Faster, lighter, friendlier — recent ar-tour.com platform improvements
Over the past release cycle we spent a lot of time under the hood of the ar-tour.com authoring platform. The goal was simple: make pages open faster, cut running costs, smooth out the mobile experience and tie the web pages more tightly to the app. Here are the engineering notes on what changed and why it matters for you as an author or project owner.
Maps that cost a fraction and load only when wanted
Maps were our single biggest performance and cost item, so we tackled them in three layers. First, a 30-day server-side geocoding cache; second, a 7-day browser-side cache for geocodes and route maps; and third, lazy map loading — pages no longer load the map engine when you open them at all. Instead, a "Show Map" button loads it only when the reader actually wants the map.
Together these layers cut roughly 90% of our Google Maps API calls. Pages open noticeably faster, and the platform's map costs dropped to a fraction of what they were — which is exactly the kind of shared efficiency that keeps ARTOUR affordable for every network on it.
Faster page delivery across the board
Beyond maps, we reworked how the platform ships its front-end. All scripts and styles are now minified and bundled into single cached responses. Those responses are server-cached and carry 30-day browser caching, so repeat visits are quicker and the browser does far less work on every page. Less waiting, more building.
A mobile menu that actually works on a phone
On small screens the desktop login panel used to be effectively out of reach. We redesigned the mobile menu so that sign in, My guides, Projects and your account actions now all live in the burger menu — right where you expect them on a phone. If you edit or review content on the go, the whole platform is now within a tap.
"Open in App" hand-off from every page
Every public guide or point page now offers an "Open in App" button. It opens that exact guide or point inside the ARTOUR progressive web app, so a reader who arrives on the web can continue with full app features on the same content. The web page and the app stay in sync — one piece of content, two entry points, no dead ends.
Reliability polish behind the scenes
We also cleaned up a few rough edges. Notification e-mails no longer send during page loads — they moved to a background queue dispatched every minute, so the pages you interact with are never held up by mail delivery. And we fixed several long-standing editor bugs: point ordering could drift by one row, and deleting a point failed on certain URLs. Both are now sorted.
Improvements like these ship continuously
None of this is a one-off. Performance, cost efficiency and everyday usability get attention with every release, so the platform keeps getting faster and friendlier while staying affordable for the networks that share it. Sign in and see the improvements for yourself.