Shorts
🚧 So far, Spry has had only one theme as default and several custom themes. Right now, working on two more themes.
Shorts have a new superpower — to import posts from Instagram (photos and description). It generates an interactive page on your website similar to IG... so y continue reading
You can now ask for help right on the website — I’ve designed a custom widget where you can send me your questions about Spry, and I will reply shortly. Tho continue reading
Spry is Decentralized and Independent from centralized server systems. Although it runs on the traditional internet protocol so no complications at this point. continue reading
I’ve upgraded Editor so that when you copy and paste a text from other places, it keeps things clean, and you don’t need to clean up the formatting yourself continue reading
Spry has a blog area with informative and actionable articles about blogging. It’s been rolled out quietly, and I try to continue reading
Look at this beauty! One of the websites powered by Spry — super proud of the result 😎
I’m thinking about adding an affiliate page to Spry. 💬 Feel free to reach out if you’re into Blogging and if you want to include a link on Spry in your c continue reading
Shorts import automatically cleans up the content from IG from hashtags.
Improved navigation between Shorts main screen and a Single short so that if you close the post, you go back to the same scroll position.
Shorts plug-in now supports markdown. So you can add links in your description, which improves the UX and helps interlink things in your platform.
Spry has a new plug-in called Shorts. You can post small updates and have your own news feed or a grid (depending on a Theme) on your website. The potential her continue reading
Fixed JS bugs on the Front-End, so more use cases are covered now. And it’s frameworks-free!
CSS code is optimized. So it uses 20% less size. Meaning blogs load faster now.
Native Analytics in Spry is getting better. Recently, added referral link tracking. That way, I can see, more specifically, the performance of links I give out continue reading
Secured and unique password encryption. The only thing you need to access your Blog is the password that you define during the installation process. Your Blog d continue reading
Fixed the Navigation for custom URLs, so the path is absolute and works in all the use cases. You can change the order, add, edit and remove links.
Fixed Tags page for mobile screens.
The SEO and the rendered code that search engines scan is now even cleaner. I’ve upgraded the editor with an automatic clean-up mechanism. It does everything continue reading
I’ve cleaned up the installation from stuff that is unnecessary. So it should be quite a smooth process. Most things are pre-defined, so it’s just like a co continue reading
The Database for new sites is now up to date as well. It has comments, subscriptions, and everything essential.
I’ve minimized and optimized Spry core functionality. Smaller files mean Spry works faster now. Also, it’s easier to push new updates when the code is optim continue reading
Fixed Mobile views of the default site and Mobile Navigation, so websites that run on Spry have a great Mobile UX by default.
Added Table view to Blog area so you can better analyze your content. I found table view and grouping by tags a good combination.
Fixed the order of posts in the blog area of back-end. Some bugs are small and often unnoticeable, but it really impacts the overall UX of blogging.
Your Spry password is encrypted, and the login data is super secure, mostly because it’s done from scratch (UI, algorithm, and code). No 3rd-party authorizati continue reading
🚧 Re-wrote front end JS so it runs without jQuery and other frameworks or libraries => (1) create main.js for all pages (2) and move specific scripts move continue reading
🚧 Subscription: XHR Optimization (better performance)
🚧 Added and tested other themes: one is for Makery site
🚧 Front End: No Cover Image (remove image area AND adjust the styles)
🚧 Editor: No Cover image (fixed)
🚧 Article / Related Articles Optimization
🚧 Blog (front end): Optimization
🚧 Blog (back end): Optimization
🚧 Font isn't loading in Editor (path issues) fixed
License Agreement updates
🚧 Added checkboxes that beta users agree that Spry is still in the development and can have some minor bugs, limited themes, and limited customizations (✅ continue reading
Uploaded fresh archive with initialization package (properly archived with another software, hosting test site couldn't open the raw one)
Check sitemap generator (eliminate adding admin links to it) — it now adds new posts after each publishing
Designed and added Empty cover in Blog area
Drawn a custom cover for New Post
Settings: hidden intro settings for now
Updated settings with the new minimalist Intro
Added/changed Intro Text
Better Intro concept for freshly installed websites
Removed dummy password from spry installation
Sort by and Blog View updates
Added complex google fonts (2 words and weights)
Changed license key (separate screen outside of the main flow)
Added Log in response message + loading indicator
❗️License check: 🚧 enter license code, ✅ check if it’s valid when log in => hash function, ✅ unlock major capabilities like publishing
Replace old logo with the new one in admin panel
Added selection of frequency, day and time for Automatic Newsletter
Licensing: log out once week and check license if it's active each time user logging in
🚧 Minimized and compressed 1 Script and 1 CSS files for everything site needs to operate
🚧 Light / Dark mode
⚠️ Configure email for Newsletter and related to it tasks
UI: Custom selectbox design
😵💫 Fixed the issue when empty newsletters are being sent even if there are no new content
🚧 Font customization (CSS integration)
