The Larger Changes

[brian]

A modern replacement to the gallery, Piwigo, is live. AI assisted in fully integrating the look and authentication from day one. This had been on my "to do" list for years, but I did not have the time to implement. Go live took less than a day. Within a week, the minor bugs were killed.

The new radar functionality was overloading the web server. When zooming and panning, the radar would hesitate and could take up to a minute to load. Working with AI, I improved efficiency in how the radar images load, what was cached, and web server configuration optimization. Radar panning and zooming activity now completes in 9 seconds. The order of loading makes it visually ready within 3 seconds.

The previous news feed changes added more articles, slowing page load. AI assisted by configuring the news articles to be edge cached (closest to the visitors) and properly staged. The staging is what hits the most. It limits initial page load to visible news and backfills for "search" after the page is displayed. Initial load is faster (95% less initial data) and backfill completes within a second. An improved experience with no observable cost.

The site UI has had enhancements: the header unlock option is gone after 20 years. Site logon is now in a dialog, more consistent and less congested. These changes provided space to reduce the header height, especially on mobile.