July
Discovery mode is finally in Early Access. With that comes Advanced Search and various data improvements, such as the ability to classify series (manga, manhwa, manhua, other)
Welcome to another Monthly Update - this has been a busy month, with the first version of the biggest project of 2022 - Discovery - launching in Early Access. Of course, there have been other goodies added, like the ability to sort by Total Chapters Released and more.
Check the full changelog over here ->
📋Changelog📨Discovery (Early Access)
After a very busy month, I am happy to say I managed to finish the first version of Discovery mode. There is a ton of work to be done, which is why, as mentioned previously, it's going to be launching in Early Access for Premium members first, and then made accessible to everyone else by the end of the year.
Discovery will be the place for you to find new things to read, based on your preferences. While the first version is quite basic in its function, showing things like Most Popular Series released this or last month.
As I improve the data and incorporate everyone's feedback, I expect it to become the best place to find your new series to read, regardless of your tastes. Think of something like Netflix, which learns what you like over time and recommends based on what you've read so far.
🔍Advanced Search (Early Access)
In conjugation with Discovery and probably the more interesting feature of the two at the moment - Advanced Search is a new page, where you can filter for the specific series you are looking for. The existing Add Manga search will become Quick Search in the coming months, to reflect the difference between the two
Advanced Search provides unobstructed access to all 26000+ series on Kenmei, with two new filters -> Type and Readable On. I am now collecting data on the series types, allowing you to filter by Manga, Manhwa, Manhua and Other (e.g. western or yet-to-be-classified series).
Readable On lets you filter by supported sites, which has been requested for a long time. So you can finally view all series from your favourite supported site or more easily find what different supported sites have in store.
As you can see, combining all these filters will provide unprecedented control over the search to date, with more filters yet to be added (e.g. Genres). There is plenty more to improve, but it's already extremely useful from my personal testing.
🛠️Other Improvements
As usual, in between working on Discovery I've been improving other things. You can see the full list in the changelog, but here are some of my personal highlights:
Switching the app into Maintenance is a lot easier and more consistent now. While I don't plan to do that often, it's nevertheless important to make it work well
Huge database upgrade, that improved the speed and overall stability of Kenmei -> you are a lot less likely to experience unexpected slowness in the app
If you are using a 1440p or higher resolution monitor -> the app is a lot less constrained now, so you can make use of that extra monitor width
Fixed the long-standing bug with pagination -> where deleting the last entry on a page would show an error, instead of going back a page
📈Progress Overview
Another month that went according to plan - Discovery is now live for Premium members. I will be focusing on iterating the functionality until the end of the year, for the grand public release. With Advanced Search live, it became painfully clear how many low-quality series ended up on Kenmei, before Validation was introduced.
As I never delete entries without consent, I am going to be shifting my focus to do two things -> Provide the ability to Export your list and introduce a new Source Deprecation Smart Suggestion, that will notify you of series that are expected to be deleted. As a result, you will be able to avoid losing tracking information, by exporting said series before I delete them.
Of course, apart from these two features, I'll be tirelessly working on improving Discovery, based on feedback I expect to get from Premium members.
List Exporting
Source Deprecation Smart Suggestions
Discovery Improvements
Bugs & Other Miscellaneous
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