Updates
Changelog
What changed on the site and in the bots — new features, fixes and security work. Newest first.
- Changed
Back to the fog, and each theme its own intensity
- •The backdrop leads with a single full-screen fog shader again: a slow, drifting field that is re-tinted and re-tuned for each of the nine atmospheres — its own secondary colour, speed, scale, warp, banding and intensity. No dots, no painted gradients.
- •The server-rack interior sits in front of it as a subordinate structure, with an open centre so the fog reads through — depth from scale, haze and a gentle parallax rather than noise.
- •Each atmosphere also sets its own light and motion: the key light brightens or cools with the zone, and the rack LEDs blink at their own rate — steady for calm themes, agitated for the incident and alert ones.
- •The retired react-three-fiber corridor, the particle field and the ambient-mote layer were removed, along with their styles and dependencies — the backdrop is leaner and starts from a single source again.
- Added
A guided ride through the whole basement
- •A new /tour route turns the short basement ride into a full, guide-led round trip: an opening, a stop for every part of the site — bots, projects, commissions, blog, FAQ, docs, status, changelog, partnerships, about — and an ending, with narration between each station.
- •The backdrop changes place as you travel, so the tour rides through the same nine atmospheres the rest of the site uses. It autoplays like a sightseeing tour but waits for you: pause, step, or jump to any station from the rail; arrow keys and the spacebar work too.
- •Every word is written by hand in both English and German, switchable at the top — and every fact is real, pulled straight from the site’s own data (eight bots, 118 commands, the flat prices, the partners). Nothing is generated at runtime.
- •The corner ticket still offers the quick overlay ride; its board now also links to the full tour.
- Changed
Every theme its own place, and the ride, as a film
- •The nine atmospheres are no longer one room with a different tint. Each is now its own place: the 3D corridor moves its fog, focal point and flicker per zone, a signature motif is drawn over the shared architecture, and the ambient particles change kind — drifting motes, rising bubbles, spores, sparks, rain, dust or a scanning beam.
- •The shell stays the same, so it still reads as one basement. What changes is where in it you are standing.
- •The Web-Zug guided tour was rebuilt as a ride rather than a click-through tutorial: a panning line map, a train window with the scenery sliding past, then a station title card as the real page arrives underneath. It auto-plays stop by stop with pause, previous, next and exit, follows the arrow keys, spacebar and Escape, and still goes straight to the page for reduced-motion users.
- Changed
The basement, actually built
- •The backdrop is no longer a field of glowing dots. It is a layered, industrial interior: a far wall with seams and a distant doorway, a mid row of server racks blinking their own LEDs, and blurred structural beams and rails running past the camera — built from 2.5D CSS/SVG planes sitting in front of a restrained 3D corridor.
- •Depth comes from scale, haze, blur and a gentle scroll/pointer parallax rather than noise. Each of the nine atmospheres re-tints it; the still frame is designed to look finished on its own.
- •Ambient soundscapes are gone. In their place is a small, synthesised interface vocabulary — a click, a toggle, a boarding chime and a departing thunk — generated with the Web Audio API. Off by default, never autoplayed, and nothing to license.
- •Light mode now comes in three flavours: the clean original, the rainbow meme, and an even worse "ultra". Light modes stay calm for reduced-motion visitors.
- •Added the Web-Zug: an optional guided tour that rides the visitor through real pages — home, bots, lab, commissions, blog, FAQ, docs, status, changelog, about — stop by stop, with progress, back/next, and skip or exit at any point. No generated content, no fake destinations.
- Added
Real depth in the background
- •The backdrop is now a genuine 3D scene (react-three-fiber): a slowly rolling terrain, a rotating star field and drifting motes, re-tinted and re-tuned for each of the nine atmospheres.
- •The camera leans with your pointer and the whole scene drifts against the page as you scroll, so the depth is real rather than painted on.
- •It is lazy-mounted on the client only — dark mode, WebGL and motion required — caps its pixel ratio, and freezes when the tab is hidden or when reduced motion is on.
