Release history and feature updates.
v1.8.1June 2026Latest
- •Redesigned navbar with a standardized responsive layout across desktop and mobile.
- •Member Tools (My Feed, My Hangar, Watchlist, Bookmarks, Weekly Digest, Alerts Coming Soon) are now visible on all screen sizes including mobile.
- •What's New badge repositioned to immediately left of the Search bar.
- •Live status is now a compact pill on desktop and a small dot badge on the mobile filter icon.
- •Profile menu renamed to My FSMonitor with subtitle: Watchlist, Hangar, bookmarks, alerts.
- •First-time visitor discovery banner appears on first visit and does not return after dismissal.
- •Improved account signup messaging highlighting Following feed, My Hangar, Bookmarks, Weekly Digest, and upcoming Alerts.
- •Contextual follow and save tooltips added to article cards.
- •Improved Following and My Hangar empty states with clearer guidance.
- •Added subtle What can FSMonitor do? link near the feed tabs.
v1.8.0May 29, 2025
- •Major UI overhaul: premium dark navy color palette with deeper backgrounds and softer borders throughout
- •Hero card redesigned to split layout — text panel on left, full cinematic image on right with layered gradient fade
- •News feed changed to single-column horizontal card layout — thumbnail on left, content on right
- •Secondary featured stories row removed for a cleaner, more focused feed
- •Major Story (cluster) cards updated to match new horizontal card design with cyan left border identity
- •Today in Flight Sim briefing card replaced with a compact single-row banner
- •All sidebar widgets (Sim Status, Latest Videos, Top Stories, Live Sources) wrapped in rounded card containers
- •Source favicons added to left sidebar — real logos replace text initials
- •Source favicon icon borders removed for a cleaner look
- •All Sources button border softened in left sidebar
- •Hero card gradient overlays improved for a more natural image-to-text blend
v1.7.8May 28, 2025
- •Briefing page: article titles now link directly to the FSMonitor article detail page
- •Fixed mobile first-visit crash — stale JS chunk error now triggers an automatic page reload via ChunkErrorBoundary
- •Homepage card: Top Developer stat now counts live article tags instead of scanning briefing text for accuracy
- •Admin click analytics: date range fixed to use UTC consistently, preventing off-by-one day errors
- •Prepar3D removed as an active RSS source — Prepar3D tags retained for cross-source article categorisation
- •Deduplication improvements: product tag matching (Path 1.5) and X-Plane version normalisation at ingest time
v1.7.72026-05-19
- •Added Simulator Focus tracker on the Briefing page — shows the percentage split of articles between MSFS, X-Plane, and other simulators over the last 30 days
- •Added Top Categories chart on the Briefing page — ranked bar chart showing the five most active content categories over the last 30 days
- •Added Most Active Developers leaderboard on the Briefing page — ranks the top 8 developers by article volume over the last 30 days, linking to their Developer Spotlight profiles
v1.7.62026-05-17
- •Added mobile bottom navigation bar padding to Article Detail, Profile, and Bookmarks pages — prevents the bottom nav from overlapping content on mobile
- •Added site navigation bar to the Bookmarks page for consistent app chrome
- •Fixed low-contrast chevron arrows on Developer Spotlight and Simulator Detail related news lists
- •Search overlay now shows suggestion pills in the no-results state, giving users an immediate fallback action
- •Breaking news ticker paused state now has a more visible background for clearer hover feedback
- •Removed debug console.log statements from HeroFeaturedStory component
- •Search button replaced with a pill-style Search... button on desktop and a bordered icon on mobile for improved discoverability
v1.7.52026-05-17
- •Added mobile bottom navigation bar (Home, Briefing, Sources, Profile) — visible on all screens below 1280px for improved discoverability
- •Sim Status widget rows now show a visible chevron arrow, making it clear they link to Simulator Detail pages
- •Developer badges on article cards now display a ↗ arrow and underline on hover to signal they are clickable links to Developer Spotlight pages
- •Fixed category badge contrast on article cards — badges now use a solid dark background and are readable over white or light article images
v1.7.4May 2026
- •Daily Briefing card on homepage fully redesigned — now shows weekly story count, week-over-week % change, top developer, and top content category as a compact stats dashboard
- •Community posts excluded from Top Category calculation to surface more meaningful content trends
- •Briefing card mobile layout fixed — stacks cleanly on small screens with correct border and spacing
- •Stat cell contrast improved and small text lightened for better readability across the card
v1.7.3May 2026
- •Sim Pulse upgraded to weekly score — the activity score on the Briefing page now reflects real 7-day article volume across all monitored sources, with a week-over-week percentage change comparison
v1.7.2May 2026
- •Sim Pulse score on the Briefing page now uses real weekly article counts from the articles table instead of the hardcoded value
- •article_count field in daily_briefing table backfilled with real counts for all historical rows
v1.7.1May 2026
- •Briefing page archive — browse the last 14 days of AI-generated briefings
- •Briefing page Sim Pulse score with week-over-week percentage change
- •Top Developer of the week displayed on the Briefing page
v1.7April 2026
- •Weekly Sim Pulse — a 0–99 activity index measuring the volume and variety of flight sim news each week
- •Briefing page redesign with structured category sections and source attribution
- •AI briefing generation upgraded to GPT-4.1
v1.6April 2026
- •Developer Spotlight Pages — every tracked developer now has a dedicated page at /developer/:id, showing their full article history, quick facts, and official links
- •Developer tag badges on article cards are now clickable links — tap any amber developer badge to go directly to that developer's Spotlight Page
- •RSS ingestion tagging improvement — developer detection now searches article descriptions in addition to titles, increasing tagged article coverage from 7.5% to 45.3%
- •Article backfill — all 1,429 existing articles re-tagged with developer names found in their descriptions
v1.5April 2026
- •Performance tuning — eliminated staggered animation delays so article cards render instantly
- •Optimized sidebar loading — deferred external API calls to prioritize main content rendering
- •Vite build optimization — implemented vendor code splitting to significantly reduce the initial JavaScript payload size
- •Profile Page redesign — transformed into a full user dashboard with stat summary pills, developer watchlist cards, richer bookmark previews, a My Hangar feed showing the latest articles from followed developers, and a Reading Stats panel
v1.4April 2026
- •Developer Watchlist — follow PMDG, Fenix, Orbx and 32 other developers for a personalised Following feed
- •Following tab on the homepage — filter the main feed to only show news from your watched developers
- •Star button on article cards — follow a developer directly from any article
- •Watchlist management in your Profile page
v1.3March 2026
- •Daily Briefing — AI-generated summary of the top stories each day
- •Video content support — YouTube videos from developer channels now appear in the feed
- •Simulator filter persistence — your selected simulators are remembered between sessions
v1.2February 2026
- •Bookmarks — save articles to read later, accessible from your profile
- •Breaking News push notifications — opt in for real-time alerts on high-score stories
- •Weekly Flight Sim Digest newsletter — top stories delivered every Sunday
v1.1January 2026
- •Multi-select simulator and category filtering
- •Breaking score algorithm — articles ranked by recency, source tier, and engagement
- •Cluster detection — articles covering the same story are grouped with a source count badge
v1.0December 2025
- •Initial launch — live news aggregator covering MSFS 2024, X-Plane 12, DCS World, and Prepar3D
- •17 sources across editorial, developer, and community tiers
- •Breaking news ticker, hero featured story, and secondary featured stories