Ever since the Power Flag Generator (aka Random Custom Flag) surpassed the Power Name Generator a while ago and ended up reaching 10.0k views first, I feel like this generator was probably gaining more attention than the name generator because of how “niche” the concept is, despite having a simpler (and a bit more basic) interface than the name generator itself. It even gained more than 1.0k views per week, which none of my other generators has ever done that, let alone the Generator Manager itself.

Then, I immediately thought of something: what if I just plan more for the updates to the flag generator so more people could basically enjoy those new features on the way? And that’s exactly what I did. I started rolling out a few updates to the flag generator earlier this month, and even started updating it regularly often, sometimes adding a tiny hot patch to the generator a few times a day. When I started releasing the update with a new feature that allows user to submit flag details into the comments plugin, the comments started to blow up with many flag submissions not long after I published the update.

I then thought of what I have planned for many, many days but haven’t been able to come it to reality: the new interface. Yup, with my new regulations on updating and managing generators nowadays, I decided to roll out the new UI gradually (that means you’ll may see some inconsistencies out of hood) and that will be perfect once the time has come. I also planned to roll out some more updates to the flag generator that will incorporate some of these UI changes. Or should I say, a whole new UI refresh, which will look nothing like the current interface, but it’ll look like the one used in the Power Name Generator and the Generator Manager, with a nice blur effect like the latter. And largely redesigned layouts.

I mentioned that update a few times in my big milestone announcements, including the 10.0k views milestone announcement:

• A big, rejuvenating update that’ll come to the Power Flag Generator as well! 🚩️ We’ve promised that update ever since the big 5.0k views milestone on that generator, but with this, that will also be way closer to the real thing, and might even come next month, with a revamp of the interface that’ll hopefully look familiar to that of the current one, with some bits of changes.
  • And there’s also other great updates there, too! Specifically, the Flag Viewer (which allows you to view generated flags right from the URL you can put in the comments), flag descriptions, and even more variations of flag layouts and emblems!

The Flag Viewer will be a different kind of concept, though. I already build a feature where users could submit flags in a text format in the comments, but I want to revamp that eventually. Instead of just sending out flag details in the comments, I wanted to make a “flag gallery” where all the submitted flags will display just like the generated flag itself that will look like this (similar concept to the text-to-image-plugin gallery):

Some features that are worth implementing into the flag gallery:

• Icon near the name of the flag that indicates whether the flag uses unique/advanced colors
• A globe icon, also placed near the name, that opens country details (if the flag have them)
• Upvotes and downvotes, similar to what we have in the text to image gallery (that’s why there are “Hot” and “Top” sort options in the sketch)
• For moderation purposes, there will be a dedicated blacklist for unwanted flags (through a list in the generator)
• Version of the generator (in dates) at the time the flag was submitted, will be a part of the flag details

Also, I think I’ll be completely changing the way how users submit the flags. Instead of having a textbox and a button where the user can send the flag into the comments section, I’ll probably add a dedicated button near each flag so when a user clicks on one near a flag, that flag will get submitted into the gallery. This way, this will prevent certain issues in case user wants to submit multiple generated flags at once.

And, to eliminate the comment bottleneck on the comments plugin’s backends, I’ll build my own Glitch server specifically for that feature that could hold up an indefinite amount of flag submissions and that later the comments can be re-functioned as a usual comments section (for engaging on flags and other things) instead of using the comments plugin’s built in onComment and onLoad functions, and also programmatic submissions. (Btw if you want to help just let me know! I sometimes need to allocate some time to work on other stuff, and that’ll be greatly appreciated!)

Remember that there are also some other planned features that I’ve just thought out of the box that I haven’t mentioned yet, but I’ll keep it in my personal idea space for now as I’m still partially cooking on it.

And that’s all for the post about the flag generator! It’s crazy that it went even more popular than expected, and if the generator ever surpassed the Generator Manager someday, that’ll be extremely astonishing in my mind honestly.