new
improved
fixed
March / April 2019
Hello all! We have a lot to cover in this changelog, as we’ve fallen behind with updates recently. So much has happened since the last time we posted one, so we’re going to list everything here, and then certain topics we’ll cover in more detail in separate posts.
Additionally, we’ll be using a new format for changelog releases going forward. We’re deprecating the use of semantic versioning because with our multiple products that all overlap, complexity abounds. So in the interest of keeping things simple, we’ll be using named versions going forward, corresponding to the week of the year we do the current release.
We’ve decided to use mythological creatures and will have (around) 26 versions a year, which is 52 weeks / 2 = 26, which conveniently is the number of letters in the alphabet. So the next version we’ll be releasing is “Ipotane”.
Okay, here’s what’s happened in the last couple months!
New Features
- Deployed our newest product, Next Sandbox! In-browser, real-world, shareable computing environments.
- Drastically improved the project loading and timeout screens.
- Added a basic Dashboard to the website.
- Converted to a minute-based pricing model for our users.
- Added referral functionality for earning free credits.
- Added a number of new reports available for download for our enterprise customers.
- Added support for LaTeX in instructions.
- Allow up to 2GB of memory usage for all containers, when available.
- Added ability to exclude files from save snapshot.
- Support JSX syntax highlighting in JS files.
- Added GraphQL syntax highlighting.
- Added Parity to the Rust stack.
- Added Blockchain, Swift, and R skills.
- Deployed a React stack.
- Added a “blackjack” Codey!
- Added a list of use cases for Sandbox.
- Set up and URLs.
- Allow custom parameters to be passed in with account join URL.
Improvements
- Drastically improved how terminals work to address longstanding bug and improve performance.
- Changed to non-root nt-user in projects vs root user, which was incorrect for a number of reasons.
- Drastically improved the performance of the project directory sidebar, especially with a high number of files.
- Removed the need to use #! /bin/bash in startup and build scripts.
- Improved styles of file menus in projects.
- Cleanup of settings sidebar in projects.
- Default to “dark” theme going forward.
- Ensure sandboxes are upgraded upon page reload, if necessary.
- Improved executable code editor snippets.
- Improved use of PubNub to prevent messages being dropped.
- Start auto-saving Jupyter notebooks every 10 seconds by default to prevent lost data.
- Upgraded to dotnet v2.2 on C# stack.
- Changed term “Lesson” to generic “Content”.
- Improved display of images and tables in instructions.
- Improved the “checking” state of task check boxes.
- Improved wording for “next lesson” dialog.
- Reset scroll when changing panes in Creator.
- Update editor instructions styling to better match final result.
- Added emails for more actions and improved all emails (much prettier now!).
- Changed to retro user icons vs identicons.
- Improved account and profile styles.
- Improved user drop down.
Bug Fixes
- Addressed several memory leaks in project interface.
- Disable snippet runs when the sandbox has been shutdown.
- Fix memory alert font color in content editor.
- Fixed bug in GitHub logins for users with no names.
- Fixed chmod/chown not being applied during sandbox launches.
- Fixed help tour skipping Codey introduction.
- Fixed scrolling bug in code editor for Firefox.
- Removed extra spacing atop videos.
- Removed thin white line that sometimes appeared in projects.
Other
- On-boarded Joe, our new Systems Engineer!
- Improved the speed of a core piece of our infrastructure by 20x (isn’t tech fun?) ― soon to be 100x.
- Switched to BEM standard for our CSS.
- Switched to CSS grid layouts.
- Switched to CSS variables.
- Updated documentation and added documentation for Sandbox.