I’ve just manage to deploy the single largest update to Bouldr since launch! This has been in the making for about six months now, but time constraints have prevented me from launching sooner.

If you find bugs or have problems with the site, please post in the forum.

What’s changed?

• Added a terrain map to the explorer view
• Better climber search in ‘People’ tab, including filters
• Arrow keys to cycle forwards and backwards through climbs listed in the pop-up on the explorer
• Escape to close the popup on the explorer
• Large refactoring of the image generation code, which should mean the site runs faster as a whole
• Message threading in my account.
• New, simplified friending system – now you can follow people as you wish, without having to have them accept an invitation
• A new news feed allows you to see updates relevant to you – friends ticks, climbing partner requests and new climbs nearby are all listed as they happen.
• We’ve added collectable awards that you can earn as you complete certain tasks on Bouldr. A full list of available awards is available here.
• Along with the awards, you now have a reputation score. Earn more points by adding climbs and gaining awards.
• There is a new ‘Guidebooks’ section in your account. This is still under development, and will be useful to those of you that have the iPhone version of Bouldr. More details of this will become available soon.
• Fix for weather bar not showing images
• Changed display of problem view page
• Total refactor of the Blog
• Numerous code changes, and a few bug fixes have also been applied, but there are far too many to go into here

One of the main reasons that this update had had to be applied (finally), is that there are code changes that were required for the next version of the iPhone app, which is the next item on my infinite to-do list.

Looking to get a new release of the Bouldr app out by the end of the year, with the possibility of a free (ad-supported) version early on next year.