This week has been transformative for Aphylia, with significant improvements across development, user experience, and content expansion. Here's what we've achieved:
🛠️ Development Highlights
UI/UX Enhancements
We've reimagined key sections of the Garden interface to provide a more intuitive experience:
Routine became Tasks: The naming now better reflects the functionality, helping users understand what they're managing at a glance.
Settings overhaul: We've completely reworked the Settings pages (General, Location, Privacy, Members, and Danger) with improved layouts that accommodate new sliders and parameters whilst maintaining clarity.
Tasks interface: The "Due Today" and "Due this Week" views now feature more coherent buttons and a streamlined design that makes task management effortless.
Search experience: The top bar and filters now remain fixed as you scroll, ensuring you can always refine your search without losing your place.
Technical Infrastructure
Behind the scenes, we've strengthened Aphylia's technical foundation:
SEO improvements: We've reworked link previews for social media and messaging apps, optimised our SEO strategy, and improved how crawlers and bots interact with our site (they now receive simplified, faster-loading pages).
Enhanced admin visibility: Admins can now better monitor API errors and sitemap generation, giving us superior control over what search engines see.
Server-side rendering: Bot versions of plant pages now display overviews in the correct language, improving our international reach.
Plant Database Revolution
We've completely restructured our plant database with a clear separation between translated and general data. This fundamental change improves data integrity and makes managing our growing collection much more efficient.
Non-translatable fields now include:
Scientific names, family classifications, and life cycles
Seasonal information and foliage persistence
Toxicity data (for humans and pets)
Living space requirements and maintenance levels
Habitat and composition details
Language-specific fields remain:
Common names and given names
Plant overviews and care advice
Allergen information and symbolism
Origin details and sources
Now saved across all languages:
Images, colours, and pest/disease information
Watering schedules and infusion mixes
Source citations
Colour System Transformation
Our colour management has received a complete overhaul:
Primary colours are now designated for main user choices, independent of name length
Secondary colours link to parent colours for better organisation
All colours are now translatable across languages
Admins receive alerts when creating similar colours
The admin view now organises colours by hue for intuitive management
New Features
Stock management: Admins can now manage plant availability, quantities, and pricing through a dedicated Stock page—laying groundwork for future updates.
Unlimited image uploads: We've removed the previous restrictions on plant images. Admins can now upload as many photos as needed.
User roles system: We've implemented a comprehensive role-based system (Admin, Editor, Merchant, Pro, Influencer, VIP, Plus, and Member) that admins can fully manage, including user sorting by role.
Enhanced Plant Companion feature: The bottom of plant pages now displays companion plants in an elegant carousel format. Adding plants is easier than ever, with bidirectional linking (when Plant A is added to Plant B's companions, Plant B automatically becomes a companion of Plant A).
🐛 Bug Fixes and Improvements
Corrected translation systems on plant overviews
Fixed plant name language matching in URLs
Resolved all existing bugs in the "Add From" functionality
Improved sitemap generation and visualisation
Updated plant links to show overviews in previews
Optimised animation speed on Garden Overview analytics
Implemented text cropping for lengthy plant names in the Encyclopedia
🎨 Content Expansion
Our plant collection continues to grow:
Added comprehensive profiles for Japanese maples: Aureum, Deshojo, Dissectum, and Garnet varieties
Expanded our tomato collection (particularly important for our Plant Companion feature)
Created detailed plant information sheets
Looking Forward
These updates represent a significant step forward in making Aphylia more robust, user-friendly, and internationally accessible. The restructured database and enhanced features provide a solid foundation for future growth, whilst the improved UI ensures that managing your garden remains intuitive and enjoyable.
We're committed to continuously improving your Aphylia experience. Stay tuned for more updates as we grow together! 🌱