Updates

This update established the basic functionality of the actual website.

• Secured the website with SSL.
• Acquired the gread.fun domain.
• Switched hosts.

• The website’s theme has been changed.
• Profiles have been overhauled.
• Users can add friends, send messages, create and share groups, invite people, etc.

Originally titled, “Customization!”

• Created the gh_customization plugin.
• Users are now able to set profile background color, fonts, and text color. This setting is for each user, so each user gets to have a unique theme.
  • To change your profile’s theme:
    • 1. Log in to your account.
    • 2. Navigate to your profile page.
    • 3. Click on “Settings”.
    • 4. Click on “Themes”.
    • 5. Set the color you want for your profile’s background, or upload an image!
    • 6. Set the font you would like to use, and set the color that you want text to be.
    • 7. Click “Save”.
• Removed the “Sitewide Notices” page.

• Changed the background color on the activity page to gray.

• Created the gh-booksdb plugin.
• Books can be added to the database, along with information about authors, ISBNs, publication years, and titles.
• A new menu entry was added for administrators that allows for viewing the database of books, as well as adding new entries. This would bypass the normal review process that is in place for adding books.

• Removed the administrator bar for users.
• Made the default role “subscriber”. This was what it was before, though, it was not set.
• Added the books page.
• Created the gh-bookdb plugin.
• Updated BuddyPress to 14.4.0.
• Updated Elementor from 3.32.2 to 3.32.3.
• Updated GamiPress from 7.5.3 to 7.5.4.
• Updated ProfileGrid from 5.9.6.0 to 5.9.6.1.
• Uninstalled bbPress.

• Created Beautiful Shoes.
• Added a script to Beautiful Shoes that removes a lot of the clutter from the activity feed.

• Created HotSoup!
• Added the My Library page.
• Updated the browse page.
• Added the ability for the user to add a book to his library.
• Added the ability to track how many pages have been read, out of the total pages in a given book.
• Began phasing out some of the plugins we wrote that are no longer needed, as well as some of the unneeded plugins that have been weighing down the performance of GRead.

• Published an update to HotSoup that fixed some of the issues. It is not where it needs to be, but it is very close.

• Updated HotSoup:
  • Fixed a bug that prevented users from adding books to their libraries.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented users from being able to track their progress for a given book.
  • Added some more fields for books, so that more information is displayed on the Browse page.

• Added the activity feed for books being tracked by HotSoup.
• Updated HotSoup to v0.5.
• Updated WordPress to 6.8.3.
• Added a function to HotSoup that redirects users to the homepage, rather than the WordPress dashboard.

• HotSoup was updated with a new panel for administrators to import books from Open Library’s API. Thank you to Open Library!
• You can now add GRead to your home screen on iOS! Here is how:
  • Go to the homepage.
  • On the bottom of your screen, you should see the “Share” button. Tap that.
  • Scroll down until you find the entry, “Add to Home Screen”.
  • Tap on that entry, then tap on “Add”, located at the top-right of your screen.
  • Add GRead to your iPhone’s dock so you can check it often!

• Implemented the code from GH-BookDB into HotSoup.
• Removed GH-BookDB.
• Fixed an issue with there being multiple definitions of the fields used by Book posts.
• Created the Dogaroni theme.
• Disabled several plugins that were not being used.
• Created the “Tutorials” page.
• Added a tutorial for registering an account.
• Added a tutorial for logging into an account.

• Removed the RSS symbol from the activity page.
• Removed the original filtering menu on the activity page.
• Updated HotSoup to 0.9.
• Books that are completed should now display the “Completed!” message, the progress bar should turn golden, and the book’s list entry should have a different appearance.
• Added a tracking system for submissions to the books database. If you contribute to the database, you get credit. This system is not finished yet, but we included the tracking part of it so that we can reward users as soon as the system is finished.
• Created the Leaderboards page.
• Added a leaderboard that shows the top contributors to the books database.
• Changed the color scheme of GRead so it does not cause headaches to members.

• Fixed the points system so that members can earn points based on their contributions to GRead. As of now:
  • Activity posts are worth 2 points.
  • Comments are worth 2 points.
  • Adding a book to the database is worth 10 points.
• Points have been added to users, retroactively. Start earning! Those points will come in handy soon!

