Hey everyone,

First off, a Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates, happy holidays to everyone, and happy almost-new-year!

Tim and I are very happy with the year devRant has had, and thinking back, there are a lot of 2017 highlights to recap. Here are just a few of the ones that come to mind (this list is not exhaustive and I'm definitley forgetting stuff!):

- We introduced the devRant supporter program (devRant++)! (https://devrant.com/rants/638594/...). Thank you so much to everyone who has embraced devRant++! This program has helped us significantly and it's made it possible for us to mantain our current infrustructure and not have to cut down on servers/sacrifice app performance and stability.
- We added avatar pets (https://devrant.com/rants/455860/...)
- We finally got the domain devrant.com thanks to @wiardvanrij (https://devrant.com/rants/938509/...)
- The first international devRant meetup (Dutch) with organized by @linuxxx and was a huge success (https://devrant.com/rants/937319/... + https://devrant.com/rants/935713/...)
- We reached 50,000 downloads on Android (https://devrant.com/rants/728421/...)
- We introduced notif tabs (https://devrant.com/rants/1037456/...), which make it easy to filter your in-app notifications by type
- @AlexDeLarge became the first devRant user to hit 50,000++ (https://devrant.com/rants/885432/...), and @linuxxx became the first to hit 75,000++
- We made an April Fools joke that got a lot of people mad at us and hopefully got some laughs too (https://devrant.com/rants/506740/...)
- We launched devDucks!! (https://devducks.com)
- We got rid of the drawer menu in our mobile apps and switched to a tab layout
- We added the ability to subscribe to any user's rants (https://devrant.com/rants/538170/...)
- Introduced the post type selector (https://devrant.com/rants/850978/...) (which will be used for filtering - more details below)
- Started a bug/feature tracker GitHub repo (https://github.com/devRant/devRant)
- We did our first ever live stream (https://youtube.com/watch/...)
- Added an awesome all-black theme (devRant++) (https://devrant.com/rants/850978/...)
- We created an "active discussions" screen within the app so you can easily find rants with booming discussions!
- Thanks to the suggestion of many community members, we added "scroll to bottom" functionality to rants with long comment threads to make those rants more usable
- We improved our app stability and set our personal record for uptime, and we also cut request times in half with some database cluster upgrades
- Awesome new community projects: https://devrant.com/projects (more will be added to the list soon, sorry for the delay!)
- A new landing page for web (https://devrant.com), that was the first phase of our web overhaul coming soon (see below)

Even after all of this stuff, Tim and I both know there is a ton of work to do going forward and we want to continue to make devRant as good as it can be. We rely on your feedback to make that happen and we encourage everyone to keep submitting and discussing ideas in the bug/feature tracker (https://github.com/devRant/devRant).

We only have a little bit of the roadmap right now, but here's some things 2018 will bring:

- A brand new devRant web app: we've heard the feedback loud and clear. This is our top priority right now, and we're happy to say the completely redesigned/overhauled devRant web experience is almost done and will be released in early 2018. We think everyone will really like it.

- Functionality to filter rants by type: this feature was always planned since we introduced notif types, and it will soon be implemented. The notif type filter will allow you to select the types of rants you want to see for any of the sorting methods.

- App stability and usability: we want to dedicate a little time to making sure we don't forget to fix some long-standing bugs with our iOS/Android apps. This includes UI issues, push notification problems on Android, any many other small but annoying problems. We know the stability and usability of devRant is very important to the community, so it's important for us to give it the attention it deserves.

- Improved profiles/avatars: we can't reveal a ton here yet, but we've got some pretty cool ideas that we think everyone will enjoy.

- Private messaging: we think a PM system can add a lot to the app and make it much more intuitive to reach out to people privately. However, Tim and I believe in only launching carefully developed features, so rest assured that a lot of thought will be going into the system to maximize privacy, provide settings that make it easy to turn off, and provide security features that make it very difficult for abuse to take place. We're also open to any ideas here, so just let us know what you might be thinking.

There will be many more additions, but those are just a few we have in mind right now.

We've had a great year, and we really can't thank every member of the devRant community enough. We've always gotten amazingly positive feedback from the community, and we really do appreciate it. One of the most awesome things is when some compliments the kindness of the devRant community itself, which we hear a lot. It really is such a welcoming community and we love seeing devs of all kind and geographic locations welcomed with open arms.

2018 will be an important year for devRant as we continue to grow and we will need to continue the momentum. We think the ideas we have right now and the ones that will come from community feedback going forward will allow us to make this a big year and continue to improve the devRant community.

