Faster actions and page loads after idle

A big chunk of the app's backend was reorganized to reduce cold starts, especially on the first action after the site has been quiet for a while.

• Less waiting on common actions: Things like adding books, liking, commenting, editing, and profile updates should feel much more responsive instead of occasionally acting like the site is stuck waking up.
• Faster high-traffic reads: Shelf, profile, and discovery data now share warmer backend paths too, so common reads should load more consistently.
• Lower overhead behind the scenes: This change also reduces the number of separately warmed functions we need to keep alive, which makes the performance setup simpler and more efficient.

Private and unlisted reviews

Reviews now support three visibility levels: public, unlisted, and private.

• Public: Visible everywhere — on your shelf, the book page, search, and discovery feeds.
• Unlisted: Visible on your shelf and by direct link, but hidden from search and discovery.
• Private: Only you can see it. Private reviews stay off your public shelf and never appear to other readers.
• Built into the editor: You can choose review visibility while creating or editing, using the new footer control next to publish.

Download list posters

You can now download a poster version of any list as a single image.

• Built for lists: The export uses the same tall poster format as shelf posters, but adapts it for list titles, descriptions, and ordered book selections.
• Public sharing: Public and unlisted lists can be downloaded without signing in, so posters work cleanly for direct links and sharing.
• Rank-aware: Ranked lists preserve their list order and show numbered badges on each selected book.

Download shelf posters

You can now download a polished poster version of your shelf as a single image.

• Designed for sharing: The poster uses a tall mobile-friendly format that still looks good on desktop, with your shelf identity, stats, and a 5 by 5 grid of books.
• Real shelf data: It pulls from the same cover and edition-selection pipeline used on the site, so the exported books match what you actually see on lit.salon.
• One click: Use the new "Download poster" action on any public shelf to save it instantly.

Crowdsourced book tags

You can now add descriptive tags to books — things like "atmospheric", "dense", "romantic", or "unreliable narrator". Tags are crowdsourced: the more people who add the same tag, the higher it ranks.

• Vote on tags: Click any existing tag to add your vote. Click again to remove it. Tags are sorted by vote count so the most agreed-upon descriptors surface first.
• Add new tags: Click the + button to search existing tags or create new ones. Autocomplete suggests tags already used across other books.
• Visible on every book page: Tags appear below the description. Your own votes are highlighted so you can see what you’ve contributed at a glance.

Book annotations in lists

You can now add short notes to individual books in your lists — a sentence or two about why a book belongs, what it means in context, or anything you want to say about it.

• Detail view: Toggle the new detail view on any list to see books in a side-by-side layout with space for annotations.
• Inline editing: Click "Add a note..." next to any book and start typing. Your note saves automatically when you click away.
• Smart defaults: Lists with annotations automatically open in detail view. You can always switch back to the grid.

Private and unlisted content

Lists and writings now support three visibility levels: public, unlisted, and private.

• Public: Visible everywhere — search, explore, your profile.
• Unlisted: Accessible on your profile and via direct link, but hidden from search and discovery.
• Private: Only you can see it. Completely hidden from other users.

Visibility is enforced at the server level — private content is never sent to unauthorized clients, not even in API responses. You can set visibility when creating or editing a list or writing.

Content URL stability fix

Removed automatic canonical title redirects on review, list, and writing pages to prevent redirect/reload loops in some browsers.

These pages now resolve by content ID, which preserves user-entered URL title segments more reliably while still keeping canonical metadata for SEO.

Custom image optimization engine

We replaced the Firebase image resize extension with our own image resizing and optimization engine. This gives us tighter control over image processing and quality.

Image uploads now support files up to 20MB.

Shelf background images

You can now upload a background image for your shelf. It renders as a full-bleed image on your shelf page with adjusted theming for legibility.

You can also now delete an existing banner or background image, not just replace it.

Comment moderation

You can now delete comments on your own content (reviews, lists, threads, quotes, and writings). Comments with replies are soft-deleted to preserve conversation context.

Expanded search

Search has been completely re-done and expanded. Now, every single content type can be full-text searched.

• Books
• Reviews (title and content)
• Lists (title and description)
• Quotes
• Users
• Threads

Complete UI redesign

Redesigned the entire app by migrating to our custom UI library, which will match the look of the mobile app coming later this year.

If you notice any UI inconsistencies, please let me know in Discord.

Notification changes

Hi, welcome to the changelog. I'm going to be using this to document all the updates, improvements, and fixes to lit.salon. Stay tuned.

• Notification changes: You'll now be notified when people you follow post new content (reviews, threads, lists, writings, quotes) and when your own content starts trending.
• Removed notifications: Removed the rather useless notifications: 'user added X book from your shelf or list'