Andy Zhao (he/him) for The DEV Team

Posted on Jun 29, 2019

dev.to Repo Recap from the Past Week

#changelog #meta #opensource #reporecap

Welcome back to another Repo Recap, where we cover last week's contributions to dev.to's repository the iOS repo, and the Android repo. This edition is covering June 22 to June 28.

Main Repo

Features

We've added comment context for notifications and comment pages! This is the first step to providing more useful notifications. PR by @ben:

Add comment context for notifications and comment pages #3262

benhalpern posted on Jun 22, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Add more context to notifications and single comment page.

View on GitHub

You can now pin your posts to the top of your profile! Thanks to @ben for this work.

Add pinned articles box to profiles #3269

benhalpern posted on Jun 23, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

This feature should help folks highlight their most impactful stuff, while also being less hesitant to post simpler discussion/help threads etc. without pushing down their best content.

View on GitHub

Tags can now have a maximum length of 30 characters. Thanks, @edueo!

3035 - Increase tag length limit from 20 to 30 chars #3299

jeduardo824 posted on Jun 24, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Solves #3035 This commit increases the tag length limit from 20 to 30 chars and also increases the cached_tag_list length limit to 126 chars aiming to maintain the four tags limit. Specs were adapted to respect the changes.

Related Tickets & Documents

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[ ] no documentation needed

[optional] What gif best describes this PR or how it makes you feel?

View on GitHub

The header of the reading list now shows how many items you have. Thanks, @bolariinwa!

Add Item Count to Reading List Header #3162

bolariin posted on Jun 14, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Add a count of articles beside the reading list header. This is different from the reading list count in the main page as this will only displays the count of articles based on the statusView so the count depends on the number of articles in that view.

Related Tickets & Documents

Resolves #3124

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

There are now referrer stats for pro members -- more on what that means in the future. Thanks, @rhymes!

Pro: add referrers to dashboard and single article stats #3295

rhymes posted on Jun 24, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Adds referrers information for the pro dashboard and the article stats

Currently shows only the top 20 domains with the most referrals.

This PR adds two columns to the page_views table: domain and path. I presume this table is massive, which it's not going to help the migration because ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN rewrites the table and it will incur in downtime.

Notes before merging:

the migration could be massive and slow
there's a temporary Rake script (to be removed after deploy) that is going to backfill these new columns

I don't know how big the table is, the script can be sped up by only backfilling page views created after the stats release date (2019-04-01) or only for Pro users for now.

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

This box appears under the existing stats boxes:

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

You can now embed specific version of a gist. Thanks @bolariinwa!

Allow Embed of specific gist version #3310

bolariin posted on Jun 26, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Allow users to embed specific gist version.

Related Tickets & Documents

Resolves #3267

Added to documentation?

[x] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[ ] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

You can now also add an Instagram link to your profile. Thanks again, @bolariinwa!

Add Instagram URL to profile links #3307

bolariin posted on Jun 26, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Added Instagram Link option to profile links.

Related Tickets & Documents

Resolves #3224

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

Links in comments now have have rel="nofollow", mostly to curb spam. Thanks again, @bolariinwa!

Add rel="nofollow" to links in comments #3304

bolariin posted on Jun 25, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Added rel="nofollow" to links when parsing the markdown in comments only.

Related Tickets & Documents

Resolves #3236

Added to documentation?

[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

Bug Fixes / Other Contributions

Profile images now have a max limit of 2 megabytes. Thanks, @bolariinwa!

Set max file size limit for profile images #3313

bolariin posted on Jun 26, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Set max file size limit to 2MB for profile images.

Related Tickets & Documents

Resolves #3271

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

@ben fixed an encoding issue with a comment's title. Thanks, Ben!

Fix comment title encoding issue #3311

benhalpern posted on Jun 26, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[x] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Fix characters that are messed up. HTMLEntities.new.decode cleans things up entirely but does so by removing the apostrophe. So I first gsubbed it out. I think we'll want to change this to do it better in the future but for now this works to fix current display issues.

View on GitHub

@lightalloy added more tests and refactored how podcast episodes are fetched. Thanks, Anna!

More specs and refactoring podcasts fetching #3245

lightalloy posted on Jun 20, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Refactor

Description

restructured and refactored the code for podcasts fetching (creating and updating)
added specs for that logic Kept the logic mostly the same for now to make the changes gradual.

Related Tickets & Documents

#2952

View on GitHub

I fixed a bug where some push notifications and comment submission responses were broken. Sorry if this affected you!

Return original body instead of nil for new comment push notifications #3273

Zhao-Andy posted on Jun 23, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Bug Fix

Description

This fixes a strange bug where comment.title.strip! would return nil, and thus CGI.unescapeHTML(nil) would result in a run time error.