Thanks everyone, and thanks for your amazing contributions to the devRant community!

Looking forward to 2018,
- David and Tim

/*
* First anniversary of devRant unofficial for Windows 10 (UWP)!
*
* Let's celebrate by giving me 500 ++'s 😁
*/

Exactly 1 year ago, on 18 May 2016, I released the first public version (v0.9.2.0 BETA) of my client for Windows 10 users.
I found this wonderful community a few days before, on 12 May 2016, thanks to an article on TNW.
The only flaw was the missing Windows 10 Mobile client for my Lumia 950, so I decided to create a simple one on my own that initially allowed you only to see the list of rants, without the ability interact with them.
A few days later, after spamming the app on twitter, I was reached by @dfox, a very kind person, who gave me all necessary tools and help to bring all official features to Windows 10 users.

A project that I created initially just for fun and necessity became the main project I'm working at in a very short time.

I received a lot of positive reviews from users that motivated me to improve and continue it.
It's true, Windows 10/Windows 10 Mobile users are few, but they appreciate your work as no other and with a lot of feedbacks and suggestions help you to improve it making it very satisfying.

I would like to thank @dfox who made this possible, my friend @thmnmlst who helped me a lot with precious advices and created the presentation below, and of course the whole Windows 10 community! 😉

Good Ranting!

P.S.
If you haven't tried it yet: https://microsoft.com/store/apps/...
For all updates follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/JakubSOfficial

The v2 is coming... sorry for the delay, below a little preview (alpha) to be forgiven. 😋

One of my favorite aspects of devRant has always been getting to learn more about the awesome people who use it. Beyond just the awesome stories posted by many here, one of my favorite ways to learn about and feel connected to the people here has always been desk/setup reveals. I personally love seeing different kinds of setups from all over the world, knowing that’s what the people here use to do their work and compute in general.

As an experiment, we want to try a few different things to highlight desk/setup/remote coding location posts. First, we’ve created the first devRant Instagram account, which is completely focused on developer desks/setups/workstations/remote coding. Please check it out here and follow: https://www.instagram.com/devdesks/

I want to use the account to bring more attention to the wide assortment of setups the awesome members of the devRant community post from all over the world. We’ll promote cool desk/setup/remote work images that are posted on devRant to the Instagram account for more exposure/additional audience.

Beyond that, I also want to try to come up with a way to better organize all of the desk/setup posts on devRant and encourage more of them. One kind we don’t see that often that I personally really enjoy is people coding with their laptops in locations that show the culture of their country or something special about the region they are from. Personally, I’m going to try to post some of those for where I live and work.

So how can you help with this effort? It’s easy! We encourage people to post their setups/working remotely pics and we will start featuring them on the Instagram account and hopefully elsewhere in the devRant app for some increased visibility/searchabilty over what we have now (since pics are kind of hard to search).

Also, we plan to make the weekly rant this week “post your setup,” so maybe wait until then to post, and you can work now on getting that awesome shot :) I know a lot of people here love photography like I do, so I think that part is fun too.

Please let me know if you have any ideas or questions about this, and I’m looking forward to seeing the desks/setups of many more devRanters in the next few days!

P.S. not a requirement, but one thing I think makes these photos better looking through a lot of them is when there is code visible in some way.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of devRant unofficial UWP! 😁

Brief summary of the last year:
- A total of 36 updates have been released this year, becoming now 60 in total;
- v2 passed through the closed beta phase with the help of 15 devRanters;
- v2 public beta has been released for everyone;
- The app received (beta) support for Xbox One and Microsoft Hub (becoming available for all the UWP devices: PC, Mobile, HoloLens, Surface Hub, Xbox One);
- The official Issue Tracker on GitHub has been created;
- 35 out of 48 issues/feature requests on the Issue Tracker have been solved;
- The v2 got featured by the official Microsoft Design twitter account;
- The app reached more than 2,000 acquisitions from the Microsoft Store (about 300 active users everyday with an average 20 minutes daily session, ~2.5 sessions per day), +100% since last year;
- Still maintains a solid 4.8 out of 5 average rating on the Microsoft Store (4.9 and even 5.0 in some countries, based on ~300 reviews);
- Softpedia editor has reviewed it 4.5 out of 5, becoming the best devRant client on that website, followed by devRantron (with a solid 4 out of 5);
- Has been featured as "App of the Day" by "myAppFree";

If you're not yet part of the UWP ranters community, download the app now:
https://microsoft.com/store/apps/...

