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Changelog

Recent updates, new features, fixes and improvements shipped on Diecastry. We update this page on every release. Currently running v2026.06.23, last updated 23 June 2026.

23 June 2026

v2026.06.23

Market value pricing, model pages 3x faster

  • Market value card on every model page — median sold price + range from eBay, with a back-link so you can verify directly. Visible to logged-out visitors too (the "Porsche 911 1:18 sold for €X" Google query lands here).
  • Inline market value in your private ownership timeline — see unrealized gain or loss vs what you paid without doing arithmetic.
  • /collection now greets logged-out visitors with a full marketing landing — live auto-playing demo of the catalogue table (search, status pills, sort all animate live), feature highlights, multiple sign-up CTAs. Replaces the previous redirect-to-login stub.
  • Model page Largest Contentful Paint dropped from 12.3s to 3.5s on mobile 4G (Performance score 43 → 70+). Hero image is now server-rendered so the browser starts downloading it in parallel with the JS bundle instead of waiting for hydration.
  • Cumulative Layout Shift on model pages cut by ~80%. Owner-switcher tabs above the hero now render stably from first paint instead of popping in after data loads and pushing the hero down.
  • Mobile collection page got a search box + status pills. Filtering a 100-model collection now takes seconds instead of endless scrolling.
  • Catalogue table on desktop extends to the screen edges on wide monitors. No more 1280px cap with empty gutters on 1920+ displays — table fills viewport width with a 16px safety gap.
  • Manufacturer and brand dropdowns on Add / Edit model now include every name that already exists in the catalogue, not just the curated list. Stops the silent drift of "Xiaoguang" + "Xiaoguang Models" duplicates.
  • Bigger feed thumbnails and the like / comment buttons moved to the bottom-right corner of each card. Inline like + comment-jump on every feed card.
  • Model title flows naturally on mobile instead of breaking each part onto its own row.
  • Below-fold model-page sections (lightbox, comments, reviews, sold-button) lazy-loaded as separate chunks. Smaller initial bundle = faster First Contentful Paint.
  • Sold-model feed cards deduplicated — a fast double-click on Mark as Sold no longer leaves twin "@user sold X" rows.
  • YouTube URLs validated before save — pasting a Google search URL (or any non-YouTube link) shows an inline error and blocks the save. Embed iframes now also work for /shorts, /live, /embed and bare 11-char video IDs.
  • Comments deep-link from the feed now reliably scrolls to the comments section even when reviews load asynchronously and push the page down.
  • Sold-model activity trigger has a 30-second dedupe window so concurrent UPDATEs (from a tab open in two browsers, etc.) can't race past it.

15 June 2026

v2026.06.15

Photos, mobile polish, achievements

  • Click any model photo to open a full-screen lightbox. ESC + arrow keys to navigate. Background is semi-transparent so the page underneath is still faintly visible.
  • Tap ↑ / ↓ buttons on the edit photo page to reorder photos on iPhone — drag-and-drop only works on desktop browsers, so the buttons are now the universal path.
  • New "Full-spectrum collector" achievement — own at least one model in every major scale including 1:64. Tier above the existing four-scale "All-scale collector" gold badge.
  • Profile header gained a "View full collection" link below the stats grid so visitors don't have to scroll past the pride stats to find the catalogue button.
  • Photo watermark scales with image size. A 4000px DSLR shot now gets a properly-sized watermark instead of a fixed 48px label that read as invisible on big photos.
  • Recent activity feed names the model in "uploaded photo" entries. Previously rendered as a bare "uploaded photo" with no indication of which model.
  • Related-models strips at the bottom of every model page fall back to user-uploaded photos when no stock photo exists — no more box-icon placeholders next to real cars.
  • The "See what collectors are sharing" gallery on the logged-out homepage now reliably fills all 8 tiles instead of stopping at 6 when feed activity is light.
  • "Standard color" renamed to "Dominant color" on the model forms — describes the actual stored field more precisely.
  • Aurus diecasts now display the Russian flag (was missing from the brand→country map).
  • Homepage meta description trimmed to fit Bing's 160-char display ceiling — Bing Webmaster Tools had flagged it as too long.
  • Catalogue table widening cascade extended to 2240+ / 2560+ / 3000+ viewport widths for ultrawide monitors. Subsequently replaced entirely with a viewport-fill calc (see 2026-06-23 entry).
  • Lightbox prev / next chevrons now visible on iPhone — they were technically rendered but hidden behind the photo container due to a paint-order issue at narrow widths.

