With the big V5 update, not only have there been many changes to the GalaxyBot's modules and their functions. We've also given our systems a major technical upgrade! This post is all about the GalaxyBot Dashboard. In other blog posts, you can read more about the new V5 website, the V5 Discord bot, or our general IT infrastructure.
The GalaxyBot Dashboard
The GalaxyBot Dashboard has offered you the ability to manage your bot's settings conveniently and easily online in your browser since the very beginning of GalaxyBot. All without having to enter annoying commands in Discord.
Much has changed over time
We've made quite a few changes here. Take a look at how the dashboard looked in its first version. The design was very modern back then and matched well with Discord and our old logo. From a technical perspective, we used PHP because it allowed us to develop a reliable and, above all, secure dashboard that we could provide to you. However, one characteristic of PHP is that the code is executed entirely on the server. This meant that the page had to reload with almost every click on a button or link in the dashboard. Naturally, this made the dashboard quite slow - and that's something we wanted to change!
In the next version of our dashboard, quite a bit changed, as you can see. We turned our branding - the logo, colors, and so on - completely upside down and thus also completely changed the dashboard's design. The structure, however, remained the same. It already looks almost like the current dashboard!
We were still using PHP but interacted much more with the user through JavaScript, saving us several page reloads and redirects.
Currently, the GalaxyBot Dashboard looks like the third screenshot. We've tweaked the design a bit more and completely redesigned the layout of some pages. Some cool modules have also been added! You can read about all the new features in V5 in our blog post about the changes in Version 5.
Dashboard now based on Nuxt - technical changes
The biggest change from the last dashboard to the current one is definitely the technical implementation in the background. Our development team has steadily grown and evolved. This allowed us to finally take a big and long-awaited step: we completely reprogrammed the dashboard and created a modern, beautiful, and above all fast dashboard based on TypeScript and Nuxt.
The dashboard is now divided into a backend and a frontend, where the frontend is what you see when you open the dashboard and configure your bot. The dashboard also processes all the commands you send when making settings. The frontend then forwards your requests to the backend, where the settings are saved in the database and actually applied.
Frontend with Nuxt
Nuxt, which we use in the frontend, is an open-source framework for developing websites and web apps based on Vue.js. Vue.js, in turn, is based on JavaScript. JavaScript is now used by almost every website because the code can be executed directly in the user's browser. This enables many functions where you can, for example, interact with the website without having to reload it.
What we particularly like about Nuxt is that it's a fairly lightweight framework and not overloaded with features. This helps us reach our goal faster in the development process. In addition to the framework itself, there's a huge community that also develops websites with Nuxt. This provides a large selection of plugins and pre-made components on the market that can significantly accelerate development. Nuxt also helps us onboard new developers to the team faster because many are already familiar with Vue.js and can therefore quickly find their way into Nuxt.
Backend with TypeScript
The backend was written entirely in TypeScript. TypeScript is based on JavaScript and offers some really cool additional features. Unlike JavaScript, TypeScript also has much better integration with the programs we use for programming. This means we can detect and fix errors much earlier, so they don't affect you at all! We're especially pleased that TypeScript allows for explicit types. For example, you can clearly define whether a variable in your code should be a number or a text. This helps prevent errors when operating the dashboard.
The advantages of the recode
The newly programmed dashboard offers many advantages. For example, we analyzed the loading times and found that the loading times compared to the old dashboard are almost four times faster. We're naturally very pleased about this, and you probably are too.
New features in the dashboard
Faster setup with the Setup Wizard
Since Version 5, the dashboard offers you a Setup Wizard, which is a guide to setting up the modules of the GalaxyBot. This helps you finish much faster and lets you use a module right away and customize it later.
Create more beautiful embeds more easily with the Embed Editor
You probably still remember our Embed Editor from the last version of the dashboard. Embeds can now be edited even more easily. Additionally, the placeholders for automatically inserting information such as a user's name, etc. are much more accessible.
Edit images directly in the dashboard with the Image Editor
Another feature we're very proud of is the new Image Editor. With this, you can edit images that you upload to the dashboard directly there. It's not a full image editing program, of course, but you can comfortably crop and rotate your images, making them perfect for your use case.
Further changes
We've made many more changes and added additional features. For example, the dashboard now directly shows when the bot cannot manage a selected role, and all dropdown menus have been redesigned. For more details, check out our livestream from the V5 event. We explained everything in detail there and afterward spoke with the developers about the new features: V5 event on YouTube.
What else has changed with Version 5
With the major V5 update, our development team has made several changes to the GalaxyBot and its systems. For example, many new features have been added, which we've already presented in a blog article. There were also some changes to technical systems, such as the IT infrastructure and the bot code itself. We've also completely redesigned the website and programmed it more modernly.
You can find the current overview of all GalaxyBot functions directly here on the website: to the GalaxyBot functions!
Try out the dashboard now!
Haven't tried the new dashboard and discovered the new features yet? Then check it out: to the GalaxyBot Dashboard.
If you're not a GalaxyBot user yet, you can add the Discord bot anytime via our website. Or you can click on this link: Invite GalaxyBot now. Setup doesn't take long, and if you have questions, our support team on our Discord server will be happy to help.