Website Development | Changelog

In this thread you can follow the website development and changes we made. The changelog starts from today, December 10th. To see previous changes, you may need to go to our dedicated changelog page.

Attention: Minor Changes will not be listed. Only big updates will be announced.

• Launched forums again. You can login with your Flightsim.to credentials!
• Forums are replacing Discussions on the website.
• Developers can now create a thread on this forum and attach it to their file by providing the link.
• Only username, email and password are shared between website and forum. Other information such as profile avatars, covers, posts or conversations are independent of the website.

General

• Added the Featured tab for sceneries and liveries, featuring most trending items in these categories.
• Redesigned the structure of the files page, the download button is now shown right to the image gallery.

Profiles

• Launched a new profile design. It is more structured and clear and contains further information of your activity. For example, you can now also see who you are following and others can see which files you liked. Because of the design change we had to revise the profile descriptions as they no longer allow HTML content. Please adjust this if necessary!
• You can now also setup more information for your profile. For example, you can add your own Website Link, a GitHub Link and your Bitcoin Wallet address via your account settings page.

Karma and Levels

• Collect Karma to level up in ranks. There are currently 13 Levels - starting from Trainee to General, which require a certain amount of Karma points. Check out the Karma Leaderboards and requirements here. Here is a list for what you can currently earn Karma.
• Your current level is also displayed on your profile.

Coming next

• The Karma system is just a first draft. We plan to link the system to both on our forum and Discord server in future, so all three platforms will share the same level and points. Furthermore we plan to introduce Badges in January 2021. You will be able to collect dozens of badges for your profile by fulfilling different criteria and actions on the site - and for each badge you get, you also earn Karma.

🍺 Quite a few Changes and Updates

What a busy week for all of us! Luckily, the weekend near. Here are some news about what has changed on Flightsim.to in the last few days. Quite something.

• File Dependencies and FAQ
• File Discussions
• Block Users
• Progress on Requests
• In Progress Page
• Text Editor Adjustments
• New Categories
• New Help Desk and Live Support
• A32NX launched on Flightsim.to
• Refreshed Site Design
• New About us Page
• Coming soon: Activity Feed
• Coming soon: Report Broken Mods
• Coming soon: Best Rated Mods

➡ File Dependencies and FAQ

We have somewhat refreshed the design of the file pages. Creators can now also add Frequently Asked Questions for their add-ons and point users to necessary or recommended dependencies, for example. That way you can easily attach used Libraries within your file.

➡ Discussions

We are bringing back Discussions. Each file has now its own discussion board where you can discuss topics or create threads on specific issues to relieve the clusters in comments.

➡ Block Users

Some users asked for it. You can now put other users on a block list in your user settings. These users can no longer comment on your files, rate them and can not contact you via DM. But they can still see and download your files. They could anyway if they log off.

➡ Progress on Requests

If you have accepted to create a request, you can now update it with your current progress so that the requestor and sponsors know how far you are. We have also created a new "In Progress" page that shows requests that are about to be completed in near future.

➡ Text Editor Adjustments

We had to change the text editor for file descriptions slightly. Now the formats should be saved more reliably, links are set correctly and open in a new tab by default. It is possible that old styles will be lost the next time you save, as we no longer allow all previously set styles in order to keep it consistent and clean. Please only use the tools available on site.

➡ More Changes

"Aircraft" is now its own top-level category and became some subcategories. We added categories for Paint Jobs, Cockpit Additions, Checklists, the lovely A32NX Cups, The Skypark and Skylounge - more news on that soon. Besides that we slightly refreshed the site design, created 3 more categories for third-party aircraft, set up a new Help Desk and Live Support. Lots of little things have been changed to improve the usability and design of the website in general. Some you won't even notice, others will surely catch your eye over time. By the way, we're happy to announce that our official partner FlyByWire decided to launch their A32NX installer on Flightsim.to too as well, welcome!

