Current state of things
Hi Everyone,
I'm so amazed at this insane loyal userbase. It's so heartwarming to have built something that others continue to enjoy for years and years!
I would like to give everyone an update on the future of followmy.tv. In short, it's not going away, ever. This is my passion product and I will continue to keep it up in the air to the best of my capabilities.
As everyone knows by now, the current UI is very outdated and there haven't been any new features added in over 5 years. With the exception of the contribution system. The reason is that I have been working for the last 5 years on a new version. but due to the sheer size of this website and it's complex social business logic, it's a very big task to do as a single engineer.
To give you some history:
- The current live production version is running the CakePHP 1.3 framework.
- CakePHP 2.x was released and Jasper and I started an effort to migrate the website to 2.x.
- Jasper also started working on a brand new front-end UI which was going to be amazing.
- Then life happened, I started an immigration process to the United States and both Jasper and I kinda lost interest in TV Shows and generally building apps in our free time.
- We both were working full time and eventually CakePHP 3.x came around. Again a new version we had to migrate this huge application to. sigh..
- I finalized my move to the US and Jasper officially left the team. The core team went from 2 to 1.
- Several years went on where I started focussing on personal health and other life events that were more important.
During all these years when I had some downtime to work on followmy.tv, it was mostly dedicated to maintaining data request, fixing issues. There was no time left in building the new version and the efforts kinda fizzled out. The whole tvrage.com outage was a disaster that almost destroyed followmy.tv.
As for the future, the good news is that I started moving the entire codebase again to a more modern language with a better database engine. I've also started work on a brand new front-end that uses React.JS. I'm also developing the API side-by-side the web app.
In a new effort to get the new version out. I decided to from now on, to no longer add new features to the current live followmy.tv version. I will also be more strict in moderating the new show addition request, only tv shows that are from the major networks will be considered.
I'm doing this so I will have more free time to actually build a better version of the website you all love so much. I want this to be a success, I want to build new cool features for all of you, I want to have the API in place so we can finally move into the mobile app space.
I work full time, so the only thing I ask from this community is to have patience :-). I'm working on a new version. I don't know yet when it will be launched, but when it does, it will be fantastic!
This is the best thing I've built in my life. And I'm especially thankful to all the members that consistently provide feedback, submit show suggestions, and contribute to all the show, episode pages. Followmy.tv wouldn't be what it is today without all of you!
Best, Sarah (Lemon)
Comments
@Elgianne That has been on the site since 2010: http://followmy.tv/shows/1022/America_s_Got_Talent
Thank you. Can we get America’s Got Talent added? It’s on NBC :)
@Lemon I love this platform, and Im so glad you say that this will never end. I'm a developer and I would be amazed if I could help in any way.
@Lemon Brilliant. That's great news. Thanks for the hard work.
@ForgotMyLines Yeah, I've also added some smarter tools on the review side of things to speed it all up. I knocked down the 200+ backlog to about 40.
Was just able to add 2 TV shows for review, so looks like the Contribute System has been fixed. Thank you @Lemon!!
@Saxo I'm definitely not stringing you along. Currently, I'm updating the old code base to use the newly built v2 API which will also be feeding into the mobile apps.
Whaaaaaat I've been using this site for years and it's all run by one personnnnnnnnnnnn.
That's dedication.
Just joined and I thank you very much for this wonderful site. It’s very well done and it shows your passion!
@ForgotMyLines There hasn't been a single update since January. I feel like she's just dragging it out tbh and stringing us along.
Have you considered putting the code on github or similar so people can contribute?
Please add loads of shows that we can't add, coz the feature no longer works.
Please add Evil Genius https://www.thetvdb.com/series/347033
So grateful for followmy.tv. Thank you, Sarah (Lemon). There is a fanbase who truly admires all your hard work and hope you can be proud of yourself and enjoy the journey this project is on. Looking forward to seeing what the future brings and busy keeping up with TVshows in the meantime. Thank you again!
Still not working, anyone able to add new shows? And if so, how do we do it now the TVDB site has changed?
@ForgotMyLines Yes.
Since TVDB has updated their website, it says the URL is incomplete when trying to add a show to here. Is anyone else having this issue?
Thank you so much for your great work!
Fucking Jasper! :D
I'm so happy this site is getting some new love, it really deserves it. However I do have a request. I've been a member almost 6 years and have a lot of history invested in this site. It's been a home to my watch list for all this time. While I know you are working on updates for the site, these updates have been in the work for years, and I'm missing some features or shows to track which others are offering. Sadly there is no export history option, which I would love as my history is currently locked here. Hope you understand.