Code Tour (2023-06-25 to 2023-07-28)

[kareila]

Coming soon... to a web site near you... very near... here, in fact. Right here in front of you. This is the site. The one that you're reading right now. Yes, you! Here is your personal guide to our last month's worth of code changes, which should be going live sometime in the next few days.


Issue 1839: Popular interests count is still screwy (pull request)
Issue 3054: fix overflow interest count again (pull request)
Issue 3106: cleanup from the interests decrement overflow bug (pull request)
Category: Backend weirdness, Bandaids for sharp edge cases
Patch by: kareila
Description: For years now, there has been a weird bug with counting how many users have listed a particular interest on their profile, such that the number could end up being less than zero... except because the database refuses to let unsigned integers be negative, it would wrap all the way around to making it the highest number it could think of, which would catapult it to the TOP of the list instead of falling off the bottom.

So this kept happening, and people kept filing new issues about it, but no one could figure out how to prevent it. So finally one day kareila thought, hey, instead of trying to figure out how to stop it, what if we just automatically fixed the weird numbers when they inevitably showed up again? So that's what this will do.

Issue 1853: Advanced Setup Options could be more visible on /manage/settings/?cat=mobile (pull request)
Issue 3021: Make "Generate API key" more discoverable (pull request)
Category: Modernization, Bringing order out of chaos
Patch by: kareila
Description: The Mobile Settings page was a bit of a mess, and the /manage/emailpost page it linked to was actually three pages in a trenchcoat, so kareila brought out the machete and spent about a week hacking it to bits and putting the bits back together in a way that made more sense. Now the API key settings will be ON the settings page, and the /manage/emailpost page will only have options that are actually related to posting by email. (insert Bill Nye brain explosion GIF here)

Issue 2188: Previously administered community still listed in Manage Communities
Category: Support mysteries
Description: This wasn't a code fix, just an odd situation with a community that was transferred, resulting in the previous admin still being listed as a moderator even though the community was unmoderated. We thought it probably was a code glitch, though, hence opening an issue for it before eventually resolving it in support.

Issue 2196: Add Google Drive to embeds whitelist (pull request)
Issue 2362: whitelist embeds from the Library of Congress (pull request)
Issue 2638: add Twitch to embed whitelist (pull request)
Issue 2892: add rutube.ru to embed whitelist (pull request)
Issue 2943: add Nekocap to embed whitelist (pull request)
Issue 3216: allow embeds from mega.nz (pull request)
Category: Embed ALL the sites?
Patch by: cmho
Description: This adds a slew of new sites to the list of domains that are allowed for embed codes in journal entries. (More about that later.)

Issue 2553: Link to full /logout page from...... somewhere. (pull request)
Category: You can log out any time you like, but you can never leave
Patch by: kareila
Description: At some point, roadrunnertwice pointed out that although we had a /logout page, we didn't actually link to it anywhere? This change will add a /logout link to the list of "what next?" links displayed when posting, editing, or deleting an entry.

Issue 2673: Make site settings easier to find by standardizing its name (pull request)
Category: Consistency is the hobgoblin of something something
Patch by: kareila
Description: Another roadrunnertwice request: hey, can we be more consistent when referring to the Account Settings page, instead of calling it Account Settings in some places and Manage Settings in other places and Manage Account in yet other... well, you get the idea.

Issue 2921: new display issues in admin area since last code push (pull request)
Category: Mobile accessibility, Modernization
Patch by: kareila
Description: Sometimes when changes are made to the main site scheme CSS, there are unforeseen consequences... and when those consequences pertain to the admin or support areas of the site, they can take longer to get noticed and fixed because they affect a smaller group of users. The last problem that needed to be addressed in order to close this issue was to adjust the reply textarea on support requests to be more usable on small screens.

Issue 2932: beta update page not able to save an edit that blanks the Location field (pull request)
Category: New Post Entry Page, I've got a blank space
Patch by: kareila
Description: This fixes a glitch with the beta Edit Entries page where if the entry had a location (or music, or any other field in the Currents module) and the user attempted to clear it, the newly empty field wouldn't save properly.

