Been a while since I wrote about the updates, changes, and new features. (Almost a year to be specific :/ ) But nonetheless, no better time than the present to do so.
Over the last year, I've been working on adding lots of features or updating existing ones to improve upon them. Some more noticeable features are as follows:
New homepage design
Had a week off during December and spent it working on a brand new homepage that included more variety of content as well as a more updated look and feel. From a coding viewpoint, it's also more versatile for me to move content around as well as add other types of content in the future.
Reworked search
When I first launched this site in 2020 I only had one main feature of tracking skateparks and skate spots, and that's what the search page reflected. Since then there have been a lot of new features and content that can be searched for. That was previously not possible but with this new update, it is possible to additionally search for films, people, and organizations. In the future, I'll be adding more content to be searchable and this update will make it much faster to do so.
YouTube playlists for films
When films launched in 2021 it was only creating playlists on Spotify. Unfortunately, not all songs are always available there and not everyone has an account there. I wanted to create YouTube playlists because YouTube mostly always has tracks when others don't and it doesn't require an account. Well, it took a bit of working with Google back and forth to get approved but the system has been cranking out YouTube playlists for a few months now on top of Spotify playlists. At some point I'll look into other streaming platforms but between Spotify and YouTube, I think the playlists are in good hands for the time being.
Public films submission form
This is something I've wanted to do for a while but hadn't been able to for various reasons. Well, not anymore. There is now a public submission form for adding films. It allows you to put together all the data needed for a film such as the organizations it was released by, the athletes in it, and the soundtrack timeline. After submitting a film, we'll do a quick review and publish it giving you credit as the one who made the film submission. With this feature, you'll be able to help in making sure that cinematography history isn't lost to the depths of the internet or in VHS tapes. No matter how big or small your film contribution is, it will help others find it for years to come, thus preserving it in this online archive.
You can find the form to submit films at the bottom right corner plus sign menu.
Editing people and organizations
I started the process of allowing members to edit the details of people and organizations. Currently, you can edit some details for people and I will be expanding that functionality soon. I also will be adding a way to do that for organizations as well.
Forum
I created a forum for the site for members to share and communicate on here. It also had its first spam post recently, and I personally consider that a milestone. Anyways, similarly to films, you can add forum posts from the bottom right corner plus sign menu.
There have plenty of other smaller updates throughout but they're too small to remember at the moment.
What's next
I have a large set of films on the back burner I want to add to the system. Always the struggle of do I add content or do I create features for the site.
Another large feature I've been wanting to add to the site is the ability to add events. In some ways, I started this already but it still needs lots of work to implement properly.
I've also thought about creating track and artist pages. This is something that I've been mulling over in my head and I am not sure whether to make pages for tracks and artists. Each would display the films that they are used in. It would be an interesting feature to be able to quickly search for tracks or artists, find their page and see which films have used them.
Anyways, I've rambled on for a while and if you've made it this far, I both thank you and hope you go and spend a bit of time with your friends and family afterward. Life is very short and I recommend always taking the opportunity to love the people in your life.