Today we'd like to announce a new effort that we've dubbed The AmmoSeek Lab. This is a new web site where we will be making upcoming AmmoSeek features/updates available for you to try out before they are generally available on our production site.

The only catch is that you should expect there to be bugs and the site may not work properly for you at times (especially when we are updating it).

Why are we doing this?

We are doing this because we are small team and we'd like your help in finding bugs before they wreak havoc on our production site. The goal is to minimize problems with new feature updates before they go to production.

Please, please, pretty please, contact us with any bugs you encounter and try to provide as much detail about what you are seeing as possible. Sending us a screenshot is usually incredibly helpful in assisting us in identifying and fixing things.

We are continuously working on making AmmoSeek as helpful as it can be and this should help us toward that aim as we enlist our sizable audience to scream at us when they find something wrong with the lab site.

Accessing the lab

IMPORTANT NOTE: For now, the lab requires entering a special username and password to get to the site. You will be prompted to enter these credentials when initially accessing it.

These 'access' credentials are not the same credentials you use for logging in to AmmoSeek itself. You must first gain access with these credentials and then also login with your individual AmmoSeek account (if you have one).

If you do not have an AmmoSeek account already and you use the lab to register for one, the account will work in both the lab and the production site. In other words, the lab and the production site both use the same backend data.

At some point we will remove these 'access' credentials and the lab will be open to all who wish to kick its tires.

Here is the lab link and access credentials:

The AmmoSeek Lab link:
https://lab.ammoseek.com/

Login: labguest
Password: getammoftw

First Lab Release Change Log

Here is a list of some of the major updates that are in this lab release. This was a pretty major update.

Mobile Bottom Navigation: On mobile-sized devices we have moved the selection of most actions to a bottom navigation bar to make it "less cumbersome" to use the app/site on such devices. The basic "by caliber" search form is now top/front/center (by default). This is part of our larger effort to make the web site behave more like a mobile app.

Search Forms Update: The entire search form behavior has been updated to be more performant along with some style changes (i.e. moved some search parameters to "radio" buttons so not everything is a dropdown menu).

Modify Search Update: On the results pages, the modify search results form is now displayed in various states depending upon your browser width. For mobile, the modify form will slide up from the bottom navigation menu. For medium/tablet and smaller desktop browser widths the modify form can be opened/closed by clicking the Modify Search buttons, however, the form now pushes the results content so it is no longer obscured by the form. On larger widths, the modify form is open by default and must be toggled to be closed if you don't wish to see it next to the results.

Search Results Style: The search results will automatically change style to fit your screen width. On some widths the results will change in to multi-line 'cards' and for others (wider) the results will be shown in a 'normal' table/spreadsheet style. If you have good eyesight and want to reduce the spacing in the results you can turn on compact results mode still, if you wish. Our older instructions for turning on compact results mode are still applicable in the lab.

Saved Searches Menu: On mobile-sized devices, if you have any saved searches, they are now displayed in a dropdown "folder icon" menu in the upper right corner of the browser window (in the navigation bar).

That's all for now, folks!