Issue 2933: Widen work-as select box (pull request)
Category: Modernization, Making things look nicer
Patch by: cmho
Description: Make sure the "Work as journal" selection menu in the community management area is wide enough to accommodate longer usernames.

Issue 2968: exclude adult content from Latest Things (pull request)
Issue 3017: Don't show adult journals/entries in Latest Things (pull request)
Category: Second verse same as the first
Patch by: zorkian
Description: We thought we had fixed this issue months ago, but the original version of the fix didn't take effect right away. When it finally did, instead of hiding adult content from Latest Things, it was hiding... all the content. Oops.

Issue 2979: Add more wrappers to cut tag elements for styling. (pull request)
Category: Customization, Journal styles
Patch by: cmho
Description: This adds a span element with the class "cut-wrapper" and other related CSS classes ("cut-open", "cut-close", "cut-text") so that cut tag contents can be more easily styled.

Issue 2980: Make inbox counts update when you delete/mark messages as read via JS (pull request)
Issue 3076: beta inbox doesn't update unread counts (pull request)
Category: Beta Inbox
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: The new inbox is getting really close to coming out of beta! This fixes an issue where the unread counts weren't being properly updated on the page when deleting items.

Issue 3025: prevent unvalidated (status=N) accounts from posting (pull request)
Category: Take your keyword-infested link promotions elsewhere
Patch by: kareila
Description: One of several measures being taken to discourage spammers from using our site. This will require you to confirm your email address before you can post to a journal.

Issue 3038: Add syntax highlighting to the Custom CSS field (pull request)
Category: Developer tools, Making things look nicer
Patch by: cmho
Description: This helps people writing custom CSS for their journal by adding CSS syntax highlighting and autocompletion to the customization field.

Issue 3046: [wish] Consider not inlining custom CSS
Category: Customization, Journal styles
Description: There was a request open to allow custom CSS to be placed in a separate cacheable file instead of printed inline on journal pages. denise closed the issue, saying the effort required to make the change wouldn't be worth the benefit.

Issue 3050: tag ordering on entry notifications is inconsistent (both old and beta inbox) (pull request)
Category: Consistency is the hobgoblin of something something
Patch by: kareila
Description: Tracking notifications for a new entry include a list of tags used on the entry, but the tags were being printed in a random order within the notification. This will make sure they are sorted alphabetically.

Issue 3051: make certain sections on profile invisible until user has confirmed email
Category: Consistency is the hobgoblin of something something
Description: This request turned out to conflict with other requests, so we decided to just do the other ones and not this one.

Issue 3060: add link to user's journal to text-only emails about access/subscription removal (pull request)
Category: Wait, who was that again?
Patch by: cmho
Description: Provide a convenience link to view a user's journal when you receive a notification that they have removed their access or subscription to your account.

Issue 3065: Directory search: remove "age" as a search option (pull request)
Category: Agelessness
Patch by: cmho
Description: denise says: "The directory search runs off the age specified on the profile, which is 100% optional to include and does not have to be a user's real age, and often isn't thanks to RP accounts and the like, but it's still a ridiculously basic violation of user-safe design 101 to include the search option at all."

Issue 3066: Add "nofollow" to all user-supplied links on profiles (pull request)
Category: Take your keyword-infested link promotions elsewhere
Patch by: cmho
Description: One of several measures being taken to discourage spammers from using our site. This will add the "nofollow" attribute to all user-supplied links on user profiles.

Issue 3073: Clean up now-redundant S2 code for header navlinks (pull request)
Category: Journal styles, Redundant code is redundant
Patch by: cmho
Description: momijizukamori says: "A number of the layouts that had header navlinks already now have redundant code. Which isn't harming anything, but makes stuff more confusing to read." So this removes the redundant code, making things easier to maintain in the future.

Issue 3078: add SVG logo to a repository somewhere (pull request)
Category: She's tidied up and I can't find anything!
Patch by: cmho
Description: This adds a version of the Dreamwidth logo in SVG format to the dw-nonfree directory, so we can find it the next time someone wants to use it.

