A Bunch of Website Updates! (2018)

Hey guys,

We've just put an update live that is HUGE. It's mostly behind-the-scenes stuff but, to put it into perspective, we've updated 612 files and written 27,890 new things and chucked out 32,265 old things. We've done our very best to eliminate any bugs but please be on the lookout as, because we've changed so much stuff, some of those pesky critters are bound to have snuck in.

New stuff

• We've updated our help section to hopefully be a lot more.... helpful! You can access it here: https://www.latestdeals.co.uk/help If you can think of any FAQs we should add please let us know.
• Because of all the super geeky stuff below, the LD website has been on a diet and is now 50% lighter. That means it should be nice and quick when you're out and about checking LD on your mobile.
• Every time we check for new notifications we now also check to see if your point balance has updated. This should keep your point balance consistent between devices without having to refresh the page

• Sometimes the search bar was so desperate to let you clear the input it displayed two separate "X" buttons. Call us old fashioned, but we think even the most avid of search clearers only needs the one button!
• If you visited one of our retailer pages on mobile you may have noticed the "filter" bar at the top was a little out of place. As if by magic it's now correctly positioned.
• The related deals on a page were a little keen and sometimes would load twice unnecessarily.
• The "top deals/freebies/vouchers" were clearly in cahoots with related deals as they were doing the same.
• Android users and those that have opted to use our "simple" text editor were cruelly kept in the dark and not shown what the input box was for (e.g. for the Description of a deal).
• Another fix for Android users - you should now properly see error messages if there's something awry with what you stick in the text box.
• Fixed a bug that was messing up the URL of some competitions/deals shared. An example is Hello Magazine where the URL would consistently break. We've crossed every appendage that this no longer happens.
• The pagination buttons occasionally forgot the only job they had to do and freaked out. Hopefully now they always take you to the page you want to see.
• You can now properly search the chat section within a particular topic
• Sometimes the chat topic filter would display the incorrect section
• You should now properly see an error if you try to create a new chat topic with too little content

• Some of you guys have earned so many points, written so many comments and shared such a huge number of deals that the stats on the user page were becoming difficult to read. The numbers now have lovely commas (where appropriate) to make them more legible.
• We've added autocomplete attributes to the login form which will hopefully mean anyone using a password manager will have a much nicer time logging in.
• We have a few pages to encourage new members to join LD. They'd fell a little behind the rest of the site but they've now been updated to work properly.
• We've had quite a few messages from people confused after they've got a little stuck because LD remembers their category choices between visits. We're experimenting with disabling this feature and would love your feedback!

• We use a thing called a "router" that maps a URL (e.g. https://www.latestdeals.co.uk/freebies) to a certain page on the LD site. The router is spread across LD's code like a spiderweb which can make changing/updating it quite an epic task. We're happy to report we've conquered that task and now have a shiny, freshly updated router.
• Updating the router meant we had to come up with a new way to keep tabs on your scroll position. For example, you are halfway down the homepage, click a deal, look at the deal, press back. You want to return to being halfway down the homepage.
• We now "lazy load" the comment input system. The bulk of the size of a page when you visit it is our comment system - allowing you to upload images, add fancy styling, etc. It now will load on demand when you click/tap to comment.
• We've done the equivalent of Windows Update and updated all the software we use to power the LD website.
• We've updated all our systems that let me code/create/develop LD. They're much nicer, faster, prettier and wonderful now.

That's it for this update. It's mostly been a lot of house keeping to enable us to be in a position to quickly add all the new features you guys keep coming up with. I'm excited to get coding stuff that'll help you all save money and enjoy LD more