April 2021 Development Roundup (Patreon)

Hey all! This month I mostly just worked on finishing up the PhotoStack update that I talked about a bit in last month's development post, so this post will be focused on that.

PhotoStack

I rolled out a significant update to my batch photo editor, PhotoStack, at the end of April. My main objective with this update was to upgrade the version of the Bootstrap framework that PhotoStack uses, which is what renders all the popups, cards, buttons, and everything else you see.

PhotoStack previously used a custom dark theme on top of Bootstrap 4, but now it's just adding a few custom colors on top of the regular Bootstrap framework. This means I'll be able to easily implement an optional light theme in the future. Botostrap 5 also works better with icons, which I've started using in the main Import/Clear/Export buttons. I'll probably add more icons across the app soon.

The most noticeable improvement for anyone using PhotoStack is that image imports no longer block the app. You can start changing settings while your photos are imported, and the status is displayed in a popup in the lower-right corner of the screen. Dragging files from your computer onto PhotoStack to import them also works a bit better now.

The design for the resize and border controls have also been slightly tweaked. There's no longer a separate 'Apply' button on the resize panel — your settings are applied immediately to the preview after you type them. Also, the border text box and color picker are now in the same row, to save vertical screen space.

The 'Feedback' and 'Donate' links in the navigation bar have now been merged into a single 'About' link, which displays the below popup. The names of Diamond Supporters ($5/mo patrons) are listed prominently.

Finally, one feature has been removed: the option to import images from any URL. Most web sites block cross-origin requests (e.g. images from one site can't be embedded on another), so PhotoStack was using the public server for CORS Anywhere as a proxy to fetch images when sites enabled blocking. However, access to the public server is now limited.

Google Analytics says only around 5% of import actions (people clicking one of the buttons, not number of images) were through the URL function last month. Since usage is so low, and I would have to spin up my own proxy server to restore the lost functionality, I've decided to just remove it. The option to import images from Dropbox is still available, because Dropbox's import is designed to support cross-origin requests.

Now that this update is complete, I can focus again on implementing new features. There's still some back-end work that needs to be completed (e.g. PhotoStack is still using the jQuery library for some functions, which isn't necessary), but that can happen over the next few months.