FrontierNav Weekly: 8th June 2020
Changes
- Drop rates in sidebars are now uniform with regular lists.
- This means, like with regular lists, they are limited and collapsed to avoid flooding the sidebar.
- On mobile, sidebars now start collapsed so that content behind it (such as maps) are noticeable.
- Lists which include the current entity are listed in the sidebar for easy access.
- Recently updated Lists are now listed in each game's home page for easy access.
- Lists from other users are listed in their game profiles and can be shared.
- Data Tables now show "spoiler" rows as red instead of omitting them entirely as its useful to know when a row is being hidden for spoiler reasons.
- Experimenting with alternative databases. I wrote a separate post on this as it's a bit long and technical.
Xenoblade Chronicles
- Added maps for all areas.
- Added collectibles
- Added landmarks.
Support the project
This week, FrontierNav has 1 new anonymous patron!
If you would like to support FrontierNav, please consider donating on Patreon. Doing so helps fund development and keeps the project going. Thank you.
Renaming "Lists" to "Collections"
I'm considering renaming the custom user-created "lists" feature to something else. It's a mouthful when trying to explain anything about it as evidenced by the change list (!) above. "Collections" seems to be a popular term in other apps so I might change it to that. However, the worst thing I could do is rename it and still have the same problem. I'll give it some time.
CSV Imports
Importing more data from Xenoblade, I noticed a ton of edge cases with CSV imports based on whether on not certain entities exist or don't and how they're named. It's a bit of a headache to create a "universal" importer for it. So I've simplified it a bit to import data as-is. The CSV is expected to be FrontierNav-ready and the importer just lets you do column-to-column mappings. Anything more complex is easier done using code or a spreadsheet and it's waste of time to try re-implement that level of complexity. It'll also let me draw a line on this feature, get it released, and move on.
Next Up
I'll be releasing the simplified CSV importer next and move onto polishing up the Lists feature by introducing Boards (like Trello). I have some ideas that goes beyond just a "list of lists" but I haven't figured out all of the kinks.
Xenoblade: Definitive Edition has streamlined so many of the issues with the original game that I'm not really getting a lot of requests to add more data. For me, the biggest issue I had were the collectibles which is now solved. So I'm wondering if it's worth adding more data. I'll probably add the remaining low hanging fruit. That is: mining points, enemy spawns and enemy drops. The rest will need to be based on demand. If enough people ask for something, I'll add it.
Thanks for reading.