Link to the rant for the 1st anniversary with the full story about this app:
https://devrant.com/rants/599066

//
// devRant unofficial UWP update (v1.5.6)
//

Hi!

A new update for Windows 10 users is in certification right now (will be available in a few hours/days), with the new feature you could see a few days ago on the official client.

But the main reason of this post is that I've seen the success of the official Issue Tracker created in August by @dfox and @trogus on GitHub.
For this reason I decided to do the same for the unofficial client.

Feel free to post bugs reports (I prefer this method instead of emails) and requests of features (even if not available in the official client) you would like to see.

https://github.com/JakubSteplowski/...

Complete changelog of v1.5.6:
- Added new 'post type' selector for easier classification of rant types in the future;
- Added Official devRant unofficial Issue Tracker on GitHub;
- Added Feedback page with link to GitHub Issue Tracker repo;
- Added black theme... no, wait... already there.
- Minor UI improvements;
- Minor back-end improvements;

I hope to see a lot of interesting feature requests I will enjoy to implement to make the UWP client always the best for you, Windows community. 😁

2017 Recap + DEVBANNER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

1. So, let's recap my 2017 first. It was awesome
Here is some list that I can remember
- finding my hobby (fsx, vatsim)
- finding computers aren't genius
- creating a new language
- major improvements in my unity skills
- found out i am friendly
- getting a job at google in a dream
- creating my banner in krita --> devbanner collab :D
- Logo creation fail
- CS class apply fail
- getting free stickers for the first time of my life
- getting death threats (lol)
- finishing my first ever big c# project
- got offensive words from a bot that i am a f***ing d***head.
- getting downvotes after creating such a shitty meme
- getting my rant featured in twitter
- finding that my friends love my game
- getting a sneak peak at the src of devrant
- coding with turbo c
- not using git cuz too lazy
- finds out msdn is god
- slowly hating unity, but likes it cuz it is using c#
- reaching level 2 in google foobar
- started 100+ projects this year and finished about 6 of them.
- devRant motivated me a lot

2. devBanner stuffs
So, how it all started is when I wanted to create my own logo. Some people will remember it. The one with arrows and cozyplales written on it. Then, I created my own banner with Krita (their text tool sucked). After that, due to some suggestions by the community, I decided to create a collab. From then, many people contributed to the devBanner project. Special thanks to @Kimmax for his awesome prototype of the frontend made during I was sleeping.

Now, before I talk more, I want to talk something. I don't post a rant about my collab cuz i want to get upvotes. I just want more people to use this simple creation software. You can literally use them anywhere, and it is FOSS.

Well....
If you want to create again, you can do so at https://devbanner.center

If you want to contribute, please do so by visiting https://github.com/devBanner

We are looking for a skilled frontend dev who can do the basic web stuffs. (we don't use frameworks currently for our frontend)

---------------------

Thanks everyone for making 2017 awesome. Can't wait to welcome 2018. Happy new year everyone, and I will drop my banner here.

Hey all! It's a me, Skayo, you might know me from the very early years of devRant, my highlight bot, my random quote bot, the devRant-Community on GitHub or any of the dumb rants and things that I've posted during my time.

Since I'm currently doing a cleanup of my old GitHub repos and this platform is still somewhat active, I have decided to pass on or publish all my projects and things I've created for this community back in the days.

Firstly, I have just published and transferred the source codes for the @highlight bot, the @RandomQuote bot, the @here bot, and some weird bot framework to the devRant-Community GitHub organization (https://github.com/devRant-Communit...).
Feel free to check them out if you've ever wondered what awful, awful code was running in the background all these years!

Secondly, I am offering any of the following to anyone who's interested:
- Ownership of the "devRant-Community" organization on GitHub (https://github.com/devRant-Communit...)
- Credentials for the @RandomQuote devRant user
- Credentials for the @highlight devRant user
- Credentials for the @here devRant user
- Credentials for the @devNews devRant user
- Ownership of the "devNews" Discord server
- Ownership of the "Community Programming Book" Discord server
- Anything else that I've forgotten about, maybe check the comments

If you're interested, message me on Discord "@skayodev" or anywhere else I am active under that alias (f.e. Telegram).
I might do a little background check to prevent abuse and I AM NOT SELLING THEM, just giving them away.

Thank you devRant for all the fun we had together and for introducing me to some of my current best friends :)
A thank you especially to @dfox and @trogus, who have created this amazing platform! (and sorry for all of the bullshit I did back then lol)

I wish you all the best <3
~ Skayo