Prankcast

In your content settings you can now see a barebones stats visualization of your listener performance over time. I'll add some additional stats to this as well. Thank you to @mrbiggs for the suggestion.

To access it please visit the Content Tab in your settings:
https://prankcast.com/app/settings/content?panel=broadcaststats#broadcaststats

then open the Broadcast Stats section

It is limited to the the most recent broadcasts for now, but I'll add pagination in the next incremental update to let you go further back in time.

I have replaced the underlying component that we used to play live broadcasts with a new streamlined one. There is no visual indication of changes, but the new one has allowed the following updates:

• Active listener numbers and listening members list update in real time during broadcasts. They are now using websockets instead of database calls, similar to how web chat works. On that note, the listening tab during live broadcasts is now restored.

• There should no longer be conflicts on Android devices when other device audio plays while you're listening to a stream. This is not thoroughly tested across all devices, so please let me know if you run into issues.
  EDIT: I had to roll back this part of this update due to some other issues popping up with Android devices.

Misc fixes

• Added a timer to the chat screen, even when the broadcast isn't being played.
• fixed test mode bug in web broadcaster app (thanks @mrbiggs).
• updated site to use latest version of react and node for better security.
• some other minor bugs…

• Temporarily disabling the listening tab list
  This is the tab that shows up in the chatroom during active broadcasts.
  It's showing cached member information instead of realtime information. It will temporarily just show the list of current chatters when you click on it.

• Listener counts are displaying lower than actual numbers
  Some browsers aren't pinging the server to update that they are still connected (even though they are). For now assume the number of listeners is at least the number in chat, plus 10-30% on average.

Hopefully this will be fixed this weekend. I'm looking into adapting a completely new player that should have way more control on my end.

• chat panels should no longer open by default when the homepage avatar is clicked on mobile
• Live player will not show "Loading" when playing.
• links in chat to prankcast.com will not trigger the "visiting a link outside of Prankcast alert" (thanks @synthead)
• cleaned up 404 error / missing profile pages a bit
• fixed podcast links (thanks @synthead)
• directory page is now pageless.
• staff activity in settings is now pageless.
• chat emoji size is a little bigger
• updated site favicons with the new logo
  
• updated discord with the new logo
• added joineversary posts to profiles so empty profiles have at least one (removable) post as a default state.
• other minor changes

That is all. I'll prettify them this weekend so they match the new chat layout.

I think that was the last major bug from the transition to the new site.

edit: lol spoke too soon. I see that short posts sometimes display an "expand" button unnecessarily

HUGE update representing months of work. This update has taken major steps to simplify the site and provide a better experience for all, listeners and hosts alike.

Before diving into the update, I owe a huge thanks to:

• @Criefaux for going above and beyond in testing the new features and giving feedback.
• @Riddle for helping with some of the security testing, performance testing and some of the chat regexp!
• everyone else who tested the new prankcast chat and site the last couple of weeks!

Posts are now ready

• Posts are a combination of showreels, uploaded audio clips, text updates, images, and anything else you want to share with your followers or let you promote yourself to new audiences.
• You can even use them to update your listeners if there's a change made to your show schedule.
• You can control if they are public on the homepage (useful for promotion) or private on your profile (useful for updating your followers).
• Users can comment on and like them.
• Audio files be downloaded in a simpler way.
• Search is integrated with Post content as well (no transcriptions yet).
• You can follow all post authors directly from Posts.

New Homepage

• Combined upcoming schedules and live shows into one single view.
• This live show view is sticky as you scroll on desktop.
• Posts are now front and center. You can also search for specific posts.
• You can see Hot (this is currently based on currently featured broadcasters, but will be changing to be algorithmic soon), All (everyone sorted by recency), and For Me (broadcasters I follow).
• There's also an Audio only view, so you can get directly to the good soundwave stuff with less clutter.
• The list of featured broadcasters has been moved to the Directory page.

New User Profile Pages

• Like the homepage, this page has also been changed to emphasize Posts.
• There's also an Audio only view, so you can get directly to the good stuff with less clutter.
• Podcasts will now incorporate all audio posts, including Showreels and any uploaded clips.
• If you use a feedreader, there's now an RSS view for all posts as well, separate from the podcast rss feed.
• User schedule pages and Youtube Clips pages have been removed. The schedule is now incorporated into the sidebar. I might make it import YouTube videos and turn them into posts, but am undecided on this.
• Broadcasters: Upload some audio clips to your profile page to show people who follow you what you're all about so they are more likely to subscribe to your notifications.
• Follower management (eg. requests for private profiles) has been moved to Profile Settings. You can also now assign mods to help you manage Follow requests.

Chat v4 is live

• Completely overhauled for the fourth and hopefully final time.
• The layout is way more intuitive and more responsive on both desktop and mobile. Open the panels to see the chat options
• I fixed a bunch of issues that caused lag and battery drain on slower devices.
• You can now reply to all messages directly, and maintain a link to those messages.
• While I was at it, I built this in such a way that we can add direct messages between users next.
• You can see a list of active listeners during broadcasts. [Note this list may be buggy]
• new test-only feature - if you send a video live stream to YouTube, you can embed the video in chat (desktop only). If you want to use this feature, let me know.
• Name your bot in the chat settings. It now appears in the chat list (when activated).
• You can toggle different image types in chat (eg. allow gifs, but disallow drawings).

RIP Light mode

• The site is now all Dark mode all the time. There's no more dark mode toggle either. This means so much less design work to support and test. I should have done this last year.

Directory

• This is now infinitely scrollable instead of paged.
• The default view is by last broadcast.

Contributor-only features

• some features are now gated as contributor only. All of this is subject to change as I try out some things and see how it feels.
• Now that posts are finally live, my next major focus will be nailing down the final business model for BoredKatz in general (not just Prankcast) and migrating away from Patreon.
• if there is a contributor-only feature you currently need and you cannot afford to become a contributor, dm @milkbox on Discord or email support@prankcast.com privately.

Misc Fixes

• literally 100+ other line items. This was getting long, so I'm just going to leave out the tiny fixes.
• Thanks for reading. If you made it this far, post "parcheezi" in the comments below so I can give you a high five.

Canaries hatched since the last update: 0