Issue 3086: HTML overflow on /latest (pull request)
Category: Stay in your lane
Patch by: cmho
Description: This adjusts the Tropospheric site skin CSS to ignore <nav> elements in user entries, which would sometimes pick up unintended styling when displayed on the Latest Things page. It also anchors absolutely-positioned items to stay within the text of the entry and not go wandering around willy nilly.

Issue 3092: don't add journal/comm to "recently active" on stats if the entry is not public (pull request)
Category: Nothing to see here
Patch by: kareila
Description: Don't feature journals in public "recently active" lists if the recent activity is not publicly viewable.

Issue 3110: Add Media Query support to all base layouts (pull request)
Category: Modernization, Journal styles
Patch by: cmho
Description: Better presentation for journal styles on mobile screens.

Issue 3138: Convert /manage/circle/invite to TT (pull request)
Category: Modernization
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: Translates the "Invite Someone" page away from BML.

Issue 3145: Properly update inbox count and inbox pagination when items are read/deleted (pull request)
Category: Beta Inbox
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: More fixes when deleting items! Now page counts will also update to reflect the changes.

Issue 3146: add clear:both to comments on Venture to fix weird overlap issue (pull request)
Category: Journal styles, Making things look nicer
Patch by: cmho
Description: This fixes an issue seen in the Venture journal layout when displaying some long comment threads.

Issue 3151: also rebuild when relevant dw-nonfree files change (pull request)
Category: Obscure backend voodoo
Patch by: alierak
Description: alierak says: "Automated builds of web and worker container images ought to happen when relevant dw-nonfree files change." Apparently changes to those files were previously being ignored.

Issue 3152: Add a non-submit button to HTMLControls & FormHTML (pull request)
Category: Modernization, Developer tools
Patch by: kareila
Description: This updates our suite of Template Toolkit plugins with a method for creating a generic form button.

Issue 3153: Beta entry page: draft flag is not properly cleared on post (pull request)
Issue 3158: Small tweaks to drafts on the new entries page (pull request)
Issue 3165: Escape JS strings in template, not controller (pull request)
Category: New Post Entry Page
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: Some tweaks to make drafts behave better on the new entry page!

Issue 3154: add caste to Diversity Statement and update CC license (pull request)
Category: Inclusivity
Patch by: pauamma
Description: Update the Diversity Statement to include caste, and bump the version on our Creative Commons license from 3.0 to 4.0.

Issue 3159: unwiden authas box on non-Foundation pages + retidy (pull request)
Category: Modernization, Unintended consequences
Patch by: kareila
Description: We wanted the authas selection menu to be wider, but only on Foundation-styled pages. Menus on other pages were trying to take their newfound freedom to 100% of the visible width of the page, which was a bit much.

Issue 3164: Remove unused LJ Widgets and associated files (pull request)
Category: Deleted code is debugged code
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: We had some widgets (self-contained elements of display code) that were inherited from LJ but never used anywhere, so there's no point in continuing to keep them around.

Issue 3166: Fix missing JSON import (pull request)
Category: Obscure backend voodoo
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: Make sure our JSON module is imported everywhere it's used.

Issue 3167: spam autosuspender not looking at profile edits done as part of account creation (pull request)
Category: Take your keyword-infested link promotions elsewhere
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: Add the profile page antispam hooks to the account creation workflow.

Issue 3170: Flip order of header title and module printing (pull request)
Issue 3171: Don't impose a text-align on header navlinks in TR (pull request)
Issue 3173: Fix issues with TR navlink styling (pull request)
Category: Journal styles, Making things look nicer
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: The "redundant" code that was removed in 3073 printed things slightly differently, so these changes update the core to reproduce the former behavior.

Issue 3172: minor issue w/ Delete vs Delete All displaying in beta inbox (pull request)
Issue 3181: Fix missing bracket in inbox.tt (pull request)
Issue 3242: Inbox jul 23 (pull request)
Category: Beta Inbox
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: Did I mention that the new inbox is almost ready to come out of beta?