I'm not sure why it's an issue now as opposed to before though 🤷‍♂️

Resolves #3272

View on GitHub

@rhymes removed unnecessary stripping from a comment's title. Thanks, @rhymes!

Comments: remove double stripping undoing escaping #3270

rhymes posted on Jun 23, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[x] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

I've noticed an escaping issue in the new comment view. This fixes it

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Before

After

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

@rhymes disabled a Rubocop style rule and fixed some issues related to it. Thanks, @rhymes!

Rubocop: disable style rule and fix some issues #3278

rhymes posted on Jun 24, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[x] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Style/IfUnlessModifier does not take into account line length, which means that in a lot of cases we end up with code that's less readable only because it has to stay on a single line.

The style of if/unless should be decided by the developer, not by the tool, at least I think so.

Trivial example:

def body_text
  if false && false && false && false && false && false && false && false && false
    return "a long string that will inevitably result in a long line"
  end
end

this gets flagged as:

Style/IfUnlessModifier: Favor modifier if usage when having a single-line body. Another good alternative is the usage of control flow &&/||. (https://github.com/rubocop-hq/ruby-style-guide#if-as-a-modifier)
    if false && false && false && false && false && false && false && false && false
    ^^

the problem is that if auto corrected will put the if inline with the return and it makes reading the code harder, in addition of inevitably increasing the number of violations of Metrics/LineLength.

Something like:

def body_text
  return "a long string that will inevitably result in a long line" if false && false && false && false && false && false && false && false && false
end

Saving two lines of code is not always worth it.

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

@nickytonline added the Dependabot badge to our repo. Thanks, @nickytonline!

Added the dependabot badge. #3268

nickytonline posted on Jun 22, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[X] Documentation Update

Description

Adds the Dependabot badge to the readme.

Related Tickets & Documents

https://github.com/dependabot/feedback/issues/6

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

[optional] What gif best describes this PR or how it makes you feel?

View on GitHub

@cyrillefr moved the bust_cache methods in their own ActiveJobs, as part of an ongoing effort to move from DelayedJob to ActiveJob. Thanks, @cyrillefr!

Move bust_cache methods in own jobs #3071

cyrillefr posted on Jun 07, 2019

that calls cache_buster service
specs for jobs + service
for: classified listings, events, organizations, pages, podcast_episodes, podcasts, tags
refactoring (models, service)

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Move bust_cache methods in their own jobs

Related Tickets & Documents

#2497

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[ ] no documentation needed

[optional] What gif best describes this PR or how it makes you feel?

View on GitHub

@rhymes fixed an issue where certain history items were duplicated. Thanks, @rhymes!

Pro: Deduplicate history items #3279

rhymes posted on Jun 24, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[x] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

Right now the history items are duplicated, because each visit counts separately.

To properly show a history page (like a browser's history) those items need to be de-duplicated. By building the index with distinct: true the default response is only unique visits.

Keep in mind that the separate entries are still in the index (they can be accessed with distinct: false in the query).

Maybe in the future we can add statistics of frequency (for example: "here's the top 10 articles you visit") but that's another separate feature.

for whomever is going to merge this: the index for the history (model PageView and index name UserHistory) needs to be rebuilt

Related Tickets & Documents

#3220

Screenshots

Before

After

What happens when you visit again an article that you've already visit

Notice how the article "Number the stars" goes back at the top of the list

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

@mscccc improved how social cards are cached. Check out the PR for more details. Thanks, @mscccc!

Improve social card caching 🚀 #3265

mscoutermarsh posted on Jun 22, 2019

This PR improves the social card caching. ⚡️

Why

Since we use the generated HTML as the cache key for social cards, if there is any randomness at all, it makes the hit rate really low (caches keep regenerating).

This PR adds tests for randomness (to avoid regressions), plus removes the aria tags from the SVG (which were random & not needed when generating an image).

Social card endpoint will better use memcached & be even faster. ⚡️

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[X] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[X] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

@sushant12 renamed our sign up route /enter to make more sense. Thanks, @sushant12!

use dynamic route name #3147

sushant12 posted on Jun 13, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[X] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

redirect_to in users_controller.rb was using a hardcoded route path, so I just changed it to using a dynamic route name path

Added to documentation?

[ ] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[X] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

I fixed an issue where a new post notification showed the post's creation date as opposed to it's date of publication.

Use publish date for article notifications #3301

Zhao-Andy posted on Jun 25, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Bug Fix

Description

This fixes an issue where an article notification was showing the created_at date instead of the published_at date. I also added some minor adjustments to handle it the way we usually handle notification data.