🚧 Eliminate custom folder (section) and automate this part (spry can find files and build from it independently, a separate interface for this is not necessa continue reading
Added toggle: Yes Intro / No Intro
Tested Update System 📦
🚧 Version Creator: Installation Package (update)
Implemented integrated and self-hosted Fonts (independent from google)
Added generation of robots.txt (automatically) - one-time when installing
🗓 Re-built Editor calendar (it's difficult and has bugs) => ref. new calendar in the Dashboard
⚠️ 🚧 Auto-load posts on scroll (currently it shows just a limited amount)
Dashboard: Link/button to Newsletter in Upcoming Newsletter
Dashboard: Publishing stats => Highlight Today
Related posts show drafts
404 page template with dynamic content area
Blog => Table view
🚧 Schedule posts (auto-post)
HTML editor
🔵 Unpack => Replace/upgrade core files and supplemental files/modules (still needs a revision, it works - but something is wrong)
🔵 Unpack => Replace/upgrade core files and supplemental files/modules
Implemented the ability of Spry to check for a new version availability
🔵 Implemented the ability to download a new package from Spry server
👨🏻💻 Created Spry package (new version)
Installer Customization: intro block
Designed and implemented Installation Wizard Steps
Shorts (plugin) => IG and Twitter Import
Created Installer
Fixing/adding something in Spry every day.Today added word count to the blog grid. Also added Dashboard metrics to Track Words written in Total and in t continue reading
🍔 Implemented Mobile menu in Templates
Added Share your draft (feature)
⭐️ Settings: Added the ability to Update account info (e.g. password)
🔐 Reset password => Implemented token generation algorithm
Added <span style="font-family: Nunito, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;">view in </span>blog a continue reading
Fixed the issue of having just 2 posts in Related articles instead of 3
Add automation of changing the sitemap.xml each time when publishing/updating a content
Implemented Basic analytics (e.g., page views) => everything should be stored on the server and not visible to 3rd party services. This analytics data suppos continue reading
Created Dashboard area
Settings: Added Social media buttons/icons (footer) management area
Fixed the bug when Comments are visible even if inactive (it shows double comments when I activate them)
Added Bold text styles to Front End
Implemented self-sustainable Email Subscription (feature) deeply integrated in Spry core
Created and tested Portfolio section: portfolio template, list of projects (startups and client work), case study pages (for creatives)
Editor: Fixed the bug when the word count only updates after reload
Checked the mobile version of templates so clickable elements are not too close to each other ("Content wider than screen")
⭐️⏳ Comments: revised and moved to the new build (feature)
⭐️ Editor: added link (internal, external), highlighted text, added helper
⭐️ Settings: banners management — banners inside content before 2nd and so on H2 (upload banner, add url, assign #tag)
Snackbar with notifications (ie “settings were updated”, “sitemap.xml is updated”, pages updated)
Settings: Google Analytics integration (code)
⭐️ Made sure Sanitizer works: test and implement
⏳Theme styles for articles: h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,strong,a,blockquote,ul,ol
Code optimization: Replace parent().parent() with parents(“selector”)
👨🏻💻Added author block in the end of post and perhaps mention it on top next to tag
⭐️⏳ Brewer: generate sitemap.xml
Improved navigation elements Left & Right
⭐️ Created Unpublishing flow and functionality
<meta og:media — make sure I generate it along with the cover picture for each page
⭐️ Settings: Upload logo interface
Friendly dates on the front end
Development of idea of generating random covers with title and meta info on top of it to share via different channels
⭐️ Settings: Meta info (og meta, Twitter, Pinterest)
Implemented meta data generation for Twitter cards
⭐️ Built Spry Authenticator that uses secure token to stay logged in instead of the server functions
⏳Index template that have static sections editable in spry panel, and dynamic content like articles and tags
⭐️ Article: related posts (by tag)
<script src... defer> and I can put it on top (not footer)
Added box-sizing: border-box/inherit to styles everywhere
⭐️ Tags display on Blog page
⭐️ Tag page — shows posts from a #tag
Automatic dark-mode
Projects area: Empty state
Preload images in the grid (optimized page loading process)
Page template (copy of article.tpl)
Settings: Comments On/Off Toggle
Settings: Improved Site navigation drop-down, remove / add nav items
Added teaser word count
Added content word count
Left menu design and interactions
Checked all Settings parameters so everything works properly
Scrollable Properties
Designed Toggle to Hide or Show post properties
Implemented CSS Icons (less server calls, better performance)
Added Link to a published post
Added tags & tags autosuggestion
Added image optimization for uploaded images (resize and compression)
Built Cover image upload interface
Designed and implemented Date picker (close if clicked outside)
Changed how Permalinks work
Implemented generation of the static blog page for better loading speed
Today I found my recent post in the 5th place on Google using a relatively broad search request. This is great! 👌 My 2+ years of work on the Spry platform st continue reading
I've set up a help widget for Spry in case of any questions. I believe it’s super useful to have a support feature like this. Especially when you start up a n continue reading
Spry public beta is even more robust as of now. Fixed some minor bugs, added a License agreement, and improved the packaging process. Testing it on real content continue reading
Doing some finishing touches to the Landing page for Spry.
