Site Post » Bookshelf Update · 5:13am Mar 26th, 2014
Something I alluded to at new years was the bookshelf system. I'm now working on this system and would like to let you guys know what to expect when the feature is ready to go live and get some feedback.
What are bookshelves? Bookshelves are an abstraction of the existing favourites and read it later system. These two systems will be merged into one and you'll be able to create multiple bookshelves for any type of purpose you desire.
What control do we get over them? Right now, bookshelves can be set to private or public which lets you decide who can view them and you can set an icon and colour for them to make them easier for you to identify. II also plan on making it so you can select a small subset of bookshelves to show on stories for quick adding and removal of stories from these bookshelves.
Here are a couple of images of things that have been done so far. By default, you will have a favourite bookshelf, read it later, tracking and history. (I'm sure some people will be happy about tracking!). The right hand image shows the bookshelf sidebar which sits to the right of the browse page.
The library button on the toolbar replaces the favourites and read it later button, showing you each bookshelf and how many unread chapters it has, as well as a total at the top.
What's the history bookshelf? The history bookshelf is a special case bookshelf that is automatically populated as you read stories. These entries will be purged at some amount II haven't decided yet (either time or quantity based).
Why isn't ___ a default bookshelf? This is where you guys come in. I don't know exactly how people are going to use this system. I've come up with 4 default bookshelves that I think make sense, but if you think you know of a good use case for this system and would like to propose a special feature or default bookshelf, please post it in the comments below for consideration.
I hope people are excited about this feature because I sure as hell am!
Looks good to me.
Though it might be nice to have a few cutie marks in the icon list.
Aw snap, son.
I like it!
Finally, a place to put all the fics I find atrocious.
This looks good. I'd certainly enjoy it. Well done, assuming it works, if it doesn't, well...... Still a great idea!
That's pretty wicked. :o
This will save me a lot of time. Great idea
Sweet, i like the idea.
Twilight will have to many categorys to name tho...
Hey, hey, wait. I got it.
Good job, knighty and Xaquseg!
Give your shelves a pat on the back.
So I take it the "Tracking" shelf will allow us to track stories without giving the author a metric they get to know about? :P
Cuz that's what I've been wanting for several things I don't want to call my "favorites."
Oooh! Excited for this.
Those 4 categories are probably sufficient for defaults. I can already see extras I'm planning to make, but that doesn't mean they need to be defaults (Complete and Incomplete stories.)
So does this mean I can track a fic without the author being notified like the current favourites system does?
Nothing worse than that awkward feeling when you get thanked for a favourite only to later retract it. Aside from, you know, about a million other things.
Knightly, I love you. This is amazing and wonderful.
I am a sucker for organization tools, so this all good news to me! I am sure the users that have over a thousand favorites will be more than pleased to get everything in its right place.
Can we import custom icons from imgur or something like that?
Damn. Nice work, eh.
As someone mentioned, maybe something that vaguely resembles the stuff in the tags could be an option, but that may make it a bit bloated.
Or, you can have an option to upload pics that represent the bookshelf you want.
1956317 Yay. Puns.
While this is great and all, what I wanna know is what will happen to my unread favorites when this happens.
I have damn near 2K chapters I need to read, for christs sake.
This is actually good. So I'm assuming this also comes in module form?
1956317 you're so punny Obselescence.
Sounds pretty cool, especially if we get to organize collections without having to Favorite them first.
Just a thought but what if you had a book shelf for the the most popular tag item in your combined libraries instead of just shipping?
But if you had to make it static, shipping is probably a good choice.
1956317
Let me help you, there.
I'm just going to say I appreciate the updates/changes that have been happening lately and I'm happy to hear about this one. And yes, I'm very happy about the "Tracking" feature as I've got over a hundred in my Read Later for that very purpose.
Based knighty.
I'm a bit apprehensive about this, but from what is shown it looks okay.
On one hand I would have to readjust myself to the new layout.
On the other hand, I'm happy because I've felt the "read it later" list wasn't really that good of an idea (though I do have close to 100 stories on that list)
I'll say it here though, I'm still sore about the old merge of tracked and favorited stories, because I only ever favorited stories that were both completed and that I had liked whereas I track anything that seems promising.
wish there was a history option before. I really disliked it when I see a story that I liked but forgot to favorite or read late, and lose it to the depths of fimfiction.
