This is an update that I've been putting off for ages because I knew it would suck to code it. I was right.
Fortunately the results are super useful. This finally addresses the awful search that has been on the site since day 1. It is fantastic now! This includes both article search and app search! Now if you search for Audiobus the first result is Audiobus, and not any of the 838 other apps in the site's database that mentions Audiobus.
What's new in discchord v3.5:
+ New Search! Better, slower, way way more accurate and helpful!
- Fixed Android! Updated scraping to latest Google changes, and made some tweaks to database.
- Fixed # at the end of App Store links, so that the # doesn't end up in the database.
- Fixed YouTube links to other @channels
- Fixed Exploit in Search that exposed Patron Only Posts (Thanks Cosmo for letting me know!)
- Fixed anti-cheat in contests to avoid false positives. Sorry!
Brought to You By Medicinal Amphetamines
This long awaited update would not be possible without the aid of amphetamines! Under medical supervision I've been experimenting with Vyvanse to treat my, now extremely problematic, ADHD. Things started off rough. I've now found a dosage that works for me! I'm finally able to tackle problems that before seemed too boring, or dangerous. Addressing search here was a bit of both.
Search is Hard
I've known the search here sucked. I was relatively new to Python in early 2016 when I wrote it. Surfacing relevant search results is tricky and I just didn't know how to do it back then. I've known how to do it right for a while now, but search is kind of woven into the code all over the place and I knew it'd be a long and boring process to retrofit a better search. The code base for discchord is huge now, and it is a little dangerous for me to go poking around at fundamental portions of it. I was able to face both of these problems with patience!
I'm quite proud of the new search and hope it will be much more useful to you.
Android is Shit
Regular readers here will know that I hate Apple. In fact I strongly resisted buying an iPad because I was waiting for Android tablets to get their shit together. When Korg released iMS-20 I caved and bought an iPad 2. I'm glad I did or I'd still be waiting for Android to get its shit together. Despite my hopes, Android has not become a relevant platform for music makers. So I find it particularly galling when Google keeps fucking with the web scraping I use to include Android apps in the site's database.
I was pretty close to throwing in the towel after the last attempt to block me. I've updated the scraping again to bring Android support back in-line with iOS in the Music App Guide. This may be the last time I do so unless I hear from a lot of Android fans that actually care.
discchord is becoming self-aware!
I split the roll-out of this update into two stages, so that if something went wrong I would know where to begin bug hunting. I was keeping Twitter apprised of the situation and soliciting feedback on any bugs. After the Stage 2 post this morning, Audio Damage developer Chris Randall made a very prescient tweet.
Stage 3: Skynet, but for mobile music.
— Chris Randall (@Chris_Randall) January 24, 2020
There were also a lot of changes in the backend. They're not mentioned in these update notes because that would just be a wall of [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED]. One of these is a very early stage Machine Learning project I'm experimenting with on the site. I go through hundreds of YouTube videos every day, and I'm trying to train an AI model to help me do that. It isn't actually doing anything right now, but yes, Stage 3 is world domination.
User Suggestions
The last time I asked for user suggestions there was one idea that almost made it into v3.5.
Set Pagination in reverse so that people viewing page "995" always go back to the same page when they refresh. (Markus Gräser)
I like this idea a lot, but I want to get your feedback. I can see how this would be useful, but I'm worried that this is going to break something that I'm not thinking about. I use the site differently than you, so I'd like to hear what your thoughts are! If you have any other suggestions this is probably a place to post them.
And as always, please report bugs! Do not assume that I know about it. As far as I know the site is amazing and nothing is wrong. I can't fix problems unless you let me know about them.
Reader Comments 25
The one suggestion I would make would be for a responsive design. My stubborn refusal to upgrade my iPhone 6S and rapidly aging eyes means looking at Discchord on a phone involves a whole lot of zooming and scrolling! Frankly, it wouldn't need to be a "typical" phone design, if if the articles were just half the width that would be a lot easier to read.
One iPhone-related bug: On a computer, when on a Search page, pressing return on the keyboard will initiate the search. On the phone, pressing "Search" on the phone's keyboard doesn't work, you have to click the button on the site.
But stop, why I can't just say "sweet"?
The site claiming that "the comment is duplicate. Do you have something new to say"?
What version of iOS are you on? I just tested on my iPad and iPhone, with Safari and Chrome, and both worked as expected.
I know the site looks like shit on phones and I really want to do a responsive design. Unfortunately to do it right you need to first design for phones, and then expand that for iPads and desktop. You can try to go backwards, but the results tend to look very poor. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but there are some major sites in music tech space that are guilty of this. I am aware of this important need though!
Specifically so you can't just say "sweet" ... ;)
I guess I could let Patrons do it, but there is a philosophical reason behind preventing people from doing short comments. This is not directed at you, just some Old Man Internet philosophizing:
Back in the bad old days... Men were real men. Women were real women. And "brain-dead AOLers" were the bane of them all.
