Changelog

Full visual redesign: a friendlier, app-like look with rounded Fredoka headings, Nunito body text, tactile buttons and bordered tiles

New colour palette inspired by Łowicz papercuts (wycinanki): Polish crimson as the brand colour, with each blog topic and grammar category getting its own colour

Homepage lesson path showing the course in order, plus live pronunciation buttons on the hero phrase card

Blog posts now end with a short "start lesson 1" card and show the article summary under the title

Quiz feedback bar that pops in after each answer with the correct answer and explanation

Blog images inside paragraphs no longer cause a hydration error

Dark mode and the theme switcher: the site is now light mode only

Complete site redesign — moved from a dashboard-oriented sidebar layout to a content-first design with a horizontal top navigation bar

Mintlify-style mega menu: "Learn" dropdown (2×2 grid: Lessons, Grammar, Quizzes, Progress), "Blog" dropdown (categories + lazy-loaded latest posts), "About" simple dropdown

Responsive mobile drawer menu with accordion-style expandable sections for Learn, Blog, and About

Homepage completely rewritten as a proper landing page (hero, stats strip, 3-column features, how-it-works steps, latest blog posts, FAQ, final CTA) — no longer a personal dashboard

FAQPage schema on the homepage for Google rich result eligibility

Footer redesigned as a 3-column layout: brand + CC0 license, Learn links, Company links

Left sidebar and bottom mobile nav replaced by the new top navigation bar

Editor's Picks / highlighted posts system — tick the "Highlight this post" checkbox in the CMS to feature a post in a dedicated section on the blog page and below the TOC on every single post

Google AdSense auto ads scoped to blog pages only (/blog and /blog/*) — homepage, lessons, grammar, and quizzes are ad-free

ads.txt file at /ads.txt for Google AdSense publisher verification

Blog list page container widened to max-w-5xl for a more spacious editorial feel

Blog list page and filtered/paginated view now have sticky left and right ad sidebars (w-[160px], visible at 2xl breakpoint) — fully managed via /polaris/ads using slot keys blog-sidebar-left and blog-sidebar-right

Blog sidebar ads positioned at 25vh offset and sticky at 30vh so they appear in the mid-screen zone rather than pinned to the top edge

Single post layout changed to 3-column: left sticky ad sidebar (post-sidebar slot) | centered max-w-2xl article | right TOC

Single post TOC and left ad sidebar were not sticky — caused by items-start on the flex container collapsing aside height; removed items-start so asides stretch to article height

Single post left and right sidebars were pushed to page edges because center column used flex-1 (consumed all space); changed to w-full max-w-2xl with justify-center so sidebars hug the article

Section dividers and borders throughout the blog page softened — dark mode uses gray-700/800 instead of near-white; light mode uses gray-100/200 instead of bold gray-900 lines

Category sections now show 6 posts per section (1 lead feature + 5 stacked mini-cards) for better left/right column balance

IndexNow CMS page (/polaris/indexnow) — bulk-submit any combination of blog posts, lessons, grammar pages, quizzes, and static pages to Bing/Yandex/other search engines with one click

IndexNow auto-submit on publish — when a post is saved as published or toggled to published, its URL is automatically submitted to IndexNow in the background

IndexNow key file hosted at /c1c02929ad4d4c7ba63a4561cc5e83b5.txt for domain ownership verification

Blog page redesigned with Atlantic/every.to-inspired editorial layout — compact max-width container (max-w-4xl), left/right breathing margins, bold masthead, 2-column hero with numbered "More Stories" list, Atlantic-style thick-rule section headers per category, and lead feature + stacked mini-card layout for each category section

Category filter pills updated to minimal black border / filled style matching editorial aesthetic

Culture Picks slider now contained within the max-width grid with rounded corners rather than full-width bleeding

Blog category sections now always show all posts — previously, if the newest post in a category became the hero or a side story, the entire section appeared empty

Multi-category posts (e.g. tagged as both Culture and Arts) now appear in every category section they belong to, not just the Culture slider

Content Visualizer now auto-clusters posts under pillars — posts in the same category as a pillar group automatically without needing a manual assignment; tag and keyword overlap breaks ties between multiple pillars in the same category

Automatic content backup system — every save and edit creates a snapshot before overwriting; deletion always saves a pre-delete copy that is kept forever

Daily full-site backup at 02:00 UTC via Vercel Cron — all posts saved as a single JSON snapshot

Backups CMS page (/polaris/backups) — browse all backups by type, filter by slug, preview JSON, and restore any post to any past state in one click

"Backup All Now" button for on-demand full-site manual snapshots

Multi-category support for blog posts — assign more than one category per post; first selected is the primary

New blog categories: Polish Music, Memes & Pop Culture, Arts

Culture Picks slider on the blog front page — auto-populated from the culture category with prev/next arrows and brand-blue background

Blog posts included in the global header search with grouped results (Blog / Lessons / Grammar / Quizzes)

Per-quiz SEO metadata — each quiz gets its own title, description, and Open Graph tags