Since I was this close to making a group for the sole purpose of recommending fics I consider worthwhile in a way more precise than just "I want to track this", this is best news.
1956326 Agreed.
I have waiting for something like this.
How many bookshelf, are going to be allowed?
I would like to know more about the Tracking bookshelf.
Also, I assume that this will not effect our Read Later and Favorites lists, other than moving them to a bookshelf?
It will be different, but if this allows me to organize things better, and you can get it working glitch free, I am all on this like Oprah Winfrey at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet!
While some of these recent changes have been a little awkward (I still can't see group notifications and my social updates and metadata are purged at least two to three times faster than the site says it will, which I liked it when I had them longer) this one actually seems decent and helps to clean.
How many shelves will each user get to have, and will we be able to make 'sub-shelves'?
I'm also curious to know how this will affect alerts about favorites.
Also, could we have the option to keep a bookshelf's unread chapters from appearing in the main button? I'm sure plenty of people wouldn't want the thousands of notifications of unread chapters from their Read it Later shelf.
This sounds like an amazing idea, can't wait to see it implemented. Keep up the good work.
That looks fun! Is there gonna be any way to add an entire bookshelf to a folder in a group without adding the fanfics one by one? It'd be nice if you could just add stories you already have organised in a bookshelf to the right group quickly...
--Sweetie Belle
Organization... *Shudders in pleasure*
I'm yours, Knighty.
(Seriously this is pretty awesome. You guys rock.)
this doesn't effect the overall stories that we faved right?
And I literally JUST got through saying how I would sometimes find good stories to read by checking out from time to time someone else's favorites. Hopefully many won't go nuts and make everything off their front page private.
So, wait, you're going to MERGE all favorites AND read laters? Is there a way those two can be a sort of DEFAULT set of folders so that people don't get their favorites mixed in with their read it laters? Like how your picture shows it now?
Will we get better front page sorting options with this then or this just a personal library for US to manage on our own? I am not too clear on what you meant there far as if this would allow us to sort of highlight on the front page in the same style? Link a folder for display like you sort of have now kinda which isn't very organized.
So, would I be able to have a Recommended List along with a folder of Stories I Didn't Like to compliment the Recommended one?
Can you take a picture of yourself with a black hoody and blue bunny ears while sipping out of a juicy juice carton?
...
Wait... One of those was unrelated to this post.
Huh, what timing... I was recently musing a 'what if' on what if the favorites and read later list had sub-folders.
See, this right here is why I get so tired of hearing people go on and on about how horrible you are, Knighty. You made this site great, with a heck of a lot better system than Fanfiction.net.
You keep this site going, and even take the time to implement awesome ideas such as this one.
Stay awesome, Knighty.
I know some will be thinking the same as me, so here we go.
Is the History shelf going to be Private or Public? If any, can we change it so it is either or?
Favorites, Read Later, Bookmarked, History.
^ Those seem pretty legit. Shipping folder as a default is too... well, for someone who reads mostly ship stories that'd be pretty redundant.
Btw, I've never used bookmark feature and I'm easily distracted so I use a LOT of tabs. Is there a way to make a folder to house stories that have been bookmarked to a certain chapter and point? That seems very very useful for a reading site. I'd be able to kill so many tags I sometimes worry I'd lose my place in.
This pleases me.
Better than the group notification changes but let's not start a war over those and just revel in this awesomnes.
Shall we?
Oh my god, this sounds fantastic, exactly what I need!
Will it be possible for a story to be listed on multiple bookshelves? Such as Favorites and Tracking? Or am I imagining a use-case that won't really be necessary?
Is it possible to remove one of the default bookshelves? I doubt I would want tracking or history.
This is a brilliant idea. Great job, peoples.
1956365
I imagine when the system gets implemented, all of your existing "Favorites" and "Read It Later" stories will stay with those same flags, and then you can rearrange them into the new bookshelves, whatever they may be, as you please.
Sorry to bother you, but this could be made into an abstraction of the groups system as well. People could subscribe to public bookshelves, and they could be given forums.
Even without abstracting groups, I would still want at least a comments section and the ability to subscribe to people's bookshelves.
I like this because most the time I use the read it later for tracking stories that I wanna see where its gonna go.