- Added
Everything on one bright page
- •A new /one-pager route gathers the whole site — bots, services, partners, blog, lab, status and contact — into a single colourful, scrolling page.
- •It is pinned to light mode, links out to the full About page and every other route, and carries its own metadata and structured data for search.
- Added
The site, as a film
- •The film now lives only in the background: each atmosphere has its own silhouette scene — a small shadow-puppet theatre of sails, pines, fish, walkers or a terminal — anchored to the foot of the page.
- •Every scene moves slowly on its own (bob, sway, drift) and leans with the pointer and the scroll, so the backdrop feels alive without ever touching the content.
- •An optional "ride": a ticket button opens a departures board; boarding plays a short journey — a map that pans, then a train window where the scenery slides past — before you arrive on the next page. Skipped entirely under reduced motion.
- •Optional ambient sound: a recorded ambience per atmosphere (wind, waves, birds, rain, room tone) crossfades as you switch themes. It starts muted, only plays after you switch it on, and is remembered between visits.
- Added
Living background
- •A GPU-driven flow layer now animates each atmosphere — a slow, warped field tinted with the theme colours instead of a flat fill.
- •No extra dependencies: one small WebGL fragment shader, resolution-capped, paused in hidden tabs, and static under reduced-motion.
- •If WebGL is unavailable, or in light mode, the CSS atmospheres stay in place as the fallback.
- Improved
Atmospheres, made distinct
- •Each atmosphere now has its own base gradient and signature motion — nebula, aurora, fireflies, rain, CRT scanlines, corona and static — instead of only a different accent colour.
- •The interactive point field adapts per atmosphere (density, speed, links and shape) so the depth layer differs on every theme.
- •Grid, grain and vignette are tuned per atmosphere, and every effect is still paused for reduced motion.
- Added
Nine atmospheres
- •Six new background themes — Crimson, Midnight, Amber, Eclipse, Rosewood and Monochrome — alongside Royal, Ocean and Forest.
- •Each theme now carries a full token set (backgrounds, surfaces, borders, text and accents) instead of a single accent swap.
- •Per-theme animated motifs, a soft crossfade when switching, and full support for reduced motion.
- Added
Interactive background
- •A restrained field of points and connecting lines that reacts to the cursor and follows the active theme colour.
- •Built on a single 2D canvas with no extra dependencies — lighter on low-powered and mobile devices, and paused while the tab is hidden.
- •The static CSS atmospheres stay in place as a fallback if animation is unavailable.
- Added
Blog
- •A blog for longer write-ups, with posts authored in Markdown inside the repo.
- •Published posts are picked up by the site navigation and the sitemap.
- Changed
Navigation cleanup
- •Removed the Projects entry from the main navigation — the Project Lab is still linked from the footer.
- Added
New public pages
- •Status page — overall system state plus live status, uptime and ping per bot.
- •Project Lab — experimental, internal and legacy bots separated from the stable line-up.
- •FAQ — answers on bots, setup, privacy and custom commissions.
- •Documentation — a high-level look at the architecture, data flow and privacy principles.
- •Feedback & Bug Reports — how to reach out, with a ready-to-use report template.
- Added
Privacy & Terms, made visible
- •Dedicated Privacy & Terms page with a DE/EN switch.
- •Legal and contact links added to the footer, commission form and sitemap.
- •Bot policy contact addresses unified to a single mailbox.
- Improved
Design, accessibility and reliability pass
- •Visible keyboard focus, cleaner heading structure and reduced-motion support.
- •Mobile fixes: scrollable tables and a navbar that no longer overflows.
- •Loading and error states — including error boundaries and a dashboard loading skeleton.
- •A "next step" call-to-action added to key pages.
- Security
Security hardening of the dev console
- •MFA / TOTP enforced for the private console.
- •Append-only security log for logins, failures, lockouts and session events.
- •Alerts for suspicious activity, with a session-control panel.
- Changed
Live status and new hosting
- •Heartbeat-based live status for every bot, with manual maintenance overrides.
- •The public site moved to edge hosting for faster, more reliable delivery.
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