Resolves #3300

View on GitHub

@mariocsee fixed an issue with listings where the escape key wasn't working properly (and fixed a typo along the way). Thanks, Mario!

Fix escape key handling and add space in single listing view #3306

mariocsee posted on Jun 26, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Bug Fix

Description

Handles escape key exit by passing event from KeyDown method to CloseModal method and checking for key value and openedListing state.
Adds space before name in messaging modal

Related Tickets & Documents

resolves #3302 resolves #3303

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Added to documentation?

[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

I fixed an issue where an organization dashboard incorrectly displayed an article's delete button.

Hide delete article button for non-authors #3315

Zhao-Andy posted on Jun 26, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Bug Fix

Description

This prevents non-authors (org admins, DEV admins, for example) from seeing the delete button in the dashboard and manage views. We currently don't allow org admins and DEV admins to delete other people's posts to begin with; this PR gets the UI to match the backend.

View on GitHub

@lightalloy refactored and optimized fetching existing podcast episodes. Thanks, Anna!

Refactored and optimized getting existing podcast episode #3319

lightalloy posted on Jun 27, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Refactor
[x] Bug Fix

Description

optimized the query to get an existing podcast episode (@rhymes suggestion in the previous pr)
added specs for getting the podcast episode
fixed "undefined method #to_a" error when unique_website_url? is false

Related Tickets & Documents

#2952

View on GitHub

@brarnaudovski updated documentation on how to access the admin panel (for development). Thanks, @brarnaudovski!

Documentation update for Admin panel, on Backend instructions #3323

brarnaudovski posted on Jun 27, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[ ] Bug Fix
[x] Documentation Update

Description

According to the Admin Policy, user can see /admin page only if ApplicationPolicy#user_admin? is true. And the definition of this method, requires for user to have :super_admin role, and not :admin role as stand in the documentation

Related Tickets & Documents

Added to documentation?

[x] docs.dev.to
[ ] readme
[ ] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

@bolariinwa updated a reading list's header to show empty instead of 0 when the reading list is empty. Thanks, @bolariinwa!

Make item count 'empty' instead of '0' when reading list is empty #3320

bolariin posted on Jun 27, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[ ] Refactor
[ ] Feature
[x] Bug Fix
[ ] Documentation Update

Description

I noticed the count for the reading list header displayed '0' when the reading list is empty. To keep things consistent with the item count on the sidebar. I changed the count to display 'empty' when the reading list is empty. This had been mistakenly omitted with the original PR for adding the item count.

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

Added to documentation?

[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

@maestromac fixed an odd bug where some parts of the site would display incorrectly when cookies were disabled. Thanks, Mac!

Disable use of localStorage when cookie-less #3322

maestromac posted on Jun 27, 2019

What type of PR is this? (check all applicable)

[x] Refactor
[x] Bug Fix

Description

If cookie is disabled, our use of localStorage will break the page.

Related Tickets & Documents

Resolves https://github.com/thepracticaldev/dev.to/issues/3298

Mobile & Desktop Screenshots/Recordings (if there are UI changes)

With cookies disabled

Added to documentation?

[x] no documentation needed

View on GitHub

New Issues and Discussions

@rhymes requested a feature where organizations could be mentioned as well as users. Thanks, @rhymes!

Mention organization in comments #3263

rhymes posted on Jun 22, 2019

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

As it's possible to mention users in comments whom will receive a notification for the mention, it would be nice if it was possible to mention organizations too, maybe with the admin of the organization receiving such notification.

Describe the solution you'd like

If I type @devteam or any other org in a comment, the @devteam should become a link like when I mention any other user and the organization admin should receive the comment as a notification.

View on GitHub

@seangwright requested a feature to show timestamps for when your post was created and last updated at in your dashboard. Thanks, @seangwright!

Add "Date Created" and "Date Modified" to Article Dashboard items #3274

seangwright posted on Jun 24, 2019

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. I usually have several Drafts of in-progress posts at any given point.

Sometimes they are published in an order different than when I started working on them so organizing can become tricky.

Describe the solution you'd like Add the "Date Published" and "Date Modified" to the articles on the dashboard.

Or ... allow me to filter by "Draft" and "Published" so I can get a good look at my work-in-progress independent of my completed and published stuff.

Describe alternatives you've considered I don't think this information is currently available?

Additional context There is more metadata around posts that might be helpful to surface to authors? These dates seem like a nice place to start.

View on GitHub

@michaeltharrington reported a bug where a comment's Twitter social card doesn't display properly. Thanks, Michael!

