# Updates on October 17, 2023 (Release 883)

**URL:** https://community.citystrides.com/t/updates-on-october-17-2023-release-883/26886
**Category:** Announcements
**Created:** [October 17, 2023, 10:40pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/updates-on-october-17-2023-release-883/26886 "2023-10-17T22:40:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/user_avatar/community.citystrides.com/jameschevalier/32/2_2.png) [@JamesChevalier](https://community.citystrides.com/u/JamesChevalier)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2023, 10:40pm UTC](https://community.citystrides.com/t/updates-on-october-17-2023-release-883/26886/1 "2023-10-17T22:40:19Z")

</div>

Ouch! It’s been a full year without me posting in this category?! 😓

The last year feels like it was tons and tons of backend work throughout the site - lots of code updates around activity syncing, and a large rework of city update process. In reviewing the changes for this post, I’m noticing a few things that I’ve created but haven’t fully followed-through on.

- 🆕 added ability to [gift Supporter access](https://citystrides.com/gifts) to others
- 🆕 added [badges](https://citystrides.com/badges) including a [100 badge](https://citystrides.com/badges/2) for anyone who has ever completed a city
  - these badges are also available in the merch store as sticker, magnet, or button

- 🆕 city borders are now automatically updated monthly
- 🆕 include total distance of streets in city pages
  - your view of the city (when you visit the city from your profile) includes a “stats” tab, which displays the number of activities, total distance, and when you started

- 🆕 cities beta page
  - there’s [a page](https://citystrides.com/cities/beta) that Supporters have acces to which displays all city borders on the map
  - the intention here is to figure out a usable way to bring this functionality into the maps displayed throughout the site

- 🆕 add [a page](https://citystrides.com/news) that lists links to articles about/including CityStrides that I’m aware of
- 🆕 built out a not-yet-announced “Offers” feature
  - keep an eye on the [Instagram account](https://www.instagram.com/citystrides) 😉

- 🆕 created a new Challenge that will run only on Halloween: [Nightmare RUN](https://citystrides.com/challenges/343)
  - every street on the map is labeled Elm Street, how many Elm Streets can you finish in one day? 🤣

- 🛠 tons and tons of backend work throughout the site
- 🛠 reworked the ads throughout the site
  - they’re smaller, to be more polite with their screen use
  - all the ads are internal, either for becoming a Supporter or for merchandise
  - there is no external ad placement, which means no user tracking or third-party javascript

- 🛠 update some site displays to be live-syncing
  - for these stats, there’s no need to refresh the page to see the new information
  - as new activities are synced into CityStrides, they’re streamed into your profile page
  - completed/progressed counts are updated live as they’re calculated

- 🛠 updated how friends are displayed in your profile page
  - it behaves _a little_ bit like ‘stories’ that you see in other places like Instagram
  - your friends are highlighted if they have new accomplishments
  - clicking on your friends displays a compact stats display
  - this list is in one of the tabs on your profile page

- 🛠 updated user avatars to dynamically build (some nicely derpy) faces if no image has been uploaded
- 🛠 condense what used to be a split pages - homepage / user profile page - into a single profile page
  - while logged in, the homepage redirects you to your profile page
  - all the info that was in the previous logged-in-homepage is now in your profile page

- 🛠 finally got a replacement for Dark Sky, to get weather information added to Supporter activities
  - old activities are still being backfilled, which will take a while, but new Supporter activities all have weather data now

- 🛠 expanded notifications, and allow finer control over opting into specific notifications
- 🛠 decreased the map animations throughout most of the site
  - there was a lot of ‘flying around’ which you had to wait to fully animate before you could interact with the page … this irritated a lot of people, so now it’s a quick jump when navigating across pages

- 🛠 put in some further efforts to make the site operate as a PWA
  - there’s no offline support, but it seems to be working well when added to your homescreen