Heliodex

{
	"applicationSettings": {
		"AndroidSwipeGestureUseStartingPosition": "True",
		"DFFlagAccoutrementWeldingFilteringEnabled": "False",
		"DFFlagAdminServerLogs": "True",
		"DFFlagAllowPackageLinkAncestoryClone": "True",
		"DFFlagAnalyticsNS1BeaconSupportLimitedRobloxUrls": "True",
		"DFFlagAnalyticsReportHttpStatsAtExit": "True",
		"DFFlagAnimatorEnableBone_PlaceFilter": "True;5326950832;5100919959;5064251723;5716845078;5588662702;5550062757;5762960116;5792232897;5796518985;5796546949;5796554295;5790039516;5646917919;5947859215",
		"DFFlagAnimatorOnSteppedKeepAlive": "True",

Heliodex

// "GO?
// WHY THE FUCK
// IS THIS IN GO?
// ARE YOU STUPID
// ???"
// - taskmanager, 9 January 2024

// cope harder
// don't forget da .env

Heliodex

Heliodex project update - May 2024

Once again that time of the year has arrived, I'm now finished with my qualifications and will be working throughout the upcoming holidays on various projects. Welcome back!

Mercury

Mercury has returned from its hiatus! New applications are being accepted, albeit at a slow rate as we are a little swamped with the backlog.

Highly anticipated client development is continuing, with more focus on DLL hooking. This may take a while, estimated at 1-4 weeks, but will bring additional QoL improvements and anti-cheat. In the meantime, for the website we'll soon be merging a number of commits improving integration between the backend and database into production.

Heliodex

Heliodex project update - April 2024

I ended up writing this update, forgetting to post it, and then losing it. That's my excuse, anyway welcome back.

Mercury

The domain migration (for the site, at least) is complete, and the site is now hosted on mercury2.com. Subdomains should be working as expected and redirect to their new locations (apart from status.banland.xyz, for some reason).

Other than that, little has changed. Mercury will remain on hiatus for the next two weeks, and the client will be re-released soon after.

Heliodex

Heliodex project update - March 2024

We're back! This update is even less late than the previous.

Mercury

Since Mercury entered its Release Candidate phase, we've received over 200 applications and the site now has more than 120 users. Since then, we've also migrated the backend from Node.js to Bun, giving us faster package installation and runtime speed, fewer dependencies, and a more stable codebase.

Our 1 April update featured a rebranding to Graphictoria 7, as well as a brilliant site redesign. It was reverted the next day, though if you did actually like the new design and branding, you can now add something similar with the Custom CSS feature in your settings.

Heliodex

Heliodex project update - February 2024

Welcome back! Here's another late-but-still-slightly-less-late-than-last-time update.

Mercury

Mercury has entered the release candidate stage! This means that we're making the previously-closed beta more open, and making it much easier to obtain an invite key. We're working on a Discord bot that, instead of going through an arduous exam process, and complete what's been referred to as an "ORC Resume" (lmao), you can fill out a few fields and get accepted for a key.

Work on the avatar shop and Discord integration will continue, and a database reset will be performed before the bot is released.

Heliodex

Heliodex project update - January 2024

That's 2024 off to... a start. Here's what I've been up to during the first month of the year!

Mercury

Improvements continue to be made to Mercury. Changes have been made to some UI and form elements to make them work better with JS enabled, optimisations to corescripts and better library support, and the generic major updates of dependencies.

Go has been making its way into the Mercury codebase, including the new client deployer found in my previous gist. It has helped to greatly improve efficiency and speed of many processes.

Heliodex

// Mercury Setup Deployer 3, now in Go
// goroutines make it run fast as FUCK

package main

import (
	"archive/zip"
	"fmt"
	"io"
	"os"

Heliodex

Heliodex project update - December 2023

Welcome to 2024! Here's an update to what I did in the last part of 2023.

Mercury

If it wasn't clear by my previous gist, I'm not the biggest fan of Bootstrap as it is currently, and I wanted to leave it in 2023. The removal of Bootstrap from Mercury at the beginning of 2024 serves as the clean slate to build the highly anticipated frontend rewrite upon. Navigation and readability need to be improved across the site, and enhancing the ways members can communicate with each other on site is important as well.

At the beginning of the year, Mercury barely even had a proper backend, and now it's flourishing into a near full-fledged revival with industry-leading features and web design. I've been focussing heavily on code quality and maintainability, as we want to open-source Mercury once it's complete.

Heliodex

Bootstrap considered harmful

Bootstrap is a CSS component library/framework/frontend toolkit/stylesheet set and Javascript plugin collection. It's the most popular CSS framework used on the web, and is a popular choice for many Roblox revival websites.

After writing, modifying, and looking at the source code of many revivals written with Bootstrap and other CSS frameworks, I've come to the conclusion that in it's current state (v5.3.2), I don't like Bootstrap and I don't think it's a good choice for revivals, and perhaps not for a lot of web developers in general.

Here's a list of my biggest pain points with Bootstrap:

• Progressive enhancement
• Modification and customisation