⚡️Project-based learning is the best! You can spend all your time on Earth going through all online courses and doing the tutorials⏰, but real learning is continue reading
All right… So I've coded a new installer and even added a little fancy loader into the process. Anyway, it's super easy to install #spryblog and get a working continue reading
I'm very close to releasing the Spry beta. Working on the installer this weekend. Have some bugs to fix, and I think it's ready 👨🏻💻
Finally, found time to implement a dynamic load of blog posts on my website. This is gonna be a part of the first release of Spry.
Weekend #WorkFromHome — working on Spry.
Despite this corona, the situation seems like it’s the best time to launch Spry. Today we experience some content loading issues on different websites. That continue reading
Btw speaking of your own platform, blog, or website. This is what I’ve been working on lately. Spry is gonna be an amazing engine. I have a strong feeling abo continue reading
Sometimes it’s annoying to identify small things like single and double quotes preventing function from updating the database. Basically, the whole thing is n continue reading
It’s gonna be simple and efficient. My main focus is on #User #Experience, but I’m also experimenting with an unusual look. Tired of completely flat designs continue reading
I’m going through the work I’ve done in 2019 for Spry (I postponed the official launch a couple of times) — it’s the biggest product I ever did. So deci continue reading
Finally, implemented a normal Feedback system in Spry.
Last week I shipped two important parts for Spry dedicated to updates and super minimalistic UX for uploading images to the editor on the go. Still, I’m strug continue reading
So as I’m pretty much serious about shipping the first public beta of Spry already in December, I decided to remove Instagram and YouTube apps from my phone a continue reading
Long time, no updates... but that's because my attention was taken to figure out all this full-stack development process. Not kidding; it's quite hard to figure continue reading
One more cool Spry update is on my website. I experimented with a chaotic blog post grid. So it's not boring and super aligned but visually explains that there continue reading
Testing the Spry beta and moving my site on the new version. A few hiccups, but they are fixable.
Added formats. Spry now has two options for writing/editing a post: Markdown and HTML.
The editor design of Spry looks pretty much minimalistic. The main purpose was to build a distraction-free #userexperience for writing in the blog. It supports continue reading
One other thing that I built on this week for the Spry launch is a simple installer that automatically prepares all the folder structures, creates a database, a continue reading
Honestly, #tired enormously for this week. It’s extremely hard to do the full-stack design 👨🎨 and development👨🏻💻 solely, but that was my continue reading
This was a week of hard coding because of my beta launch. I touched on the design a lot but didn’t have much time to properly open Sketch and design the whole continue reading
Published! I will share the details soon 🔥
After many struggles during the year, I'm about to launch the beta of Spry.
Yesterday I launched the beta 1 of Spry 🚀 I have worked on it for the past year 👨🏻💻 it’s a revolutionary tech for blogging purposes. Let me kno continue reading
Working hard 😓 on the new product. Actually, this one takes me about a year to finish due to many changes during the whole process, but I believe that’s fo continue reading
Today is boring stuff, but that’s something where Spry has an advantage. I worked on refactoring the front-end and back-end and optimizing the code to speed t continue reading
Back in Chiang Mai. This week I decided to spend on the alpha version of my new product Spry. I’ll be regularly sharing more on this one because I decided to continue reading