STATUS UPDATE!!

Working on the new design today again, decided to give it another go.

Another milestone has been achieved. I completed the first phase of the new visual editor which is really nice. Before I move forward with more back-end stuff, I'm going to spend some time prototyping new web designs that might be trendy in 2022 or 2023. Since the new system is fully modula in the sense that I just need to include one piece of code with the config options of the module, it means that I can easily release one section after another once the design and related modules are complete. Like I mentioned before, each module was built independently so there was a lot of repeating code but not anymore.

I completed a big deal of stuff for the back-end and am now playing with the front-end stuff. Right now I'm making a word processor from scratch and it's quite nice. I also borrowed the keyboard shortcuts from MS word to bold, underline, center text etc...

Update:

I came back because I had some information to share.

First, sorry for ghosting but the truth is, this project has been a burden to me for many years. It's one of those things where it's difficult to do on your own and no matter how much you try to catch up with technology, it's just impossible to keep up and make it as big as it is and available to everyone (PC/Mobile/etc). But this isn't the only reason why it's a burden, it's the anime community and the hate that goes on within and outside of it that irks me to no end.

In recent times, I've seen several people trying to improve the J-community only to be doxxed and hated on, with false information being spread about them etc... It angers me to see them go from being passionate at helping people to going offline entirely. The anime community itself is full of self-hate, people hate each other so much and it keeps getting worse. People need to take a step back and accept that one person may like one genre more than another or can't enjoy one particular anime or idol group and that's okay. There's no need to create a discord strictly to make those people who you disagree with a living nightmare. That's a horrible way to live.

Since the people coming to Jappleng generally has a big interest in anime, what does that mean about the future of the project? Will it also be a host for this type of behavior?  I would hope not, but how can I prevent it? Create a safe, enjoyable place where people can explore and enjoy the different parts of Japan together is my end-goal but I had to take a break. Mentally it was exhausting in more than one way and I was ready to just delete the whole project and not look back after I saw post after post on Twitter of the anime community going absolutely nuts over heresay of certain invididuals and Japan's lack of PC culture.

I did what any reasonable person would do and take a step back and work on mental health. The first step is to move away from everything that upsets you and for me it was Japanese things. I took months to look away and try to rekindle my love for Japan and regain hope for the J-community and while I was doing this, I was also working on a completely new system to power Jappleng and other projects I am working on.

This new system was built from the ground-up and I have just reached a great milestone. In a couple of weeks I will be done the foundational work with it and be able to move to the next stage. Previously every task had its own function, there was no centralized code so that meant I would duplicate everything by hand on everything that had to be done. Now I use namespaces which in programming terms means "beautiful". To put it simply, once I am done in a couple of weeks with this new system, I could create new sections in mere minutes to hours and new features can be added in minutes to days. No more will it take a month to release one thing or another.

I have also been in the works for new chat technology which is socket based and uses significantly less hardware on the server, it's super smooth for the users, and it can support voice and video should I enable it. I'll be working on a  new social network technology that will avoid using a tremendous amount of resources and the feeds will "just work" to quote Todd Howard.

There will also be the possibility for users to create courses, lessons etc... There will be a degree of public moderation as well, and of course the website design will be entirely different. The bugs you encounter today won't exist in this new version of Jappleng.

I'll continue to avoid Twitter/Discord/Jappleng for the most part until I'm done, except there will be a moderator to keep the site clean wherever possible. Once again, I'm sorry about what I did but I had to do it for my own mental health. I wish those who got attacked the best in their next endevors, and I hope that one day Jappleng can be a great hit while maintaining its integrity. I'll be back when I'm done.