Folk Lovers

Since 1961

Changelog

All notable changes to Folk Lovers are documented here.

January 21, 2026
Added
  • Notification bell in header: see who voted on your covers and new covers on songs you follow
  • Dropdown shows unread notifications with blue dot indicator
  • "Mark all read" button to clear all unread notifications
  • Works on both desktop and mobile
January 19, 2026
Added
  • Cover tags: categorize covers with tags like "Acoustic", "Blues", "Folk", etc.
  • Tag selection when submitting a new cover
  • Tags displayed on cover cards (shows first 3 with "+N" for more)
  • Rankings page: see top covers, top songs, and top contributors
  • Tabbed interface with medal badges for top 3 positions
  • User Space (/me): personal dashboard for registered users (View your submitted covers with edit and delete options) (See all covers you've voted on) (Inline editing for cover details and tags)
January 18, 2026
Changed
  • Redesigned homepage with two new sections: "Recently added" and "Popular covers"
  • Recently added section shows newest contributions with date and contributor info
  • Popular section highlights top-voted covers by the community
  • Removed the "Popular songs" section in favor of cover-focused content
Added
  • Quick search in header with Cmd+K shortcut to find songs by title or artist
Improved
  • Self-hosted fonts for faster loading and no flash of unstyled content (FOUC)
  • Infinite scroll on songs page - no more pagination buttons
January 6, 2026
Added
  • Mark cover as original: users can now indicate if a cover is the original recording when submitting
  • Admin can change which cover is marked as original for any song
  • Visual indicator (star badge) for original recordings on song pages
Improved
  • Song thumbnails now fallback to the first cover when no original is set
  • Original recording checkbox only visible when appropriate (no existing original or admin user)
December 24, 2025
Added
  • Custom favicon with guitar icon on brown background (PWA-ready with all sizes)
  • New "Add a cover" flow: search existing songs or create new ones in a single form
  • Song search autocomplete for faster song selection
  • Matomo analytics tracking (privacy-friendly)
  • Community dropdown in header with What's New, Roadmap, and Feedback links
  • Public Roadmap page showing planned features (/roadmap)
  • Feedback page for bug reports and feature requests (/feedback)
  • Database-backed feedback system: users must be authenticated, feedbacks stored in database
  • Admin feedback management: view, filter by status, update status, delete feedbacks
Fixed
  • YouTube URL normalization: youtu.be links and tracking parameters now handled correctly
  • Delete actions in admin panel no longer show false errors
Changed
  • Year is now optional when creating songs (useful for traditional folk songs)
  • "Suggest song" button renamed to "Add a cover" with simplified flow
  • Renamed "Blog" to "Articles" throughout the site (route changed from /blog to /articles)
December 20, 2025
Added
  • Song sorting: alphabetical (A-Z, Z-A), by year, by date added
  • Admin tables now sortable by clicking column headers (songs, covers, users)
  • CLAUDE.md with project instructions for Claude Code
  • `prod:delete` task for removing songs from production
  • `prod:create_article` task for publishing articles to production
  • Blog feature with full article management (Articles with markdown content, draft/published status, cover images, and tags) (Admin article editor with live markdown preview toggle) (Public blog pages at /blog with tag filtering and pagination) (First article: "What is Folk Music?")
  • Cover image credit field on articles (displays as figcaption)
  • Mobile responsive menu (hamburger) in header with navigation, auth links, and user profile
  • YouTube thumbnails on song cards in /songs listing
  • Auth dialog when voting: unauthenticated users see sign-in dialog, vote executes automatically after login
  • Tailwind Typography plugin for proper prose styling
Improved
  • Clearer sort labels: "Recently added" vs "Year (newest)" to avoid confusion
  • DEPLOY.md updated with GHCR deployment architecture (CI builds images, server pulls)
  • Article page typography: proper heading hierarchy, spacing, and reading width
  • Google Sign-In button now responsive (adapts to container width, max 400px)
  • Utility functions `getYouTubeVideoId()` and `getYouTubeThumbnail()` for thumbnail URLs
Changed
  • Logo icon changed from Music to Guitar across all pages (header, footer, home, login, register)
December 19, 2025
Added
  • Persistent audio player bar (plays across page navigation, like France Inter)
  • Play queue with add-to-queue functionality on covers
  • Original version now displayed as first "cover" with distinctive amber badge
  • Custom 404 page with vinyl record illustration
  • Custom 500 error page with scratched record theme
  • Changelog page (/changelog)
Changed
  • Unified data model: original song version is now a cover with original flag
  • Song detail page renamed "Covers" section to "Versions"
  • Thumbnails now served directly from API instead of client-side extraction
Improved
  • Cover cards now show play/pause state and queue controls on hover
  • Original versions always appear first, regardless of vote count
  • Faster deployments: images built in CI, server just pulls (~30s vs ~5min)
December 18, 2025
Added
  • Users can submit new songs via /songs/new form (requires authentication)
  • Users can add covers to existing songs with YouTube URL
  • Playable cover cards on homepage (top covers section)
  • Admin user management interface (/admin/users) with role editing
  • Search and pagination on songs listing page
  • Admin dashboard counters (songs, covers, users)
  • Filter covers by song in admin panel
Changed
  • Translated entire site from French to English (UI and seed data)
  • Wait for database migrations before starting frontend in deployment
December 17, 2025
Improved
  • Lighthouse performance: moved Google Fonts from @import to preconnect + link tags
  • Lighthouse performance: TanStack Devtools now conditionally loaded only in development
  • Lighthouse CLS: added explicit width/height dimensions to YouTube thumbnail images
Added
  • Google OAuth authentication (Sign in with Google)
  • Google Sign-In button on login and register pages
  • Tests for Google auth endpoint and service
Fixed
  • Votes +1/-1: user vote state now persists after page reload
Changed
  • Renamed "Folklovers" to "Folk Lovers" everywhere
  • Reduced deployment downtime with rolling restart
December 17, 2025 — Initial Release
Added
  • Folk Lovers website launch
  • Browse and discover folk song covers
  • Vote on covers (upvote/downvote, Stack Overflow-style)
  • Song pages with embedded YouTube players
  • Cover rankings by community votes
  • User authentication (email/password registration and login)
  • Responsive design inspired by 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene
  • Admin panel for content management (songs, covers)
  • Docker-based deployment with Traefik reverse proxy
  • CI/CD pipeline with GitHub Actions