February
Last updated
Last updated
Welcome to the first update of 2023. As mentioned in December, I was on holiday in January, which is why that update is missing. As February goes, I've been really busy with day-to-day things, as some big changes are happening in my life, hence the update is a bit lacking.
Regardless of that, I have continued to make some progress, albeit slowly. Mostly I've been focusing on the new Quick Search as well as Search speed improvements, using new exciting tech.
Check the full changelog over here ->
Some time ago I've started working on the evolution of the search, taking into account feedback given to me over the previous year. As a result, I've set out to improve these points:
Provide covers and more details in the search, to avoid confusion when titles are the same
Add the ability to add tags when adding a new entry
Auto-focus input field
Have access to search on any page of the app -> especially important as Kenmei Discovery becomes public
Provide ability to more easily suggest series
Provide ability to add by URL
Below is an early look at the new search, which still requires a lot of work, especially on mobile. I am happy with the direction though and hope to finish it in March:
Another aspect of search I've been working on - is speed and accuracy. While the current search works fairly well - the new Advanced Search, due to the addition of various filters, have slowed down too much for my liking.
For that reason, I've started looking into upgrading to a more beefy and improved search engine, that is not only a lot faster, but also more accurate and provides additional features.
Some of the planned improvements after this is finished are as follows:
Highlight parts of the title based on the search query, to better understand why a particular result is shown
Increase search speed by 10x in some instances
Typo-tolerant search, to help with common title mistakes
This is an explorative work and I'll continue to work on this in parallel with other features, hence why there is no ETA for this functionality just yet. Until it's working and well tested, the current search engine will continue to be used
Another feature I've been working on for a few months now, on and off, is the updated Series Details page. As part of the Discovery set of features, I am expanding the Series Details page from the barebones one we have now, to fully-fledged pages, that show all the information you'd expect - description, genres, authors and more.
This feature is still early in development and I don't have an ETA for it, as I haven't even fully decided on the UI yet. But here's a preview of the direction I am going
As mentioned, there is a lot going on in my life right now, so February ended up not being as productive as I wanted it to be. I am hoping to be more effective in March, but that remains to be seen. Nevertheless, I continue working on Search, both Quick Search and Advanced Search functionality, while also improving the Series Details page.
The list of priorities is as follows:
Quick Search v2
Series Details v2
Discovery and Search Improvements
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