Issue 3175: "this account is suspended" message should link to userlog and statushistory if remote viewer has the correct privs (pull request)
Category: Take your keyword-infested link promotions elsewhere
Patch by: kareila
Description: Make it convenient for site admins to click through to view more information relevant to suspended accounts.

Issue 3177: abort account creation widget if spam autosuspend triggers (pull request)
Category: Take your keyword-infested link promotions elsewhere
Patch by: kareila
Description: When testing the fix for 3167, we realized we needed to bail out of the account creation workflow if a spammer got suspended before completing it. (Otherwise they'd be offered the opportunity to purchase paid time for a suspended account.)

Issue 3184: convert /register from BML to Foundation (pull request)
Category: Modernization
Patch by: kareila
Description: Translates the "Confirm Email" page away from BML.

Issue 3185: add SSL_hostname to get Net::SMTPS to connect to Amazon SES now (pull request)
Category: Obscure backend voodoo
Patch by: alierak
Description: A newer version of our third party secure email module needed to be asked slightly differently to make the necessary connections to send emails.

Issue 3186: fix Facebook embed whitelist regex (pull request)
Category: Embed ALL the sites?
Patch by: kareila
Description: Our module for permitting embed codes needed to be asked slightly differently to display newer embeds from Facebook.

Issue 3187: don't hardcode hover menu widths (pull request)
Category: Making things look nicer
Patch by: kareila
Description: This will let a hover menu's width adjust to the length of its text elements, instead of being pinned to a specific width.

Issue 3189: Viewing Lastest feed by tag shows a number rather than the tag name (pull request)
Category: No hablo SQL
Patch by: kareila
Description: When filtering the Latest Things page by tag, it's more friendly to print the name of the tag being filtered on, and not its database ID number.

Issue 3191: Avoid XSS in comment reply links (pull request)
Category: Escape artistry
Patch by: alierak
Description: Make sure values in journal reply links are properly escaped.

Issue 3192: OpenID login panel is illegible in Gradation (pull request)
Category: Modernization, Making things look nicer
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: CSS tweaks to make things a little more legible and/or nicer to look at.

Issue 3196: descriptions for logproplist.editor and talkproplist.editor should be updated (pull request)
Category: Things only kareila ever notices
Patch by: kareila
Description: To be fair, the only reason I noticed that these descriptions were out of date is because they're displayed on the /admin/entryprops page.

Issue 3197: the popular interests page is straight-up broken in production (pull request)
Category: Obscure backend voodoo
Patch by: kareila
Description: Once again, a module wasn't being imported where it was needed. (But we didn't even TOUCH that page, I SWEAR.)

Issue 3199: put authas select back in /register (pull request)
Category: Modernization, Oops we were using that
Patch by: kareila
Description: I didn't think email addresses for communities needed to be confirmed any more, but maybe sometimes they do?

Issue 3183: Convert Homepage to Foundation/TT (pull request)
Issue 3200: Convert homepage to TT/Foundation (pull request)
Issue 3205: Index tt (pull request)
Issue 3206: Fix typo in LatestNews (pull request)
Issue 3237: Convert Homepage to Foundation/TT (pull request)
Category: Modernization
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: This converts the Dreamwidth home page - and all of its many individual components - away from BML and into a mobile-friendly version! Hooray!

Issue 3201: Build images from canary branch, too (pull request)
Issue 3202: Build images from canary branch, too (pull request)
Issue 3203: Build canary branch images (pull request)
Issue 3204: Merge main into Canary (pull request)
Category: Developer tools, Testing in production
Patch by: momijizukamori
Description: We now have the ability to test changes on a separate "canary" branch. (You already know about the Site-Wide Canary beta, I hope!)

Issue 3207: filtering oddness with interest search page when there are no relevant results (pull request)
Category: Making things look nicer
Patch by: kareila
Description: Modernization and polish for the interest search results page.

Issue 3208: change_journal_type console command needs fixing up to reflect password changes
Category: The left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing
Description: denise opened a ticket to fix an obscure backend issue that we didn't realize at first was already fixed.