5 June 2026

v2026.06.05

Faster homepage, privacy controls, Bing integration

  • Mobile homepage Lighthouse score jumped from 53 to 89 — replaced the full-page loading spinner with skeleton placeholders so content renders immediately and no longer shifts as data loads.
  • New /about page explaining what Diecastry is and what isn't here.
  • New /changelog page — this one.
  • Privacy toggle on your profile — hide your collection value from visitors with one click.
  • Live search input on every Explore index page (Manufacturers, Brands, Eshops). Filters as you type.
  • Magic-link sign-in alongside passwords. No password? Just type your email and click the link in your inbox.
  • "Resend confirmation email" button on the login form when an unconfirmed account tries to sign in. No more being stuck because the original signup link expired.
  • Related-models strips at the bottom of every model page — "More <brand>", "More from <manufacturer>", "More at <scale>".
  • Thumbnails on reviews written, shown on profile pages.
  • Featured profiles sidebar tile on the logged-in homepage.
  • Bing IndexNow integration — every new model and admin edit is pushed to Bing within seconds instead of waiting for the next crawl. Same data feeds Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Microsoft Copilot.
  • Sitemap, canonical URLs and OG metadata all normalised to the www host.
  • JSON-LD structured data revalidated — Product, Organization and Person schemas now pass schema.org validation cleanly.
  • Page titles and meta descriptions truncated at Google's SERP display limits so they no longer get rewritten.
  • "Active listings" count on the homepage now matches the marketplace (was always showing 0).
  • Sign out actually reaches the logged-out homepage instead of leaving the feed view open under the just-signed-out account.
  • Catalogue edits to numeric fields (retail price, edition limit, weight) now save correctly instead of failing with a type error.
  • The "See what collectors are sharing" gallery on the logged-out homepage no longer duplicates the hero polaroids.
  • Admin can now manually confirm a user's email if they got stuck on the signup link. One click on the red email in /admin/users.

3 June 2026

v2026.06.03

Notifications, SEO foundation, moderation

  • Notification bell badge polls every 60 seconds and on tab focus — no more missing a new comment because you never refreshed.
  • Comment, like and follow notifications now reliably reach the recipient (previously silently swallowed by RLS).
  • Catalogue moderation queue — non-admins can suggest catalogue edits and deletions, admins approve / reject from /admin/moderation.
  • Admin missing-data triage on /admin/brands — filter brand profiles by what's missing (description / founding year / website) and export to CSV.
  • Brand profiles bulk-enriched with descriptions, founding years and official websites for the top ~270 brands in the catalogue.
  • "Featured on Diecastry" strip on the logged-out homepage. Admin promotes brands / manufacturers / eshops with an auto-expiry date.
  • Admin shortcut banner on brand / manufacturer / eshop hub pages so admins don't have to walk through the admin area to edit.
  • Founding Collector badge cutoff extended to 1 November 2026.
  • Long-form alt tags on every public model photo — better SEO and accessibility.
  • Loose-match duplicate finder in admin catalogue moderation — catches duplicates that the strict matcher misses.
  • Deep-links to #reviews on a model page now actually scroll to the reviews section.

31 May 2026

v2026.05

Reviews launch, marketplace polish, eshops

  • Verified-owner reviews — six rating dimensions (casting, paint, packaging, value for collectors, price, rarity) plus written review.
  • Eshop pages — every retailer collectors have bought from gets a hub page with stocked models and customer collectors.
  • Wishlist matching — automatic notifications when a wishlisted model is listed for sale or stocked by an eshop.
  • Private messaging between collectors with reporting and blocking.
  • Notification preferences — per-event-type opt-out, plus a weekly email digest.
  • Favorites — pin your hand-picked top pieces to a public showcase grid on your profile.
  • Tags on owned models for personal organisation.
  • Brand and manufacturer hub pages — every marque and maker gets its own catalogue + collector page.
  • Stock photo mirroring — catalogue images served from our own CDN instead of leaking visitor IPs to retailer sites.
  • Tier system live — Free, Pro and Business. Pro unlocks unlimited photos and marketplace listings.
  • Catalogue field normalisation — consistent capitalisation, units, currency codes across all models.
  • Activity feed reads via a fixed RLS policy so recipients can see their own notification rows.

12 May 2026

v2026.05.12

Initial public release

  • Catalogue, collections, marketplace, follows, comments and likes.
  • Free-tier sign-up open to everyone. Founding Collector badge for early users.

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