New features, fixes, blurbs, and other changes to Neocities.
We recently did a major upgrade of the servers to do security fixes and performance upgrades, but it caused some regressions in the way our file detection works with certain files (JS, XML, TXT). The TLDR is that libmagic changed how it interpreted certain files unexpectedly.
This has been fixed in the code. If there are any other lingering issues with file uploads that should work, let us know.
SFTP support is in beta! SFTP works a lot better than WebDAV, which tends to be slow and inconsistently implemented on clients.
The SFTP beta is starting out as a supporter feature. Please try it out and let us know if you run into any issues.
Added a setting to hard block known AI crawlers with an HTTP 403 response. It's under AI bots in your site's settings, and it's available for all sites.
A good robots.txt is still recommended and is the most effective deny method. Per Known Agents:
You should always have [robots.txt] as a first line of defense. The data shows that the vast majority of first-party AI Data Scrapers and third-party AI Data Providers actually do follow robots.txt rules.
You can use this list for your robots.txt. Newly created Neocities sites have this bundled in their robots.txt.
Reworked the command line guide and API docs, with command examples, API key setup instructions, and a cleaner layout. For security reasons, we're planning to deprecate using username/password for API access and will be requiring API keys in the near future, and the documentation is now reflecting that.
There's been too many design changes to mention, suffice to say we've been improving the site design this year, which hasn't changed much since we launched 13 years ago. It's slow work (70% of which has been trying to figure out how to center a div) because it's a lot of legacy CSS, but the work put into the design this year has been badly needed. We're not going to do a total redesign, it's mostly going to be touch-ups and glow-ups.
Added the ability to transfer a child site to another Supporter account. Use Transfer site in the site's settings to create a link for the recipient. They have to accept the transfer. The site's address and files stay the same. The ability to split a site into it's own new account is on the TODO.
Reworked the stats page. For privacy reasons, detailed stats are now only visible to the site owner.
Added a light/dark theme switch to the navigation. Opted for default light mode instead of "OS preference" for initial theme.
Google decided to deprecate their Search API this year (why?!), so we built our own DIY search engine. Introducing Hotcat, the search engine for Neocities sites.
Back in the 90s, sites used homebrew software like ht://Dig to DIY our own search engines. But for some reason, open source web site search engines have become a lost art, even though they're.. fairly.. simple to make. And as you know, we're big on reviving lost arts around here :)
We think it's producing better search results than the Google version did. Give it a try.
Added multi-select to the dashboard so you can delete several files at once.
Added API endpoints for downloading individual files and creating directories, including nested directories. File downloads were added on April 28, followed by directory creation on May 1. This was done to move more internal code to also using the API, so there's one point of access for the site files.
