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We’ve just passed an important milestone for diffify:our app for tracking Python and R package releases has just turned 1 year old!To mark this exciting occasion we are delighted to announce an “anniversaryupdate” featuring numerous quality of life improvements. This post will outlinethe latest changes and tease at some exciting developments in the works…
First, though, we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone thatcontinues to use the app and welcome any new users to the service.Your continued feedback via social media andGitHub has played a majorrole in shaping the last year of development.
Data comes in all shapes and sizes. It can often be difficult to know where to start. Whatever your problem, Jumping Rivers can help.
Anniversary updateLet’s start by going through the changes introduced by today’s anniversaryupdate!
Latest package releasesWhen you navigate to the R andPython homepages, you will notice a newwindow titled “Latest Releases and Updates”:
This lists any new or updated packages that have been published in the past dayor so. See a package that you’re using? Just click on it and you will beredirected to the diffify summary with the latest changes.
Package dependenciesIn response to user feedback, we have added cross-links for packagedependencies. Let’s check out the changesbetween versions 3.6.3 and 3.7.1 of the matplotlib package:
We see that the version requirement has changed for the numpy andpyparsing packages. You may now be wondering what’s changed in the latestversions of those packages? Just click the link icons and that will open a newtab with the two latest versions diffed.
Quick disclaimer that not all package dependencies will have cross-links. We canonly provide cross-links for packages that are actually tracked by diffify,which includes:
News layoutWe have made some changes to the way we display news for R packages. Let’s checkout the changes between versions1.0.7 and 1.0.10 of {dplyr}. As before, the news can be accessed for allversions since (but not including) the earlier version:
However, you’ll notice we now have an accordion layout with the version tabslisted vertically. You are now free to have as many of these versions open asyou like, and scrolling through these will feel just like scrolling through aNEWS.md file.
Dark themeLast but not least … we now have a dark theme! Just click the theme dropdownat the top of the page, select “Theme: Dark” and enjoy this lower-light setting:
On the topic of themes, we have also improved the default theme by incorporatingbeneficial features from the old boosted contrast theme.
Other recent changesIn case you missed them, here are some other improvements that have been madeover the past six months or so.
Maintainer sectionJust below the version dropdowns you will notice a new maintainer section:
If you maintain a package that is featured on diffify, you can generate adiffify badge to copy into your GitHub repository. Simply click “Get a badge”,then paste the copied HTML code directly into an HTML or Markdown file (perhapsyour package README).
As an example, here’s the badge generated for the {dplyr} package:
Clicking this icon will redirect users to the {dplyr} page on diffify.
Python contentWe have expanded the list of Python packages that are tracked by diffify tocover the top 5000 packages on PyPIaccording to download counts. We are still only tracking packages that have awheel file on PyPI, but will look to expand this to zips and tars within thenext month.
UsabilityWe are continuing to optimise the usability and performance of the app. Recentimprovements include:
Exciting times ahead…In the coming months we will be releasing two public APIs to accompany diffify.We will release dedicated blogs to coincide with those releases, but here’s aquick overview to whet your appetite:
We can’t wait to share more when these release!
Wrapping upThat’s all from us for today. Thanks again for your continued feedback on theapp, and please stay tuned for more updates…
For further reading, you can check out our previous blog postshere!
For updates and revisions to this article, see the original post
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