Ad slot in the blog hero right column (300×250)

Live word/character/reading-time/paragraph/sentence/H2/H3 counters in the post editor

Search box in Link Manager with live result count

Google AdSense verification meta tag

Author avatar now shows the PolishPal logo on all posts, including older ones, without any database change

External outbound links are dofollow by default; nofollow is opt-in only via title="nofollow"

Dark mode border lines changed from white to gray-700/800; light mode lines softened to gray-200

Blog front page redesigned as a newspaper layout — 3-column masthead grid, category sections, and "Coming soon" placeholder for empty categories

Referrer spam blocking — 403 returned for known spam domains (rankchief.shop, skyrocketlink.shop)

New brand color (#242EF7) across the whole site — softer periwinkle canvas, rounder cards, and pill-style active navigation

Logo and favicon recolored to match the new brand

Advertisement slots managed from the CMS — image banners, ad-network embeds, or a default "Advertise here" placeholder linking to the contact page

Magazine-style blog front page: lead story, Latest column, and a Culture Picks section

Collapsible in-article table of contents on mobile (desktop keeps the sidebar TOC)

Legacy markdown blog files and dead code removed — the Supabase CMS is the single source of truth

Content Visualizer — a pillar → cluster "pyramid" showing how posts relate, with green/orange flags for whether cluster posts actually link to their pillar

Search-intent tagging on posts (informational / commercial / transactional / navigational)

Mark a post as a "pillar" — Link Genius and agents now prioritize internal links to pillar posts

Visible SEO score on every post in the list (color-coded) with a "worst-first" sort to spot pages to improve

Link Manager now shows inbound anchor text + source URL — see exactly which keywords point to each page

Application Passwords — REST API keys so agents/apps can publish posts without logging into the CMS

Sorting & search in Posts, Comments, and Link Manager

Link Manager dofollow/nofollow badges (green/orange) for external links

"Latest from the Blog" section on the homepage

Custom 404 page (returns a proper 404 status, not a soft 200)

llms.txt — a curated index that helps AI assistants understand and cite the site

Cookie Policy updated to document the admin login cookie (cms_session)

Custom CMS at /polaris — write, edit, and publish blog posts from the browser

Markdown editor with live preview, formatting toolbar, and word/reading-time counter

RankMath-style SEO panel — focus keyword, density, title/meta length, and live score

Link Genius — keyword-based internal link suggestions across lessons, grammar, quizzes, and posts

Image uploads auto-converted to WebP and stored in Supabase Storage

Secure cookie-based CMS login; comment moderation folded into the CMS

Blog content migrated from repo files to the Supabase database (instant publishing)

Share box on every lesson and grammar page — Facebook, X, Bluesky, Reddit, Instagram, and copy link

"Download PDF" button on lessons and grammar topics (clean, content-only export)

New PolishPal logo — a speech bubble with the Polish "Ł", in calm blue-indigo

Favicon regenerated to match the new logo

Logo color switched from red to blue-indigo to suit the language-learning niche and match the site brand

Blog section with 11 articles covering grammar, pronunciation, culture, and learning tips

About page with project background story

Contact page with GitHub issue templates

Editorial policy explaining content review process

Privacy policy and cookie policy pages

Changelog page (you're reading it!)

Mobile hamburger menu for Blog and About navigation

All blog images converted from JPG to WebP for faster loading

Canonical URLs updated to www.polishpal.pl

Sidebar "PolishPal" changed from h1 to span to avoid duplicate h1 tags

Supabase integration for shared star ratings and comments

Comment moderation dashboard with hide/delete/stats

Threaded comment replies (2 levels deep)

URL spam detection — comments with links are blocked automatically

30-second rate limiting on comments per author

Dark mode toggle moved from bottom nav to top bar on mobile

Accessibility panel: dyslexia font, high contrast, monochrome, big cursor, reading guide

Collapsible sidebar on desktop

Right-side contextual sidebars with progress and study tips

Text-to-speech (TTS) for Polish vocabulary, dialogues, and grammar examples

SEO: JSON-LD schemas (WebSite, Course, Article, FAQ, Breadcrumb), OG tags, Twitter cards

Sitemap.xml and robots.txt for search engines

15 grammar reference topics with color-coded tables

Frequency adverb visual bar chart (zawsze → nigdy)

Znać vs wiedzieć vs umieć comparison guide

Instrumental, Accusative, and Genitive case reference pages

Full-text search across all lessons, grammar, and quizzes (⌘K shortcut)

Dark mode with three-way toggle (light/dark/system) and flash prevention

Matching quiz bug where duplicate values caused wrong selections

Nested button hydration error in PhraseList component

16 structured lessons from 37 real university lectures (A0–A1)

16 interactive quizzes with multiple choice, fill-in-blank, and matching

Progress tracking with lesson completion, quiz scores, and streaks

Responsive design with mobile bottom nav and desktop sidebar

CC0 1.0 Universal public domain dedication