• Added the points leaderboard.
• Added tutorials:
  • How to add a book to your library
  • How to track your progress in a book that you have already added to your library
• Changed the text for the button to add books to your library, from “Add to Collection”, to “Add to Library”.

• Added social features to the side bar menu.
• Added a feature to search for groups (in the “Groups” tab of the user profile).
• Created a basic details page for each book.
• Overhauled the Browse Books page.
  • There is a search bar now, and that bar allows you to search by title, author, ISBN, or all of the three.
  • Results are displayed immediately, and you can add books to your library from the menu.
  • Clicking on a book’s title will take you to the details page for that book. These details pages are going to be overhauled soon.
• Administrators have a verified badge next to their usernames. This is going to be replaced by a better icon, but this is our solution for the time being.

• Updated HotSoup to v0.12:
  • Added the security component of HotSoup.
    • Non-administrators are blocked from accessing the administrator panel.
    • Non-administrators are redirected to the homepage if they try and access the admin panel via URL.
  • Fixed a bug that made it so that users had to refresh the “My Library” page in order for deleted books to disappear.
  • Added the “Completed” tab to My Library.
  • Added the “Currently Reading” tab to My Library.
  • Added the “Pages Read” counter to user profiles.
  • Added the “Books Completed” counter to user profiles.

• Fixed an issue with the update_user_stats function that caused HTTP 500.
• Added the “Unlockables Manager” page to the administrator panel.
• Created a table for storing unlockables.
• Created a table for tracking user unlocks.

• Removed the “Public Message” feature on profiles. It never worked, and it was making profiles look worse.
• Removed the default search feature from WordPress. This does not affect the search feature provided by HotSoup.
• Fixed a bug that caused users to see posts from groups that they are not members of.
• Removed an unused shortcode from the “My Library” page.

• Added filtering options for viewing your library. Try it out!
• Added a feature that lets people report an issue with an entry in the database. If there is a missing author name, incorrect spelling, missing page count, etc., report it to us, and we will give you 25 points for it.

• Modified the HTML behind the total books counter.
• Removed navigation links that were previously shown on book pages.
• Changed the verified icon to a better looking one.
• Removed several functions that are no longer being used by HotSoup.
• Removed a navigation bar that was tested, but was scrapped.
• Added a tutorial for tracking a book that is already in the database.

• Fixed an issue that broke the styling for the total book counter.
• Added the “Themes” tab to user profiles.
• Added “Dark Mode” theme.
• Fixed an issue that was giving people points for every activity post, rather than giving them points for their posts.
• Added a utility that allows administrators to recalculate all point totals across the website. You may have noticed a change in your points total.

Released October 24, 2025

• Added the reviews system:
  • Users can submit reviews for books and earn points for doing so.
  • Reviews and ratings are displayed on the respective book’s page.
  • Users receive 20 points for written reviews and 5 points for rating books. At most, users can receive 25 points for each book they complete if they review and rate it.
  • In order to write a review/rate a book, you must have completed it. You cannot rate/review books that you have not read.
  • If you review/rate a book, then remove the book from your “completed” tab, your review/rating will be removed, and your points will be deducted.
  • The average rating for a book is calculated and displayed on the page for each book, along with a count of how many people have rated/reviewed said book.
  • Users can see what they rated/reviewed a given book by finding said book in their “completed” tab.

Released October 26, 2025

• Removed some unnecessary code from HotSoup.
• Added some documentation for HotSoup.
• Added a page for GRead’s terms of service.
• Fixed some of the issues with themes not being applied to every part of the website.
• Added indexes to the database for some of the most frequently accessed data.
• Added a function to the user_stats portion of HotSoup that caches the user’s statistics. This improves the performance of the website by not making it recalculate the user’s statistics whenever they refresh the page.

Released October 27, 2025

• Overhauled the themes system.
  • Themes are now stored in a database.
  • Themes affect almost everything on the website (we are going to fix this very soon).
• Added the following themes:
  • Classic (it existed, but it was renamed)
  • Gross White Green (a temporary name)
  • Midnight
  • Midnight Blue
  • Mint
  • Oceanic
  • Sunset
• Modified some of HotSoup’s function so that statistics are only recalculated when something is changed.
• Added a counter, on each profile, of inaccuracy reports, from a given user, that have been approved.
• Added a counter, on each profile, of books added by a given user.

