[X] My Assistant

[Zerxer]

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! However, as most of you likely know, today is an especially special day for us. Today we celebrate the day GPX+ first opened to the public, back in 2009.

Back when it first opened, we didn't have a lot of what we have now. We didn't have the Pokétch, which is now the central hub for a lot of the different sections. We didn't have the Safari, as Pokémon and eggs were together in the same Shelter. We didn't have Trinkets, Explorations, or the Battle Tower, or over half the other features you now have on your Pokétch. We basically had the lab, shelter, dex, PC, daycare, party, journal, shop, and pal pad.

February 2009: Lab - Stats snapshot

On our first year anniversary, in 2010, we introduced an updated design, which is what you're used to today. We still didn't have a lot of the stuff we have now, but we did have more, including the Pokétch.

Last year's anniversary did not introduce any new dramatic changes, but this year we are aiming to bring a fresh new look. Over the last couple of weeks, Jeff and I have been hard at work on a completely new design. It is not yet complete, so you will still have to wait awhile longer, but later on today we will be showing off a few screenshots. The overall design is basically done, but the different pages/sections are not yet renovated.

One of the biggest updates is that the Pokétch will no longer exist as its own page. Instead, the tabbed sections will be available from any page you're on, as they are built in to the layout itself. The same is true for other information that was originally on your Pokétch, such as your public URL, affinity, name, points/pass orbs/rank, and the area you update your status. These have all been moved to the top of the new design. The Pokétch page has been renamed to simply be the Main page and will have only your Party and Journal (as of now, subject to change).

The PC page has finally gotten an update as well, so that you can manage all your Pokémon no matter what section they're currently in (Party, Daycare, Poké Walker, Vs. Seeker, Mobile Walker, Battle Tower). The search area has been destroyed and replaced with something that fits in more nicely with the page and will be more easily expanded with new filters (IV searching, for instance). Other general page design changes have been made. It will also auto-save after you make changes, and the back-end saving has been completely redone to be more simplistic. Your PC boxes will still function the same, though.

Most of the other sections will be getting revamped too, we just haven't gotten to them all yet. We've also gotten all new artwork, both for the Lab and for other sections. Professor Cypress will finally have a fresh new design, courtesy of GPX+ user Different Turret (though some of you may know her as the admin behind VDex).

Ready to see screenshots? Sorry, you'll have to wait until later today. Later this afternoon, we will have a page up with the screenshots. However, we aren't just going to give them to you! They will be blurred out. They will unblur over time as our Facebook page gets more "Likes". Also, before we reveal the page in the afternoon, our Facebook page must have at least 550 likes. So if you haven't done so yet, and you have a Facebook account, go like it! And be sure to share it with your friends.

Also in honor of today, we will be having a 3.0 multiplier. So go show some Valentine's love to all those hungry Pokémon and cold eggs! But don't forget about your loved ones; give them a hug, a kiss, some candy and flowers, and then get back here to click.



And of course a special and personal Happy Valentine's Day to my Jen.

Here are some screen shots of the new site:
http://gpxplus.net/files/new/lab.php - Lab
http://gpxplus.net/files/new/skins.php - skins
http://gpxplus.net/files/new/mobile.php - mobile site design updates
http://gpxplus.net/files/new/pc.php - PC
http://c.jslater.ca/1w1P1I3X3A2y1T0T253A - Shelter
http://c.jslater.ca/2e2u0q1J2w2i2c2J213h - Daycare/Poketch Tabs
http://c.jslater.ca/0e1v2a2M2Q1g2D153x2f - Users list
http://c.jslater.ca/1W013t0h2f053s1J0d0T - Pokemon pages
http://c.jslater.ca/0a161L3J2N2u2w1X0c2c - Party page

There isn't a whole lot changed here in terms of functionality; it's more been a matter of tidying up the top area of the page with all the options, as it's a bit of a mess as it is right now, than anything. Now, it's much more condensed and easier to look at. We've created custom selection boxes, like the one that you see for choosing which types of links to open, that'll be used across the site in place of other means for choosing options (such as the options dropdowns for Pokemon in your party, Daycare, Battle Tower, and so on).

The navigation is now entirely AJAX-based as well, so switching through pages and the like won't require a full page reload, and will just require the new content be loaded right in to the page. You'll notice two other things if you look closely - one, if you look at my status, you'll see that we've added a new option for your current Exploration step to be automagically appended to your status, as that seems to be a popular thing to put in your status.

The second, will be the option to open Pokemon in the 'Berry Feeder,' as opposed to in new windows, as it is now. For those of you who use the mobile site, you'll be familiar with how this works - rather than opening any number of Pokemon at the same time, you'll be able to fetch a batch of Pokemon, and cycle through them one-at-a-time. While I don't expect that this will necessarily be faster than opening many Pokemon at once and clicking them the way it's done now, I'm sure it'll be more manageable for people on slower computers and what not, yup yup.

Here's a look at the new Pokemon info pages, and the ways we've improved clicking on the new site: http://c.jslater.ca/1W013t0h2f053s1J0d0T

As you can see by the screen shot, there are a number of new additions and tweaks to the page. Overall, it's a lot more condensed, with the two left bars being one now (with some redundant info, such as the pervious owners, removed), and the timeline now in a vertical (and scrollable, for longer ones) area on the right-hand side. Starting yesterday afternoon, we've been logging more info about what happens to your Pokemon, to display on their pages; now, it'll log each evolution/form change/corruption, every time another user obtains it (and how, as well), when they're sent to and return from the underground, and when they reach level 100. A lot of this data can't be generated retroactively, but it'll all be available moving forward.

For hatched Pokemon, their age (the time since they were hatched) will now be displayed, and for Pokemon from site-wide shiny hunts and shiny races, it'll be indicated that that's how they were obtained, with a link to the site-wide hunt page, or the opponent in the race's profile.

I've spent a while trimming down the size of the page as well; due to improvements in the site as a whole, and to the page itself, and combined with the reduced layout that's displayed while clicking, pages are as little as a third the size of what they are now, and load as much as twice as quickly in the latest version of Chrome. Combined with the new Berry Feeder (as explained in the previous update), it should be significantly easier for users on slower computers to get through larger amounts of interactions, yup yup.

Here's the new Party page: http://c.jslater.ca/0a161L3J2N2u2w1X0c2c
Overall, there isn't a whole lot different; it still does everything it did before, though there are a few tweaks that make it easier to use - all of the party actions are now all laid out as buttons instead of in a drop down, so it's bit quicker to do now; you can now lock Pokemon to your party, to prevent these options from affecting them, and for reorganizing your party, you can now just drag and drop the entire 'card,' as opposed to a tiny icon in the corner, so it's a bit easier to do (however, this isn't supported in Opera at all anymore, since, in order to make the site faster, we've removed the framework previously for drag & drop functionality, since every browser except it supports this natively, and has for years - but they're supposed to be adding this in the next version, at any rate). You'll also be able to post your Pokemon to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Reddit and Pinterest, and since it wouldn't be possible to accumulate 'views' there, your Pokemon will instead gain experience every time someone clicks one of your shared links. There is one small 'surprise' you'll notice when you actually view the page, but I won't say anything more about this for now, yup yup.

Note that we don't have any ETA at the moment on when this will be released in any capacity, but we'll have more info as we progress further with it.

This post has been edited by Big Bidoof: Mar 22 2012, 08:46 PM