2018 roadmap

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albummaster
Janitor


Gender: Male
Location: Spain
Site Admin

  • #1
  • Posted: 01/13/2018 12:37
  • Post subject: 2018 roadmap
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This is the time of year when I traditionally spend a bit of time reflecting on the previous year and planning ahead for the next twelve months of BEA.

in 2017, visits to BEA were 9% up on the year before (2016: 3% up) and the lack of redesign is still the main factor in growth remaining fairly flat. Over 48% of visits to BEA are now from a tablet or from a mobile device (2016: 40%), and this is despite BEA being far from designed for that platform. The re-designed site will address this deficiency, and this will lead to a far better mobile experience for site visitors.

The average number of active users increased by 11% during 2017 (and on the forums increased by 1%). The site now contains 19% more albums than at the end of 2016 (117,844 albums compared to 99,003 at the end of last year), so the site is still growing at a fair pace although I deeply recognize the need to make the forums more appealing and the site redesign will introduce new mobile friendly forums once it is implemented.

The number of outstanding (uncompleted) features on the 'to do' list is about 420 (2016: 400 items). Most of the changes made to the site over the past year have been in the background to support the new design, although there have also been various features (& fixes) made to the existing site.

In 2017, I've got my head down and spent six days a week refactoring the code alongside supporting the existing site and working on design templates for BEA3 (in addition to my day job). However, the current technical structure of the site is proving to be a huge hindrance in developing the redesigned site, so I'm not only having to address design issues but also fix major architectural problems.

It has also become difficult to introduce new features to the existing site whilst the new site is being redesigned in the background. I am trying to maintain a single branch of development as i just don't have the spare capacity to maintain multiple branches, but the development version of the site is often not stable enough to release publicly. However, I do intend to stabilize the branch soon so that I can release a site update. Superficially it will not look any different to the current site, but it will contain some new features, and underneath there have been a vast number of architectural changes and it will be the first major milestone on the way to BEA3.

(I'm a bit nervous of releasing anything so big without a lot of testing, so it will only be made public once i am sure it is stable enough. I hope to then release smaller incremental releases which will move the site towards the new design and so people will start to see visible progress over the coming weeks and months.)

I'd like to thank here everyone that has helped out in 2017 with the site. So, a big thanks (particularly) to the moderators: Patman360, Puncture Repair, RockyRaccoon, Romanelli & ShaneSpear. I'd also like to thank the people that are helping in the background to moderate the data, particularly (again) to Romanelli, but also bobbyb5, Steppenwolf666, zags7000 & bertrandubut (top 5 data admins in 2017), and also to everybody else on the site for your continued contributions, there's just not enough space here to mention you all but everybody's input is truly valued.

The main goal for BEA in 2018 remains the site redesign, and this is going to be delivered for everybody as soon as I can. 2018 should be worth looking forward to. Thank you to everybody for your continued support.

albummaster


Last edited by albummaster on 01/27/2019 15:44; edited 1 time in total
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Repo
BeA Sunflower



Location: Forest Park
United States

  • #2
  • Posted: 01/13/2018 12:50
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Thanks for the update! Very Happy
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DanielNunes93



Gender: Male
Location: Castelo Branco
Portugal

  • #3
  • Posted: 01/13/2018 14:05
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Looking forward to this new version of the site Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad



Location: Ground Control
United States

  • #4
  • Posted: 01/28/2018 19:11
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Applause

Thanks albummaster!
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zdwyatt



Gender: Male
Age: 45
Location: Madison WI
United States

  • #5
  • Posted: 01/31/2018 15:41
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Applause Applause Applause

Mobile friendly will mean I don't have to stop using the site when I go home at the end of the day and BEA can consume my whole life.
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