Following on from last weeks update to the way file search and category results are displayed we’ve patched in a few fixes and added a few more features based on user feedback. Perhaps most important, and worthy of being outside of the bulleted list below is the fact we’ve coded in some rudimentary browser back button functionality to the AJAX on the site.

The problem is thus; most browsers’ page history and back log are dictated by page reloads. Each time you visit or reload a new page it’s recorded in the browser history, and if you press the back button on your mouse/keyboard/browser you’ll go back to the last page you visited. Because we present a lot of the content on the site to you through AJAX, which is seamless and doesn’t require a page load, the browser’s history doesn’t record your button presses or remember what you were looking at before, and will instead take you back to the last page you visited. So if you search for “Weapons” in the file search, navigate to page 10, click on a mod you like the look of and then try to go back in your browser it’ll take you back to the default file search page, and not page 10 of your search for weapons. Of course, the simple fix for this is to just embrace tabbed browsing and simply open mods you’re interested in via a new tab (ctrl+click, middle-click or right-click a link and select “open in new tab”). It’s not a new concept, it’s been around for a very many years, but it seems quite a few people haven’t quite caught up with modern browsing methods yet and have complained about this to me.

As such we’ve coded in some simple browser history fixes to the sites so that your browser will remember every link you click, AJAX or not, and take you back through every click and not just page reloads. Now if you browse pages 2, 3, 4 and 5 in a category and then click the back button your browser will take you back through those pages, rather than back to the start. Similarly if you’re on a file page and click the images tab, comments tab and files tab clicking the back button will take you back through the tabs you just clicked on.

On top of that change we’ve also made quite a few fixes and updates. Here’s the current list of changes.

• [Feature] Mod authors can now write out an explanation for why they’ve hidden their mod page from view which can be seen by users trying to access their file page, rather than the default “This file page has been hidden by the author” message
• [Feature] Changed the way you can add change logs for your file by providing the option of using one large text area for easy copy and pasting of content from a pre-written change log or readme file
• [Feature] Added the ability to sort by name to the list of sort by filters
• [Feature] Files marked “adult-only” will now feature on category/search result pages in the “Feature files” section if the user has adult-only content turned on. You won’t see adult-only files in the featured images if it’s turned off or you’re not logged in
• [Feature] Banned members are now informed of why they were banned when trying to login and provided with a link to our rules and unban request form, rather than just being told they’re banned with no explanation
• [Fix] Removed the links to “Advanced search” as the advanced search options are now incorporated in to the new search page as standard
• [Fix] Changed the way hot files/featured images works so that cropping your image doesn’t also crop the thumbnail for that image. This fix is not retrospective, so if you have an image thumbnail that has been cropped you’ll have to delete it and re-upload it
• [Fix] Trimmed all file page names that started with a space which was making the alphabetical sorting look odd. You can no longer add a space to the start of your file name
• [Fix] Fixed the search button so it once again automatically selects the textfield rather than requiring you to do another mouse click
• [Fix] Fixed an issue with the pagination not working on searches done with more than 1 word
• [Fix] Tracked files tab on the front page is now working again
• [Fix] Fixed an issue with the site news archive pagination not working past the first page
• [Fix] Fixed an issue when clicking the “Download (Manual)” button on file pages highlighting the “Articles” tab rather than the “Files” tab if the author has written articles for the file