Issue 3209: spam autosuspend not triggering in some cases (pull request)
Category: Take your keyword-infested link promotions elsewhere
Patch by: alierak
Description: alierak says: "Spam check was looking for prohibited content in previously saved profile fields rather than the data that was just posted, so it wasn't triggering consistently."

Issue 3212: Be slightly more lenient about removing HTML links from userbios (pull request)
Category: Take your keyword-infested link promotions elsewhere
Patch by: kareila
Description: Tweak the HTML cleaner's behavior for users with unconfirmed email addresses - if they were confirmed in the past and are transitioning to a new address, they're likely okay.

Issue 3213: profile icon github.png is invisible on black background (pull request)
Category: I see a web page and I want it painted black
Patch by: cmho
Description: This makes the Github octocat icon visible on the profile page when using one of the dark site skins.

Issue 3218: fold LJ::user_search_display into cgi-bin/DW/Controller/Search/Multisearch.pm (pull request)
Issue 3222: upon further review, LJ::Directory::Constraint::ContactInfo needs to go away (pull request)
Category: Deleted code is debugged code
Patch by: kareila
Description: This removes all of the code related to the "IM Info" option in the site search menu, which wasn't useful any more.

Issue 3220: fix failing tests (pull request)
Issue 3238: Fix tests (pull request)
Category: Automated testing
Patch by: kareila
Description: The development test suite needed to be updated to reflect recent changes. (Yes, we have one! Sometimes we even remember to use it.)

Issue 3221: new page /dev/embeds for documenting whitelisted embed domains (pull request)
Category: Embed ALL the sites?
Patch by: kareila
Description: This is a new helper page for documenting which domains are currently allowed to display embed codes in journal entries, because there are way too many for our support volunteers to keep track of otherwise.

Issue 3229: remove unused usercap disable_can_post and related code (pull request)
Category: Deleted code is debugged code
Patch by: kareila
Description: Remove more inherited code that wasn't ever going to be used.

Issue 3233: convert /manage/invites (pull request)
Category: Modernization
Patch by: kareila
Description: Translates the "Answer Community Invitations" page away from BML.


89 total issues resolved
Contributors: alierak, cmho, kareila, momijizukamori, pauamma, zorkian

Comments

[muccamukk]

Issue 2932

That's great! I ended up changing my location to Babylon 5 or Middle Earth a bunch of times because I couldn't delete it once I'd put something in.

[kareila]

We had a workaround where you could still clear the fields on the legacy /update page, but it's good to have it fixed.

[kalloway]

The beta inbox is looking better and better, but I actually miss Mark Unread. I'm guessing much like the (random) button for icons, I'm the only* one who ever used it?



*not the actual only one, but I recognize I am apparently Mark Unread/Random Georg and should not be counted.

[kareila]

It's a dynamic button that changes to Mark Unread if you select a read message.

[kalloway]

Wait what?! Oh, I see what's happening here. I've never actually seen the button change because I'm generally selecting messages in bulk and have scrolled down far enough the buttons aren't visible. (And at that point, I'm just deleting them so my lizard brain isn't even registering the other text.)

Also if I'm selecting mixed messages, er... If I'm selecting both read and unread messages, which I generally am, it's just giving me Mark Read, which makes sense but also wasn't helping with realizing the button is actually changing!

So anyway, thank you for alerting me to this mixture of science and magic, I probably wouldn't ever have noticed on my own because of my specific usage. Also I need to clean out my inbox, badly.

[momijizukamori]

Or multiple read messages!

(also, the 'random' button has moved into the select dropdown, and if you select it once, it shows the 'random' button for if you decide the first selection was not sufficiently random)

[ilyena_sylph]

I begged someone to make me a Stylus script to put the random button back, I missed it so much.

[sporky_rat]

The random button is there on base, you just have to hit the drop-down first.

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh I know, it was just Vexing unto me to have to make that extra step.

[sporky_rat]

Aaah

[senmut]

First, thank you all for the hard work.

Second, thank you for the giggles.

Third, WOW lots!

[bluedreaming]

This adds a slew of new sites to the list of domains that are allowed for embed codes in journal entries. (More about that later.)
Very curious!

This is all a lot (and exciting that new inbox is almost ready!).