Released October 28, 2025

• Refactored HotSoup
  • Moved book_directory shortcode into a dedicated file.
  • Moved user_library shortcode into a dedicated file..
  • Moved the sitewide activity widget into a dedicated file.
  • Removed unused/legacy functions.
  • Removed unhelpful documentation from the main plugin file.
  • Added some explanation for each file being imported by HotSoup.

Released October 29, 2025

• Moved the total_books shortcode into a dedicated file.
• Imported includes/shortcodes/total_books.php into HotSoup.
• Removed the site_stats.php file.
• Removed the import and documentation for site_stats.php.
• Removed CSS files and theme management stuff from the previous version of our theme manager.
• Added the Rose theme.
  • Unlocked after reading 15 books.
• Added the Amber Grove theme.
  • Unlocked after reaching 3,000 points.
• Added the Ice theme.
  • Unlocked after reading 10 books.
• Updated the Sunset theme so that it requires 2,500 pages read in order to be unlocked.
• Updated the Midnight theme so that it requires 1,000 pages read in order to be unlocked.
• Updated the Oceanic theme so that it requires 250 pages read in order to be unlocked.
• Renamed “Gross White Green” to “Spearmint”, updated so that it is unlocked after reading one book.

Released October 30, 2025

• Reworked the unlockables system into the new achievements system.
• Member profiles have a new “Achievements” tab.
• Created a tool for administrators to manually review and recheck specific members in the event of an achievement not tracking correctly/not unlocking.
• Added achievements:
  • Literate
  • Not a Phase
  • Respectable
  • I’ll Raise You!
• Removed the “Invitations” tab on member profiles.
• Fixed some issues with themes not being applied to a few places on GRead.
• Updated the footer.

Released October 31, 2025

• Fixed a bug that prevented books added to the database from being reflected in a member’s statistics.
• Fixed a bug that prevented approved inaccuracy reports from being reflected in a member’s statistics.

Released November 6, 2025

• Fixed some issues with themes not being applied to the entire website.
• Added the privacy policy page.
• Created REST API endpoints for GRead’s major features, including BuddyPress’ standard features, various library features, and the book database.
• Added the moderation system.
  • Users are able to block/mute other users.
  • Users can report other users for violating GRead’s terms of service.
  • Reports are available in the administrator panel, so that a GRead administrator can address users that are violating GRead’s terms of service.

Released on November 9, 2025

• Added a system for tracking support requests from members.
• Updated the API to expose various components of GRead, such as the importer form and the library tracking features.
• Fixed an issue where the page needed to be reloaded in order to see the response from submitting an ISBN to the importer form.
• Added the support_form shortcode.
• Created the Support page.
• Added additional sanitation to the book post type. This is supposed to fix some issues with displaying special characters.
• Modified the way updates are written, so that the release date is contained in the details of a given update, rather than being included in the update’s number.
• Added the book-mentioning system.
• Created a tutorial for how to mention books in activity posts.
• Added the book-tagging system.
• Created an admin page for managing book tags.
• Created a tutorial for importing books to the database
• Removed the GHeart-Customizer plugin.
• Removed “breadcrumbs” from pages.

Released November 10, 2025

GRead is released on iOS!

• Installed a plugin to generate basic avatars for users, based on their respective initials.
• Added some documentation to /includes/admin/tags_manager.php
• Dropped some tables that were used by plugins that have since been removed.

Released November 12, 2025

• Updated the API for the importer function in order to fix issues with iOS users not getting credit for their submissions, and issues with the books imported not having information saved. Page counts, author, and so on should now be showing up in any books you import.
• Edited the menu at the top of the website to make it less cluttered.

Released November 14, 2025

• Added Chimera. This feature is the most important improvement to GRead since the importer. Chimera allows the administrators to rapidly verify the data for each book, make sure all the fields are filled out, and that everything is formatted correctly. We are in the process of going through the database and fixing incorrect information, adding missing data, and making everything a lot nicer.
• The notes system was released, and is now available to everybody. In your library, you can now create notes for a given book, see the notes that others have posted about that book, and edit the notes that you have already posted.