Under the Hood: Speed, Search, and Accessibility

The last few weeks have been focused on making OpenFiction faster, easier to search, and more accessible. None of these changes are as visible as adding a new universe, but they affect every page on the site.

Pages Load Faster

Most entity pages – characters, books, series, universes – are now served from a CDN cache instead of being rebuilt on every request. For you, that means pages load near-instantly. For us, it means the database isn't doing millions of redundant reads per day.

If you're logged in with a reading profile, spoiler filtering still works - it just happens client-side after the page loads, with a brief skeleton while your preferences are fetched. Anonymous visitors and search engines get the full, unfiltered page straight from the cache.

We also extended cache lifetimes from one hour to one day for most pages, and the browse pages (characters, books, series, authors, groups, glossary, genres) now serve from the edge. Pages feel snappier, especially on first visit.

Search Handles Accents

Searching for "Theoden" now finds Théoden. "Feanor" finds Fëanor. "Manwe" finds Manwë. This works everywhere – the main site search, curator search, the entity link picker, character list filters, and all API endpoints. Middle-earth and The Wheel of Time fans will appreciate not having to hunt for diacritical marks.

Browse Pages Are Server-Side

The character list page used to load all 2,800+ characters into your browser and filter them client-side. Now it paginates directly in the database, sending only the 50 characters on the current page. The same treatment has been applied to authors, series, groups, universes, and genres. Pages load with less data, URLs update as you filter (so you can share or bookmark a filtered view), and the back button works properly.

Accessibility Overhaul

We worked through a backlog of accessibility improvements against WCAG 2.1 AA:

• Dialogs, menus, and notification panels now manage focus correctly – opening a dialog moves focus inside it, closing it returns focus to the trigger
• Search dropdowns have full keyboard support with arrow keys, Enter to select, and Escape to dismiss
• Decorative icons are hidden from screen readers
• Tables have proper captions and row headers so screen readers can announce context
• Form help text stays visible alongside error messages
• All controls maintain visible outlines in Windows High Contrast Mode

If you don't use assistive technology, you won't notice any of this. If you do, the experience should be substantially better.

Group Scoping Fixed

Groups are now scoped to a specific universe, series, or book, replacing the old system that derived group relevance from where members appeared. This fixes a long-standing bug where Thorin's Company showed up on The Lord of the Rings pages (because Bilbo and Gandalf are members of both Thorin's Company and the Fellowship). Groups now only appear where they're relevant – Thorin's Company on The Hobbit pages, Kelsier's Crew on Mistborn Era 1 pages, the Bennet Family on the Pride and Prejudice page only.

Entity Link Previews

Hover over any character, book, group, or glossary link in a description and you'll see a floating preview card with an image, subtitle, and description excerpt. No extra page load – the data is fetched server-side alongside the link. This makes browsing descriptions much more useful, especially on densely linked pages like glossary entries and chapter summaries.

Smaller Things

• The header now shows your signed-in state instantly instead of flickering on load
• Tables don't overflow on mobile anymore
• History pages are no longer indexed by search engines (they were consuming crawl budget without value)
• Account deletion now ends all sessions immediately
• Orphaned image files are cleaned up when characters are permanently deleted