Mobile Site v2.0 is Live! August 29th, 2016

While the desktop version of The Beer Cellar was recently revamped, the mobile experience was still in sore need of attention. To that end, I am happy to announce that mobile version 2.0 of the site is now live! To access the new version of the site, just visit https://www.beercellar.me on your mobile device.

The new mobile site now more closely matches the desktop aesthetic and experience. A number of mobile-specific quirks and issues have been remedied, and there is greater feature parity between the desktop and mobile sites. Specifically, the following areas have been enhanced or added:

  • Sorting and filtering options on mobile have been improved substantially. In addition to Style filtering, Location filtering has also been added for those who utilize storage locations.
  • Storage Location management and functionality is now more fully supported on the mobile site. You can enable storage locations, add and delete locations, and assign those locations to cellar entries as desired (and then sort by those locations in the main cellar interface).
  • The site visuals have been updated to match v2.0 of the desktop site, and most of the mobile site's code and styling have been been refactored. This is a big update that touches most areas of the site.


       

    

I hope you enjoy the updated site! It underwent a period of beta testing before going live, but I still expect there to be a few bugs here or there, so if you encounter any issues please get in touch with me. You can email me, send me an in-site message, or hit me up on Twitter. Cheers!

New Mobile Site Ready for Beta Testing August 22nd, 2016

After a couple months of work on and off, a revised and much improved version of the mobile site is ready for testing! I've implemented an almost complete rewrite of the mobile-specific code, ditching jQuery Mobile and its quirks for an overhauled aesthetic and functional experience. The mobile version now more closely matches the 2.0 re-design, many irregular behaviors specific to mobile have been corrected, and in general there should be greater feature parity as compared to the desktop version of the site.

       

Before this new version goes live, however, I need your help! Specifically, I'm looking for folks willing to spend a little time in a beta, sandboxed environment in order to work out whatever bugs and kinks might be present. I expect at least a few given the scope of this overhaul, so your assistance and feedback are greatly appreciated.

The beta period has ended and the new mobile site is now live. Thanks to everyone who helped test!

A few important things to keep in mind while testing:

  • The beta site is not linked to the live site data, meaning any changes you make to your cellar in the beta environment wont affect your actual cellar data on the live site. As such, I encourage folks to go nuts when testing! Add and manage beers, drink and delete beers, alter your cellar interface settings, send messages, etc. None of it will affect anything outside the beta environment.
  • Updated 8/25: Storage Locations can now be added and deleted via the mobile site. For now, editing of existing Storage Location names is only available on the desktop site, and it will remain this way for at least the initial release.
  • As this test is meant to root out any issues prior to the live launch, please report any bugs or problems you encounter! You can reach me via email at josh@beercellar.me, with an in-site message, or hit me up on Twitter. Please include the type of mobile device you're testing with and your current OS version when making reports, if possible.
Thanks in advance for your help! I'm really looking forward to pushing this work live, and hopefully that will be able to happen in the next week or two. I'll post another update as we near the live launch of the new mobile site, and in the meantime, cheers!
Beer Graphing Fun Time! May 13th, 2016

After finishing up the recent flurry of activity and taking a couple weeks off from serious site development, I decided to ease back into things with a "fun" feature addition: Consumption Graphing! Available via the Consumed area in anyone's cellar (see the new "View Graphs" button in the header), these charts are a preliminary pass at illustrating your consumption habits and history visually.

Click the above button in your Consumed area to display the charts below.

For now I'm featuring the two graphs above, Beers Consumed and Styles Covered. Graphs can be viewed on a per-year basis for every year you've been a member of the site, and graph values provide more information on hover. The Consumed graph charts your per-month bottle consumption for the specified year, while the Styles graph shows the styles represented by the bottles consumed in that year. In addition, some extra data is displayed alongside each graph, such as the total volume of beer consumed or your favorite style that year.

You'll also notice a new "Share" button on the Graphs page with an informative tooltip. As is also possible with the Cellar and Consumption History pages, all you need to do to share the new Graphs page is copy the URL and share it with whomever you'd like! As long as your cellar isn't marked as private, anyone can access this new area for any existing cellar.

I have some ideas for further graphing, e.g., total cellar size over time, brewery representation breakdown, and possibly some trade-related graphing, but I'm happy with this simple presentation for round one. If you notice any issues or have any suggestions, please feel free to let me know, as always. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this new way to view your consumption habits!

Minor Mobile Updates April 26th, 2016

A few mobile updates to increase parity with the desktop app, along with some other changes.

  • Added new account settings (Hide In Fridge, Enable Location Column) with appropriate messaging to mobile Account Settings page
  • Added account email and password change features to mobile version
  • Added Location display and management to mobile view/manage entry pages
  • On desktop, Bottle Date and Drink By fields are now masked with YYYY-MM-DD. Hyphens will now be automatically inserted as you type, and the fields will enforce proper formatting of inputted dates
  • Fixed styling for Recover Password page
  • Fixed bug around Messages and latest activity recording
And that's that! Still have a big mobile revamp and a new trading infrastructure planned, both of which I hope to launch in the next few months. Stay tuned.
New Feature: Storage Locations April 23rd, 2016

Since giving users the ability to disable the In Fridge column in their cellars, I've been wondering about how to utilize the extra horizontal space that doing so opens up. To that end, I'm introducing customizable storage locations as a new, optional column.


I expect the vast majority of users will continue to use the normal In Cellar and In Fridge column setup, but for those who desire a more granular way to organize their beer, the new Location column should fit the bill. To use the new column, you must do the following:

  • Disable the In Fridge column in the My Account area (if you do so, please mind the prompts and understand that this will combine any existing In Fridge counts with their corresponding In Cellar counts)
  • Enable the Location column in the My Account area

Locations are user-definable and can be up to 20 characters long. You can create as many storage locations as you'd like, or edit existing location names, under the new Storage Location tab in the My Account area. You'll notice the My Account area has also received a bit of a makeover in order to accommodate the increasing number of account options.


Once enabled, and after creating some locations, you will be able to manage locations on existing beers using the inline management pane in your cellar. You'll also be able to specify a location when adding new beers to your cellar. As pictured above, you can effectively emulate the In Fridge column using this functionality, as well as specify any number of other custom locations depending on your cellaring situation.

The Location column is also supported via the Import process. It is optional, and I've added language to indicate that it will only be displayed if the proper account settings are in place. That said, even if you decide to hide the Location column after using it, you will never lose location assignments—they will simply not be visible. The same goes for importing location assignments, even if you're not displaying them.

This is a first pass at this feature, and I will likely enhance functionality in the future. As always, if you notice any issues or bugs, please let me know. Specifically, I made some changes around the cellar styling that should actually decrease loading time, but they might cause some display weirdness depending on your browser or resolution.

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