Herrmutt Lobby's PlayGround is offering a free weekend for folks to try out all of the available PlayGrounds, without IAPs! This is a great opportunity to check out a well designed, and incredibly fun, performance app.

To help first-timers get started I'm reposting the official tutorial video.

Today I've rolled out the next set of features for discchord v3.1! This update focused on some community requests. Readers stub and AJP had requested a new "spreadsheet" view on the AppDB for easier voting, and Marcel wanted a condensed view on search results. I've addressed both of these requests in today's update.

Search & AppDB List Views

At the top of the the search page, as well as the AppDB Index, you'll now find a button to switch views. This will toggle between the detailed view, and a much more condensed list view. This is included in the URL, so you can share links with the same view. As an example: you can see it in action here!

List view gives you 20 results on each page. This will hopefully make searching faster, but I've also included voting in results for app searches and on the AppDB. Now you can quickly vote on many apps at once! I'd like to continue to encourage more voter participation, because the "Reader Rating" is only useful if people are voting. Do your part to help other readers find good apps, while avoiding the bad ones!

Now 80% Flatter!

The site uses Angular-Material for many of the front-end elements. This is Google's design platform for nice, mobile-friendly, interfaces. Many Android apps use the same core technology for their UI. It was an interesting challenge to use Material in the redesign of the site. I tend to want to make things super tight and small, while Material wants every screen element to be FUCKING HUGE for easy finger accuracy. I let it make some things bigger, but I reigned it in where I felt it was making elements too big. We came together at a middle ground that I've been pretty happy with.

One of the more interesting features in Material is the ability to easily set the z-axis height of elements. This amused me way too much, and I got somewhat carried away with that. I basically ended up with a flat design of many layers... which means it isn't flat at all.

I've calmed things down a bit. A lot of it is subtle stuff most people will never notice, but I went through the whole front-end code base removing most of the height elements. Now the site is much flatter, but still retains some height to distinguish and delineate elements.

Low-Carb Cookies

I've repeatedly heard requests to make the site keep people logged in. This is a good idea and I'm trying to achieve that without using cookies. There are a lot of privacy and security concerns with cookies that I just don't want to have to deal with. Instead the site uses Sessions; which are like cookies without tracking you on other sites, nor any of the other things people hate cookies for.

In my local testing I think I have the Sessions storing properly to keep you logged in, but this is really hard to test without real world conditions. If you notice the site isn't keeping you logged in, then please let me know what device, browser, and the type of Internet connection you're experiencing this from. I'll continue to tweak it until it works, or abandon it for cookies if I can't make it happen.

Up Next:

With the "easy" stuff out of the way, I'm now focusing on Preset uploads! I'm still on schedule and hope to have those live for the site's 6th Anniversary around late August.

Here is a quick video I did to show off the new List View features.

Reader HotRock SupaJoint brings us a unique review for Switcher Studio, a utility for mobile video production. He uses this in conjunction with Bossjock to produce his YouTube shows. It is impressive to see how many cameras he has running behind the scenes, and all of it coming together in an iOS solution.

Video Description:

Here be me reviewing the mos recent Switcher Studio update fo all yall wonderin how it work if ya be wantin to do a totally dope tv show directly to FB or YT wit like live camera switchin homiez... all why I be gettin high an shit. #weed

Reader Vaag shared this fun synthy jam on the Android version of Nanoloop.

Video Description:

I made this Nanoloop jam because it's a great app for electronic music. In this Jam i only used a Huawei P8 android phone.
more info about the app www.nanoloop.com

https://vaag1.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...

Dahlia Delay, a delay effect from Flora Creative Ltd., was updated with Audiobus 3 and AUv3 support!

What's new in Dahlia Delay v2.0.2:

Dahlia Delay has received the 2.0 treatment to rebuild the infrastructure, with a focus upon improving stability, user experience and audio quality.

Also included in this update:

- AUV3 Support
- Preset saving (Bonus: Saved presets are accessible from AU Hosts)
- Massive perfomance upgrades to both the audio processing and user interface.
- Reduced download footprint
- Improved stability
- Enhanced support system.

#Patch 2.0.2 brings:
- Audiobus AUv3 support
- Minor design updates
- Performance tweaks
- iTunes Preview video
- Improved stability