Reviewing 2018

At the beginning of 2018, our goal was to push out one update per month. We just missed that mark with only ten updates. Several changes required more time to build and test; so, the additional time was warranted. Of course, we could have released something just to hit my goal. We instead favored meaningful updates so to not waste your time patching over nothing.

What wasn’t always obvious is that we took on a major refactoring project in each new feature or change with a specific mission in mind. Those efforts will begin to come together in 2019. We already have a post detailing our goals for 2019 written and it should be released next week. Before that, I’d like to look back and recap our major improvements in 2018.

• Ten new software updates.
• Added support for manually seeding a tournament and seeding a tournament from a ladder.
• Added support for limiting bracket size.
• Added several bracket management features including replacing competitors, advancing competitors, clearing disputes, and confirming results.
• We completely overhauled the email system with 18 new messages and notifications, beautifully formatted emails, and support for using SMTP and WordPress email system.
• Added support for a new blind challenge mode.
• Improved the cleanliness and layout of ladder standings, ladder and tournament lists, and tournament brackets.
• Added new filters for Games, Ladders, and Tournaments.
• Added new tools for “resetting” data post install testing and checking email settings.
• Added support for users to upload their own avatar and administrators to upload game images.
• Added new configuration options like disabling draws throughout the site and setting attachment file types.
• Significantly improved automated test coverage.

Thank you all for the support and contributions through your feature requests, bug reports, and suggestions.