Sometimes, I believe it’s a nice idea to take a few minutes and write things down, especially when you’re not the type of person who likes to plan everything ahead (like me, that is).

Being a lazy ass person who likes to live by the day, this is a good opportunity to list things I am doing/planning on doing for the blog.
Regulars aside, this may be a good chance for you to know what’s coming next on Neregate.






Those who’ve been lurking in here for a while have probably noticed that the PotD category has been taking the spotlight in quite a dramatic way, and for more than a couple months now. Truth is, I haven’t been getting a single day off work for more than a year now (okay, two days, I admit). Needless to say, I have accumulated so much exhaustion that even taking vitamins and sleeping 7-8 hours a day has zero effect(that number is accurate). Simply put, this results in me being in lazy mode when getting home.
I finally managed to take a few weeks off work (not now, but soon). This should allow me to catch up with several things I’ve been neglecting on Neregate for too long.
I know I won’t be able to do everything, but at least it’ll be written in a corner and ready to be worked on when the time is right.

• In the near future :
• v4 of the Summer 2012 Anime Chart

• v1 of the Fall 2012 Anime Chart (need to work on a new design first)

• 1.4.0.0 of Anifetch, with fixes for several broken websites. I was thinking of adding an interactive wizard to help you automatically fill the required fields when adding a new website, too.

• Bringing back the imageboard online.

• Celebrating Neregate’s second birthday ! Two years that I’ve been polluting the place with my lolis.. time flies.

• In the near, but not so near future :
• The “little something” regarding Anime Charts I’ve been talking about for a while now. Some more details can be found in Shinigami-Sama’s interview of Neregate.

• Rework of the subscription emails’ “look and feel”. Right now, I don’t like how emails render in your mailbox. I’m close to hitting one-hundred blog subscribers, so I want to do something a bit more “better looking”. The problem is that emails render differently depending on the Mail Client that you use, so I’ll have some testing to do beforehand.

• Bringing back the “XXX hours ago” part of the “recent comments” widget. I remember having a huge headache when I tried to fix that, long ago. I’ll probably have to code the widget myself, AJAX powered.

• Bringing back editable comments. The current plugin just refuses to work, and I have no idea why.. sucks. This is probably caused by another active plugin though.

• In the TBD future :
• New blog theme. I only talked about it a couple times, but this is something I’ve been considering for a while now. Even though I think I’ve found my new theme already (expensive tho), the amount of time needed to adapt it will be significant. Custom mature content filter, all that stuff..

• Custom-made members area. While I’ve seen numerous requests for registrations on Neregate, right now I don’t think there is any benefit for being a registered member. Because I don’t want anyone besides me to access the wp-admin area, using the built-in wordpress registration system is a simple no.
Why you ask? Two reasons :
The first one being WordPress that keeps finding security holes in its code, with users being able to do more things than they should be able to. While this mostly concerns “authors”, it is a no-no for me.
The second is that when your WordPress database gets deleted, any visitor coming to your blog will see the installation page of WordPress, and be able to register a new blog on your server (and potentially compromise the rest of your network) ! What a nice security hole. This could have happened to me, but hopefully wp-admin access is password-protected on Neregate. This doesn’t guarantee an absolute safety, but surely it’s better than being plainly exposed to the world.

Ranting aside, the main things I want to do with that custom members area are :
> Upload your custom avatar, visible by other users on the blog when you comment (animated png & gif allowed, too)
> Custom blog “Hovercard”, that replaces the default Gravatar Hovercard.
> Statistics : About your presence, time spent on blog, numbers of comments left, ranks (maybe)
> Ability to add other members as friends, send them private messages
> Reply to comments directly from your control panel
> Ability to view all of your followed posts at a glance (and to post a reply to any of them on the fly, using ajax mechanics)
> More filter options for the blog
> And many more features I’ve forgotten

• Create a Neregate mascot. This is a very personal wish of mine, but I’d love to make it happen. I’d have to find both a skilled and willing person to work on it, so this is not an easy requirement (and knowing myself, I’d be picky about both the quality and the design). I’ve thought of this in deeper details already, but no need to write down everything.
• Create a statistics page : Bandwidth usage, clicks, visits, etc.

Well, I’ve probably forgotten several things in that list, but that’s about it for the main ideas.
If you have stuff you’d like to see on Neregate, feel free to tell me about it. Your critics/suggestions are welcome, too.

As always, thanks for your presence and comments; it keeps me and Neregate moving forward.

Regards,

Your Uncle Zana.