There was a period in the early public Internet where you would be hard pressed to find an idiot. Because of the scarcity of ISPs, and various economic and educational factors, most of the people conversing online were pretty smart and their conversations reflected that. You would have to go into a FidoNet's flamewars to find morons, and even then it was really smart people just acting stupid.
Then AOL gave their users access to the Internet and it all went downhill in a hurry. Suddenly message boards and chat rooms were flooded with comments that weren't actually contributing to the discussion. "Nice", "Me too!", "woah" just random inane comments that did nothing but act as speed bumps between the thoughtful comments.
The first time I saw #MeToo trending I thought they were making fun of AOLers, because "Me Too" was their most common input in any forum. It was so common, and so hated, that it even got a mention in a Weird Al song!
https://youtu.be/qpMvS1Q1sos
Once again, this is not directed at you. I'm just explaining why I put that limitation in there. I know it runs counter to modern Internet usage and etiquette. This is just me being old. If you'd like I can make it so that it ignores the restriction for Patrons.
Next step set up btcpayserver for donations :)
Thanks for all your hard work :)
Tested on iOS 13.3, 12.3.1, 8.3 (guess I like 3rd revisions), Safari and Chrome.
Eh, not "important", but would be nice. Like I said, if the columns were just half the width on the phones, tapping the text to fill the screen would be fine. It doesn't really need to be a typical, completely different design (frankly, I don't really like those).
Thanks for letting me know!
Regarding iPhone usage of the site:
Just making all of the text fields (including this too-wide edit field) a half or one quarter narrower would help with all the zooming and eye strain while reading on iPhones. Don’t even worry about an entire “responsive” redesign; just tweak it a bit overall.
I have no idea why certain text boxes on certain sites are even worse for Apple’s fucking shitty mobile Safari text handling, but the ones here are interfering with double tapping to select words in edit fields, for one example. It’s also utterly inconsistent.
And it seems that using the back button after posting comments still leaves extra page history states to travel through to go back.
But hey, I still like you and come here daily, so... :-)
There is an editorial process with ads, where I have to approve them. I actually really like some of them! The Beats N Bobs one gets the most complaints, but it's my favorite. I love the psychotic smiley face.
Though from a professional standpoint, I wish they were all as elegant as the new one for Continua.
Fortunately I've built a system that allows you to easily disable all ads! https://discchord.com/supporters
Please continue to rigorously monitor it’s effects, your reactions, and use. I have seen it work wonders. Most of the time.
My symptoms have gotten a lot worse over the last 15 years. I'm basically always in a hurried and hectic state. Now I can't even play video games in genres that I used to like, because I need constant excitement and activity. It can be hard to understand for people who don't suffer from this condition, but being bored is actually painful... and I bore fast. I used to read a lot as a kid, but I haven't been able to read a book in about 10 years. Passive media like watching movies, something I've always loved, has now become a chore. I seriously needed to seek treatment again.
Fortunately Vyvanse is basically the same chemical as Adderall, so it works for me, but it is much gentler. Adderall was a Square Wave, where you are ON and then you are OFF. Vyvanse is a gentle slow Sine Wave. Now I'm able to do things I haven't been able to do since I was a kid; like reading and meditating! The 20 minutes I spend every day meditating is now my favorite time of day! After decades of being frantic, it is such a relief to spend some time just being absolutely calm.
You have my sympathizes man. I seriously hate all of the drugs that screw with serotonin. I had to go through a few of those with my shrink when we were trying to address my anxiety.
I've written passionately about the classical music riots, because of my experience coming off SSRIs. I absolutely understand that overwhelming hatred for everything that you feel when your serotonin is going bat shit.
https://discchord.com/appnews/2019/01/04/mqtldb-nucleic-acid-analysis-iii
I fixed it! This was a tricky one to figure out. I wrote most of the code for discchord back in 2016, and I'm getting old so I don't remember half of it. I could see that I had made an attempt to solve this problem before. And I guess it worked for a while? But it seems to have stopped working and I couldn't figure out why. I tried searching around to see if anyone else had a solution and they were all suggesting using the old method that stopped working.
I had to come up with an entirely different solution over the last couple of days, but I got there! I know how annoying it is when I'm on sites that don't actually do the thing when you press the "Search" or "Submit" button on the iOS keyboard. discchord: Now 0.5% less annoying!
Fantastic! Tested and verified working on my phone.
Yeah, I know. Sorry, Tim, but I live off of SSD and SNAP. It’s hard enough to even hold on to extra money for my music hobby, which is a life-enhancer and may be one thing keeping me from jumping in front of a train. I’ve been sitting on a number of project purchases because I just can’t put priority on ANY ONE THING. It results in basically eating the money or paying some new surprise bill with it (I love my cats, and I’m fulfilling my responsibilities toward them, but I hate having cats anymore).
Ha ha, the cats are part of the stress. Elderly cats. Two antithyroid pills a day per cat. Puke cleanup. One cat thinks the litter boxes cause his constipation... I love ‘em and will fulfill my responsibilities to them, but I won’t do pets again.