[kareila]

The "more about that later" was a reference to the addition further down of /dev/embeds, which you can check out now if you opt into the Canary beta!

[bluedreaming]

Oh cool! I am running canary but didn’t know about that page at all. (Today I learned!)

[denise]

It was added last week as part of the work that went into this code tour!

[denise]

I especially love all the hysterical and yet perfectly communicative categories here. ❤️

[darjeeling]

I only understand about 10% of the technical aspects in these code tours, but I love reading these posts for the descriptions! :)

[turlough]

Me too!!

[colls]

The categories continue to amuse :)

[azurelunatic]

Woohoo, 3060!

[qestir]

Issue 3038: Add syntax highlighting to the Custom CSS field

Hurray! Thank you for this, syntax highlighting really helps my brain.

[veryroundbird]

;) I was excited to implement it because it helps me a lot, too, and I'm a frequent user of the customize css field!

[delight]

"No hablo SQL" made me laugh so much; I work with SQL every day so you'd think that if anyone were to speak it I would, but database numbers for tags would not make any sense to either. Only SQL hablar SQL that well.

[nouskaiananki]

Love the catagories!

[mycenae]

Issue 3092: don't add journal/comm to "recently active" on stats if the entry is not public.

Holy Christ, thank you.

If we could ever add a way to hide comm members like you can subscribers, I would weep for joy.

[denise]

Not hiding community members is a safety issue -- people need to be able to know who's a member of the community when joining a community so that they know who their posts are being seen by. It's one of those things where there's an annoying safety conflict (being able to hide members of a community can also be a safety issue for people who want to hide their association with a comm, etc) and the fixes for them are mutually exclusive, but when those happen, we generally defer to prioritizing the fix for the safety issue that doesn't require people to take an active, affirmative step in order to create the safety issue and can be worked around better by user choices. (IE, in this case, the user choice for avoiding the safety issue of "I can't have the membership in this comm displayed on my profile" is to avoid joining the community or to join it with an alternate account; there is no user choice that can avoid the safety issue of "I need to avoid posting to communities that my stalker is a member of" if the membership of the community is hidden.)

[mycenae]

Fully understand why, and I appreciate the response! I will continue to lament it not being possible for already-private comms, especially when I've had people stalk through profiles/subs/et. al., but this change as-is should go a long way.

[denise]

Yeah, the issue is there's no permanent separation between private/access-restricted comms and public, anyone-can-join comms: a community admin could change that setting at any point. (A depressing lot of our threat modeling has to account for "okay, what if the admin turns evil".)

[mycenae]

Totally get it. Thank you for the steps you are taking, though!

[kabocha_kitsune]

3066: what does nofollow do, exactly? is it that thing where some sites take you first to a splash page that goes "whoa! you're leaving website! are you sure?" or something else?

[kareila]

It just tells search engines that Dreamwidth doesn't endorse the link. I found a pretty good explainer here: https://www.webfx.com/blog/web-design/rel-nofollow/

[kabocha_kitsune]

Ohhhhh so it's baked-in spam discouragement because spammers don't get linkback credit, but it doesn't affect how users interact with links?

[kareila]

That's the idea!

[kabocha_kitsune]

Makes sense to me, then. As long as it doesn't impact user experience, I feel like the downsides are fairly limited (but then I am mostly a roleplay user, so I don't tend to see or add links outside Youtube, social media, image hosts, pinterest, and the like).

[denise]

Yes, even nofollow links can provide some search engine "juice" for spammers (most search engines these days expect a certain percentage of backlinks to have the 'nofollow' attribute and so unethical SEO practices will also look to create a number of nofollow links so their backlinks are the correct percentage) but it can still help discourage backlink spam. You shouldn't notice anything changing in how your profile displays or what the experience of clicking on a link is like! We've just been doing a lot of stuff lately to reduce the motivation for spammers to spam us, because a ridiculous number of newly-created accounts are for backlink SEO abuse and it's getting really tedious to deal with.

[arethinn]

Issue 3213: profile icon github.png is invisible on black background (pull request)
Category: I see a web page and I want it painted black

XD