➡ What's on our Roadmap next

• Creators and users will be able to mark broken or no longer officially maintained addons
• Creators will have access to an side-wide Activity Feed to showcase their Work in Progress
• We will add "Best Rated" to the upper navigation of categories

That's all for today - see ya! 🥇

Important: Liveries and the new A32NX Update

Starting today, FlyByWire will begin packaging and distributing the A32NX as a separate aircraft from the default Asobo A320neo. This only affects the development and experimental branches of the A32NX - not the stable branch yet. However, with this update, liveries made for the default A320neo will no longer function in the new FlyByWire package. Liveries will need to be converted by their respective authors. There will be a simple livery conversion tool released by FlyByWire within a week from now, but until then, we recommend that you do not update your A32NX to the new development or experimental version if you want to keep using all liveries here on Flightsim.to! Flightsim.to has created a new FBW A32NX category. We ask all creators to upload their A32NX compatible files to this category. At the latest, when the stable version of the A32NX is also updated, only these liveries will work. The other A320neo liveries will of course continue to work on the default Microsoft A320neo.

1.5 Million Unique Users

Flightsim.to started back in August 2020. Since then, this project has continued to grow. We are more than pleased to announce that until now 1.5 million unique users all around the world have visited us. A horrendous number! Thank you for your support!

Image Upload in Direct Messaging

From now on you can also send images via your mailbox on Flightsim.to. Just click on the small camera icon to the left of the send button to add screenshots or images to your message.

Email Notification of Missed Messages

Starting today, we will finally notify you by email if you have an unread message in your inbox at Flightsim.to. This only applies to messages that have been unread for more than 24 hours. So you won't miss anything anymore! You can unsubscribe from such email notifications at anytime in your User settings.

User Gallery - Add your own images

With "User Gallery" we are now introducing the possibility to upload your own screenshots and images to mods and add-ons. Until now, only authors themselves could upload images of their add-on. But now, you can attach your screenshots to a file too! Just click on "User Gallery" at the respective item page and upload your screenshot to showcase the mod or the fun you're having while using it.

19 Translations launched

We are very pleased to announce that we can now provide Flightsim.to in 19 languages. To choose your language, click the language chooser dropdown on the top of the page. As we have just launched the translations and most of them have been translated with artificial intelligence, please feel free to help us! 👉 Click here to suggest improvements and we will look into it and improve the language together. Please note that not everything is translated yet and you can only improve the already translated texts. Thank you for your help!

Commenting Improvements

Creators can now pin any comment on their files to highlight it. Furthermore, it is now possible to search through comments if a file has more than 25 comments. Just click on the small search icon next to the comment count and enter a search phrase. Finally, you can use emojis 😄 😍 💗 in comments and messages from now on! An emoji picker is now available for this purpose.

First file reaches 100K+ Downloads

Also, we are more than happy to announce that Airbus H135 Helicopter Project by Hype Performance Group is the first add-on to hit 100.000 downloads on Flightsim.to. Our congratulaions for this success! 🥳

With the new files design just launched today, you can now upload up to 24 instead of 18 images to your file.

