September 2, 2023
Service announcements and update documents
Update posts linked from summaries on the home page.
Introduction
Communication
#Announcements
eric

Where should users look when the interface changes? A familiar list might suddenly appear different, leaving someone unsure whether a setting has been added or something is temporarily broken. Deploying a feature still leaves its purpose and availability to explain.

Musecat Beta, released on September 2, changes search, region filters and list presentation settings. We documented those changes inside the service and linked the update from Home.

Posts explaining service changes

An announcement in an external community can reach people reading that community. Someone visiting the site to find an arcade may never see it. A short Home banner also has limited room to explain availability and work still in preparation.

We chose a post with its own address for each announcement. Users can read a summary first, open the full explanation when needed or send the same address to someone else.

Post summaries and full content

A post stores its title, short description, body and images together, along with a category such as notice or update. Titles and descriptions help readers select a post; the body explains its background and changes.

Writing separate explanations for Home and detail pages could leave one outdated after an edit. Reading both from the same post reduces that duplicated work. This is a reading feature separate from editing arcade information.

Mermaid
flowchart TD
    accTitle: Official posts and two reading views
    accDescr: The title and description of an operator-published post appear in summaries; its body and images appear on that same post’s detail page.
    A[Operator-authored post] --> B[Title and short description]
    A --> C[Body and images]
    B --> D[Home update summary]
    C --> E[Post detail]
    D -->|Open by post ID| E

Queries from Home to the full document

Home fetches recent post IDs, categories, titles, descriptions and creation times, then orders them by creation time. An ID identifies one post and lets the summary open that same document. Readers can choose what to read without downloading every full body in the list.

The detail page queries one post by the ID in its address and displays its body and images. Images can come from stored files or specified addresses. Its title and description also supply the browser title and sharing metadata, helping recipients recognize and read the same announcement.

Reproduced from the 2023-12-25 Beta code with a synthetic announcement. It uses the original document component and bundled cover image. Original Korean screen; Beta supported Korean only.

Mermaid
sequenceDiagram
    accTitle: From a summary to the announcement
    accDescr: The home page retrieves post summaries. Selecting one retrieves its body by ID and displays the title, description, and content.
    participant U as Reader
    participant W as Web interface
    participant D as Post storage
    W->>D: Read notice and update summaries
    D-->>W: ID, title, description, creation time
    U->>W: Select post
    W->>D: Read post by selected ID
    D-->>W: Body and images
    W-->>U: Official announcement

Using and maintaining update documents

The Beta announcement covers search, filters and list settings as well as planned improvements. Readers need to distinguish what is available from what remains in preparation, so that distinction also matters when writing the document.

Home summaries neither display every announcement nor track whether each person has read it. They and shared addresses provide routes back to the same detail document. Keeping published text, images and links valid remains part of operating the service.

The body view from the same Beta source. It separates the title, summary, and HTML body; the announcement content is sample text for this capture. Original Korean screen; Beta supported Korean only.

Mermaid
flowchart LR
    accTitle: Reading one announcement through several paths
    accDescr: Home summaries and shared links lead to the same post, reusing the explanation rather than duplicating it.
    H[Home summary] --> P[Same post body]
    L[Shared link] --> P
    P --> R[Read changes and planned work]

Related announcement: Musecat Beta update

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