Twitter Social Card for Comments Doesn't Display Properly #3296

michael-tharrington posted on Jun 24, 2019

A user wrote in explaining that when trying to share a comment on Twitter, the social card doesn't display properly. They provided reasons as to why they think it's happening. :

To repeat:

Copy the link to a comment - https://dev.to/codedgar/comment/c9fk
Drop it in the card validator - https://cards-dev.twitter.com/validator

View on GitHub

@douglasfugazi requested a feature to unfollow multiple items in your dashboard. Thanks, @douglasfugazi!

Mass unfollow button from Dashboard (Following) #3305

fugazi posted on Jun 25, 2019

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

I would like a button to unfollow user from Dashboard in the Following section.

Describe the solution you'd like

Unfollow button would be shown to user to mass unfollow from Dashboard, instead of visit each profile and uncheck following feature.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Mass unfollow from Dashboard would be nice.

Additional context

View on GitHub

@protium reported a bug wher the image upload dialog overlaps the editor and the help page. Thanks, @protium!

Image upload dialog overlaps editor/help page #3316

protium-dev posted on Jun 27, 2019

Describe the bug When I click "upload image" the upload dialog shows up but if then I click the "Preview" or "?" buttons, it stays and overlaps the preview as you can see in the images below.

To Reproduce Click "upload image", then click either "preview" or "?" button.

Expected behavior Upload dialog should close

Screenshots

Desktop (please complete the following information):

OS: Arch Linux x64
Browser: Chrome
Version: 75

Additional context Same and worst in mobile

View on GitHub

@felipperegazio reported a visual bug in mobile where the bottom panel overlaps the editor text area when the keyboard is active. Thanks, @felipperegazio!

Mobile: bottom panel overlaps editor text area when keyboard is active #3324

felippe-regazio posted on Jun 27, 2019

Simple problem, think that the image tells everything

As the image shows, the inner view bacomes really small when the keyboard is active.

View on GitHub

@georgecoldham requested a feature to report posts without having to open them. Thanks, @georgecoldham!

Report articles without having to open them #3329

GeorgeColdham posted on Jun 28, 2019

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. When browsing through new articles, there are articles that clearly break community guidelines. Many of these are NSFW and as such when browsing at work, they don't get opened and reported.

Describe the solution you'd like I would like the ability to report articles from the feed, instead of having to open the article.

Describe alternatives you've considered The option to hide an article from the feed, although that doesn't solve the root problem.

Additional context Example content:

View on GitHub

@dylanesque reported a bug where the vertical scrollbar toggles on and off whenever a character is typed in. Thanks, @dylanesque!

Vertical Scrollbar toggles on and off with every other character inputted #3330

dylanesque posted on Jun 28, 2019

Describe the bug When inputting text in the post editor in a document long enough to make the vertical scrollbar necessary (around line 21 or so), the scrollbar toggles on and off (rather, appears and disappears) with every character inputted, causing an annoying page jump when writing.

To Reproduce Edit a document of x length as described above to see the behavior.

Expected behavior Expected behavior is that the vertical scrollbar appears when needed and stays there.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
Browser: Google Chrome
Version: 75.03

View on GitHub

@cbrintnall reported a bug where a code block with one line overflows in a comment's preview. Thanks, @cbrintnall!

Code block overflows preview #3331

cbrintnall posted on Jun 28, 2019

Describe the bug

Surrounding longer text in a "code" snippet (single ticks ``) can cause it to over flow the input box in preview mode.

To Reproduce

Heres a link I used: https://docs.python.org/3/library/functools.html#functools.lru_cache

Enter that with `https://docs.python.org/3/library/functools.html#functools.lru_cache` in the text box, and then preview it, it should over flow. For reference I'm on a 4k monitor so that may be effecting it.

Expected behavior

This block should wrap to the next line.

Screenshots

View on GitHub

@thefliik opened a discussion regarding how comment context is represented when viewing an individual comment. Thanks, @thefliik!

feature: improve comment linking UX #3332

thefliik posted on Jun 28, 2019

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

When you click on a comment link in DEV.to, you are taken to a page which displays only that comment in isolation (example here). To me, and to the few others I've polled, a comment is inherently contextual. There is never a time when I find viewing a comment in isolation is desirable (ben has expressed similar feelings himself). When clicking a comment link my workflow is always "click comment link > click VIEW POST > scroll back to comment".

In short, I find the current comment linking UX to be poor, and this is a request to fix it.

If in doubt, I imagine you could get more feedback on the current UX by polling DEV.to users yourself.

Describe the solution you'd like

I'm sure you could get fancy with fixing the UX (I'm ok with that), but, in order to address this issue, all that needs to be done is to update the UX to be inline with that of most websites: power comment links via anchor tags, so the browser simply displays the full page and scrolls to the relevant section (very intuitive). For example, this is the UX that github has.