Changelog

• Flightsim.to lives from its creators and their creations. We have created a completely new design for the file page and now focus more on add-ons, their descriptions and screenshots. The updated file page is now more in line with the general appearance of Flightsim.to.
• We have added roadmaps, group messaging, polls and backlogs for creators. This way we want to encourage communication between creators and users. Creators can reach their followers via the group messaging feature, share progress of their work, start polls or post news that followers can react to. This feature is currently in testing stage and we will need to improve it further.
• We will now send email notifications if a file you follow has received an important update. This way you will know immediately when a new update is available. The only requirement is that your email is verified, that you follow the file you want to receive notifications for, and that you are opted in for newsletters, which is the default setting.
• We now provide a RSS feed for the latest uploaded and updated files.
• We now save images in JPG format by default. Originally, the uploaded images, wallpapers and screenshots were not converted, which led to considerable sizes and correspondingly longer download times. Thanks to the new conversion, the file sizes are now smaller, load faster and lose nearly no visual quality at all. In the course of the next few days, the existing images will also be converted, which should result in a faster website in general.
• We have improved minor bugs, display errors and translation errors here and there.
• Our scenery map has already reached over 13 thousand sceneries all over the world. That's incredible, and it's getting more every day!
• Creators can now make use of a so-called "Delayed Releasing" feature to schedule when their uploaded file should be launched. We will then automatically launch the file at the given time, even while you're asleep! This feature is available for users with more than three uploads and we support this type of releasing only in the scenery and livery categories.
• Creators can now thank commenters on feedback with a simple click on the new "Thank you" button. This eliminates the need for comments such as "Thank you for your feedback", as in the future one click will suffice for this. We will notify the comment author when a creator has thanked the user's comment.
• Other users can now also react to comments with a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down".
• There are some new categories, including for example a category for Stream Deck files.
• We now provide creators with even more information about who is downloading their add-ons. Previously, the statistics were limited to the last 14 days. We have now extended this period to just over a month. In addition, we now show 30 countries from which the most downloads originate instead of 10, and we now break down downloads even further by city, region and time zone.
• The "Modify File" page now saves which tab you were on last, so you don't have to keep switching back after a change has been saved. This saves exactly one click, one second and a lot of nerves!
• The "My Downloads" page has been fundamentally reworked - here, too, "browsing" now works much better.

Future Roadmap

• Premium Membership: You can read more about it right below.
• Payware: Preparations are in full swing.
• API: We want third parties to be able to connect to Flightsim.to to create cool apps.
• Re-designs: Some page designs and implementations are a thorn in our side. We will therefore adapt and improve them: for example the Requests page.

Compatibility status

When new versions, patches or updates are released for Microsoft Flight Simulator, it can happen that add-ons, such as sceneries or liveries, no longer work properly. More information here.

Requests are an essential part of our site. Since Flightsim.to was founded, more than 10 thousand requests for liveries and scenery have been created, of which almost 4 thousand have already been processed by creators. We have taken this as an opportunity to make some changes.

- Requests Lifetime
There are very, very many old requests from last year, whose requestor is most likely not even active anymore or has already forgotten about his or her request. And in order to keep the sheer volume of requests in check and to maintain an overview, we have decided to limit requests to a period of 6 months or 180 daysWhat does that mean? Once a request has been created, it remains online for six months. During this time, creators can accept to complete the request. If the request has not been accepted within this 6 months, the request will be deleted. However, if the requestor is still interested, he can create a new request as a follow-up. Thereby we hope to bring some overview into the jungle. But there is one exception to this: Requests that are followed by more than 10 other people by ticking "I want this too" will remain online even after 6 months.

- Requests for Aircraft Registrations
In addition, we no longer allow requests for individual aircraft registrations
, if the base livery has already been created. Of course, special paintings may still be requested. But as an example: If someone has created a Lufthansa livery for the A32NX with the registration D-AIPA, we do not allow a new request for the same livery, only with the registration D-AIPB. We will consider this as a duplicate from now on. Makes sense, doesn't it?

- Misc
The window in which the requests are opened is now larger than before. We implemented minor design adjustments and unification. Additionally, you can now mark requests as already created, accept and report requests on-the-fly, which means that the page will not reload after these actions. Previously, reloading the page meant that the previous searches and the current position in the list were lost when one of the actions was performed. That was pretty annoying and it took a lot of time to get back to the right page or previous position in the list. That has now been improved.

- Option to step back without penalty
Creators can now back out of a request without penalty if someone else has already completed the request before them. In some cases, a creator has accepted a request, but someone else created it faster or the request even had already been completed. The only way to step back in these cases was coupled with a karma penalty of 200 karma. We now allow undoing their offer without the penalty if the request was already created by someone else.

- Fixed a Reporting bug
Apparently there was an error last week which resulted in requests marked as completed and requests reports not being saved in the system, although a successful message was issued to the user. We apologize for this, it is now fixed.

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New updates and news will be posted on https://feedback.flightsim.to/changelog in the future.