Current state of things

By Lemon - Jan 29, 2018

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As everyone knows by now, the current UI is very outdated and there haven't been any new features added in over 5 years.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

nimbostratus
nimbostratus (Sep 24, 2022)

Hi @Lemon do you have PayPal for one off donations? I can’t commit to monthly but want to support the site.

AucT
AucT (Aug 13, 2022)

@Lemon please read previous comment.
Also I have idea: make user groups.
For example I create pretty little liars lovers group and invite people or receive invites. And we party hard on the forums

AucT
AucT (May 18, 2022)

Can you make your website mobile friendly. Add some media queries, etc.

PippoInzaghi
PippoInzaghi (May 04, 2021)

@lemon when can we expect new show approvals? grtz

PippoInzaghi
PippoInzaghi (Feb 23, 2021)

@Lemon thanks for the approvals

Lemon
Lemon (Feb 22, 2021)

@PippoInzaghi Can you share a link to the page you are trying to add?

PippoInzaghi
PippoInzaghi (Feb 11, 2021)

Auto rejected by system. Missing IMDb ID, please re-submit the show after you've added the missing IMDb ID. WHERE DO I ADD THE ID? They all have IMDB links on their TVDB page

PippoInzaghi
PippoInzaghi (Feb 11, 2021)

@lemon Please delete the auto rejection IMDB thing. Even series with imbd link are getting rejected every time

mandyedi
mandyedi (Sep 11, 2020)

Hi @Lemon,
I would like to participate in the development, if it is possible? :)
There was a Followmy.tv DEV Google group but it has been inactive for years.
I hope everything is going well!
Wish you all the best!

PippoInzaghi
PippoInzaghi (Dec 27, 2019)

Flagged - Admin Review

Sometimes our automated import systems fail to load the URL or any of the required API calls. Flagged submissions require a manual review by one of our developers. DOES THIS WEBSITE HAVE AN ADMIN?

BertDenolf
BertDenolf (Dec 05, 2019)

@PippoInzaghi

I have the same problem, for months now. Please try to fix this @lemon.

PippoInzaghi
PippoInzaghi (Nov 19, 2019)

I keep getting that 'Auto rejected by system. Missing IMDb ID, please re-submit the show after you've added the missing IMDb ID.' - message. Very annoying

ForgotMyLines (Sep 08, 2019)

Thank you so much @lemon! Look at all the shows!!!!! EEEEEK!!!!!

Foaman
Foaman (Sep 07, 2019)

@Lemon Its totally understandable, just wish you would let some of us loyal users help around a bit :), my previous suggestion still stands, we would love to see this website grow and thrive much more, there are so many different websites that tracks tv shows out there with lots of bells and whistles but followmy.tv just always feels like home to me (along with myepisodes, been using it for much longer)

Wish you all the best our dearest Lemon.

Lemon
Lemon (Sep 07, 2019)

@foaman, I moved jobs and cities so I was a bit MIA the last couple of months. My apologies!

Hopefully soon, things relax a bit in my personal life and be able to work more on followmy.tv

Foaman
Foaman (Sep 07, 2019)

@Lemon THANK YOU for coming back to us... Please don't leave us ever again, please xD

PippoInzaghi
PippoInzaghi (Aug 31, 2019)
ForgotMyLines (Aug 30, 2019)

Someone approve the shows! We have done the bit you asked us to do. Just log on and approve them! There are so many!! This is getting pathetic.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Support us with a donation

Your contribution helps us keep the site running and improving. Thank you! πŸ™

All your donations will go go directy to the development of followmy.tv.

You can also do a single donation via PayPal if you prefer that over Patreon 😊