PSA: .epub downloads are borked. · 2:51pm Nov 3rd, 2014
Not sure if some of you know this, but the latest site update included script to automatically remove bbcode markups in .epub files you download. So, if you're using an e-reader and a conversion program to get your fanfic freak on, like I do, there are no more italics/bold-faced fonts/colored text/hyperlinks/the kitchen sink/etc. when you download the epub file for my story. Or any story.
I'm still trying to figure out why the admins did this intentionally. Just like I'm trying to figure out why this information is deemed inappropriate for The Writer's Group when a thread asking about the influx of Button Mash stories is perfectly alright. (I'm not even joking. I was told not to post about it.)
Actually, I'm not trying to figure out why. I'm just really, really aggravated.
If you download the .html file and convert it using calibre or some other program, it removes paragraph indents and jacks up the formatting a bit, but leaves italicized text and other bbcode-dependent markups intact. .epub downloads are a bust, at least until knighty or someone gets back to me about why it was broken.
Huh, I had no idea about that.
I don't have any e-readers, so I was unlikely to find out about this.
That's really strange. But I've no idea how it happened. Programming code might as well be black magic to me.
2571616 From what little I was told in that thread I linked, bbcode jacked up epub files, somehow. (Never had a problem with it, personally.) With the site update, they changed the scripting to strip bbcode to prevent...whatever it was that was going wrong...but in the process they pretty much bricked epub downloads for any story that relies on bbcode for formatting. Rereading my first chapter, the conversation between Nix and Muramasa is now an incomprehensible mess without italics. Considering that bolding or italicizing one word can completely change the meaning of a sentence, I'm not sure why this change was made in the first place.