a Publisher Detail, Issues Listing page for use throughout the site.
Added a complete Technology page within the About Us section of the site.
Added an update function to Add Favorite Page to dynamically and immediately place a newly added Favorite Page into the drop down menu item while still on the same page.
Finished spreading contextual feedback throughout the site within all functionality where it is needed.
Cleaned up and standardized all of the existing page names within the site.
Fixed bug in which changes to Favorite Pages were not reflected in the drop down navigation interface immediately at the first landing page after saving changes to Favorite Pages.
Renamed all standard sort option NVPs throughout the site. This resulted in a great deal of streamlining of code in both PHP and JavaScript throughout the site.
Fixed bug in which logging out of the site would not remove main user navigation line one the first landing page.
Finished securing all user input throughout site to prevent SQL injection attack vectors.
Finished securing all of the administrative functions within the site.
Friday, February 5th, 2010: Added more than 100,000 additional cover images to the site.
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010: The data within the XOWComics.com site has been updated to the latest feed dated February 1st, 2010.
This posting has concentrated mainly on adding support for My Collection throughout the site. The display and updating of comic books that you collection and want is now fully integrated throughout every section of the site. Options for accounts have been added to customize the display and editing of this information for each user. A lot of standardization and functional consistency also made it into this update. The following is a full feature list available with this version:
Add full support of the display of My Haves and My Wants from My Collection throughout the comic book hierarchy (search, browse, and detail pages). At each page, the summary counts of each is what is displayed.
Added full support for sorting on My Haves and My Wants throughout the comic book hierarchy (search, browse, and detail pages).
Added a Target/Source drop down items in the main navigation for searching and browsing. This allows for the target of searching or browsing to be chosen from All Comics, My Comics (Haves), or My Wants; the latter two options are only enabled when a user is logged into their account, and they are taken from My Collection. This allows for full searching and browsing of both the Haves and Wants in My Collection.
Added account preference under My Collection Preferences for Enable My Collection Count Display in Hierarchy. This allows a user to choose whether the summary counts of My Collection are displayed on all pages in the comic book hierarchy above Issues. For instance, when this option is enabled, a user viewing a list of Publishers would see extra columns containing the counts of My Haves and My Wants from My Collection for each Publisher listed.
Add Browse by Issues page to site, allowing for direct browsing of the more than half a million comic book in the site. Though this functionality is a little intensive on the server database, for now it seemed fine to allow such functionality in the site (this may be revisited as usage of the site continues to increase).
Split the searching of Publisher Name and Imprint Names into distinct selections in the main navigation. There is no longer a joint listing page of both publishers and imprints on search results, each is now fully distinct from each other.
All Browse and Search functionality, including sorting on all listing pages, now has links fully generated from JavaScript instead of hard coded into the HTML. This allows for much more rapid development and greater flexibility with the site moving forward.
All Hide and Show links on detail listing pages now merely affects the HTML already loaded in the browser instead of generating another request to the server. This makes the functionality practically immediate instead of having a delay to reload the page.
Built separate Version History page containing the detailed version history of the site and its updates.
Built separate About Us framework page detailing basic information about the site, its development and its developers and contributors.
Built separe content framework page for Search detailing basic documentation for searching.
Fixed a bug related to having no Favorite Pages set in an account.
A lot of new features have been added now to My Accounts. When a user is logged into the site, there is "functionality of substance" that can now be done. With this posting, it should be obvious where this site is going now and how it will be helpful for comic book collectors of all types. The following is a full feature list available with this version:
Added capability for user with accounts to manage My Collection. This is basically a listing of comics (issues) that a user has in their collection, with a count of how many. There is also a flag that can go with each issue indicating whether a user Wants to acquire the comic. On all listing pages with issues in the site, as well as issue detail pages, a logged in user can manage this information. And, there is support throughout the comic book hierarchy of information as to whether a user has any comics "within" an item (e.g. from a particular publisher, with a particular indicia, branded as, within individual series, etc.).
Added capability for a user logged into an account to have My Favorite pages. These are basically stored links to their favorite pages within the site. This can include even results of searches, sorts, and display options, all stored with their My Favorite pages. A link is provided on every page for a logged in user to add the page to their list of My Favorites. And, with the My Accounts section, a logged in user can manage My Favorites for themselves, renaming the pages and deleting individual My Favorites. A drop down interface item is available for all logged in users for directly jumping to any of their My Favorites pages at any time.
Added My Collection Preferences page for logged in users. Options here allow for a logged in user to indicate whether they want the background colors of rows in listing displays to respond to items in My Collection. There are separate options for whether the colors are enabled for list of issues only or for other levels in the comic book hierarchy.
Streamlined interface for basic searches in the main navigation, removing the need for an actual submit button. Changes to the enterable area, or changing the drop down interface item when there is content in the enterable area, initiates basic searches now automatically.
Corrected a few navigation and logic issues within the site, particularly related to when a user is or is not logged into an account.
Fixed some page flow issues with the main navigation of the site, making it more compact.
Added "robots.txt" to the site finally.
Made certain all code within the site was HTML4 compliant and passed all compliance checks.
Built internal optimizations for issues and My Collection records in the database, even providing direct links from all levels of the comic book hierarchy of data into these tables in the database.
Did some basic cleanup on the database itself.
We started tracking the posting of the site with versions. This posting has been dubbed "v0.1.0". With this version, we also started tracking internally the development and issues with the XOWComics.com project using Bugzilla.
Added tooltips throughout the listing pages.
Added support for CAPTCHA on all Contact Us forms.
Added links on all detail pages, deep links into the Grand Comics Database web site.
Implemented a contextual message engine throughout the site. Started the implementation of it on all Login, Logout, and Contact Us forms.
Added page for Resend My Account Confirmation Email for accounts in the process of being confirmed.
Added page for Forgot My Username for account holders.
Added page for Forgot My Password for account holders.
Automatiicaly prepopulating forms on the web site when a user is logged into their account.
Made sure the My Account page has the content forked based on whether a user is currently logged in to their account or not.
Added new branch of pages for setting My Preferences for logged in users.
Added a "Default Remember Me" option to accounts, used to set the "Remember Me on this Computer" option by default when a user goes to the Login form for accounts.
Added an Enable Tooltips option for account holders.
Added a Send Me News and Updates in Email option for account holders.
Added Records per Page and Records per Gallery Page options for account holders. These values are respected on all listing pages for users logged into their account.
Added Remember Me on this Computer option on the Login form for accounts. It remembers the username of the account holder upon successfully logging into an account.
Added page for logged in users to change their username.
Added page for logged in users to change their password.
Added page for logged in users to change their personal information.
Upgraded all development tools for site to latest full releases.
We fixed quite a few encoding issues dealing with non-Roman characters (foreign languages, UTF-8). We also corrected a few image display problems and page layout problems involving images and content. As well, a reasonable pass was made through the site to check HTML4 compliance, allowing us to correct many other minor layour problems that most browsers would never even show. Finally, we tested the site on quite a few other browsers to confirm functionality and layout compliance throughout the site.
Added basic account creation, login and logout functionality; there is no functionality beyond the creation of an account and the site detecting when you are logged in, but it is the framework for us to expand upon. Search functionality for brand names and indicia publisher names was also added at the same time. And, a couple of minor bugs we had noticed were repaired.
Added a Browse functionality for the comics in the main navigation.
All of the basic Contact Us pages were completed, in rough form.
Initial launching of the site.
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