Done Accessible summary of new features

[kevinrocks]

What would be useful on showdown would be a new features kind of thing that tells you what new things have been added. I know that there is already the news tab but that only really spotlights big/important changes. What i'm talking about is like small things by urkerab (i think) such as validate, highlighted import/export, and nick colour. Small changes have happened quite often recently and i think that it would be helpful to know whats going on. For example, if someone hadn't told me about shift+arrow button for moving chatrooms, i would have never figured it out.

 

[pre]

The 'What's New?' link that shows up when you type /git will show you the recent commits to the server repository, but:

• this isn't very discoverable
• this isn't super user friendly, as the commit messages sometimes leave a bit to be desired and are definitely not geared towards public conception
• this only covers server changes, not changes to the client or elsewhere

I would be willing to curate a weekly per-restart 'human-readable' summary of user facing changes which add/improve features (ie/ not bug fixes/suspect changes etc), but there are some concerns here:

• the process for creating this change log is manual and subjective
• where should these changes be displayed? do we have space to include it in the 'News' section after a restart (HoeenHero), and how long can it be displayed? Or is there somewhere else we can stick this permanently that would still be accessible?
• coordination between displaying these updates and pushes of the client or server (features may be committed to the repository but not actually make it into the hands of users for days or weeks depending on the client/server push cycle, which is currently mostly non-deterministic). I think this is the most difficult part to address - if we had a regular and coordinated release cadence (weekly? biweekly?) this would be a lot more feasible.

 

[HoeenHero]

where should these changes be displayed? do we have space to include it in the 'News' section after a restart (HoeenHero), and how long can it be displayed? Or is there somewhere else we can stick this permanently that would still be accessible?

Potentially, though the news pane would need some sort of upgrade/change to do that tbh. It currently runs on a release schedule of mondays @ 8 PM and fridays at 8 AM (EDT). G staff can request news to be posted, i recommend reserving 2 weeks in advance as the news can fill up really fast (for a few months it was hard to get a slot) or sometimes be dead (now). This release system was implemented after ~11 ish news post went up in a week, and 3 were within a 4 hour period (meaning 1 post got almost 0 time in the panel).

Of course a change to the panel was discussed, and planned (I dont recall the details anymore sorry), but it is/was pending the preact rewrite being finished.

 

[pre]

pending the preact rewrite being finished.

Below is an example of what I believe the 'user relevant new fully landed features' changelog for May 2019 would be, after just going through the commits from client and server (man, it doesn't really look like we do much when you cut out all the bug fixes / internal activity / inflight partially completed work...):

• May 6 - Endless Battle Clause has been rewritten with a new specification.
• May 14 - <<replay>> links to replays.pokemonshowdown.com now.
• May 16 - Tooltips now understand Power Trick

• May 19 - Scavengers supports queuing 'unrated hunts', as does /forcestarthunt. /viewhunt shows the current question while leaving the unknown answer blank.
• May 19 - Room events now show the time remaining before the event starts and /roomevent start can be used to declare to the room that an event has started.
• May 23 - Allow requesting ties via /offerdraw.

This is subjective (maybe some of the larger bug fixes should be called out?). Also, the first half should be available already, the second half (May 19 onward) will take effect after the next server restart (which is the coordination problem I was referring to above). I'd probably also want to consider having the updates include links to forum or PS usernames of the authors so that devs get some acknowledgement.

 

[pre]

TBH, maybe we can solve most of this by simply:

1. Maintaining a thread (perhaps pinned in the Pokemon Showdown forum?) with the curated updates (perhaps also including relevant bug fixes or smaller QoL improvements that my original example glossed over, in their own sections)
2. Making it clear in the thread which features are actually usable currently vs. which will take effect upon the next server restart
3. Adding a permanent "What's New?" link to the thread from the PS homepage, perhaps in News sections, but alternatively at the bottom with the links to Rules/Forum/Replays etc.

 

[Kalalokki]

TBH, maybe we can solve most of this by simply:

1. Maintaining a thread (perhaps pinned in the Pokemon Showdown forum?) with the curated updates (perhaps also including relevant bug fixes or smaller QoL improvements that my original example glossed over, in their own sections)
2. Making it clear in the thread which features are actually usable currently vs. which will take effect upon the next server restart
3. Adding a permanent "What's New?" link to the thread from the PS homepage, perhaps in News sections, but alternatively at the bottom with the links to Rules/Forum/Replays etc.

I'd rather just want to know when the thing is implemented and ready for use, makes more sense if you go back in time in that thread to find out when something was added or something, since server restarts can be few and far between.

 

[pre]

Yup, completely fair. I think we can update the thread on each client or server restart and just explain what's new in each release. Slightly more work logistically, but will make more sense for users.

 

[pre]

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