Site Post » Fimfiction 2.5 Change Log · 8:04am Dec 11th, 2012
So, yesterday's update of Fimfiction certainly had some issues, and I've spent the following 24 hours with very little sleep, and spent it all programming. Nonetheless I think most of the bugs are squashed by now, and we're just left with some aesthetic ones primarily. I'll try to nuke the rest shortly.
Anyway! I didn't even get a chance to talk about all the things that have happened to the site with this update! So in this post I'm going to post about as much stuff as I can remember that I fixed.
Stories
Now show sex/gore tags in the story
Descriptions now don't break with bbcode
Chapters can now be reordered by dragging the :: icon
Story urls are now more consistent
Story comment pages aren't broken anymore
Story Statistics
Favourites list made a bit fancier (but only shows 100 at the moment)
Ratings graph to show dislikes/likes over time
Views graph extends much further back and prettier
Referrals pie chart to show make up of referrals at a glance
Hovering over the views icon on any story shows a quick graph of views
Chapters
Chapter names now support the string %i% which will be replaced as the current chapter number
Authors notes can now be properly added outside of body content
Chapter links now more consistent, and have the correct name from the chapter list inside chapters
Comments
Comments layout changed
Everywhere with highlighted comment authors should work properly now, including across pages
Comment links now provided to the left of every comment
Comment/page links should be much more consistent in their behaviour now
User blocks now work properly across stories and blog posts
Blog Posts
Blog posts can now be marked as nsfw if they contain such content
User CP
Stories page has been changed to show more information and provider searching
Story editing page rearranged for friendlier editing
Blog page has been changed to show more information and provider searching
Group page has been changed to show more information and provider searching
Private message boxes are now properly paginated
Users can no longer see if you've read their PMs
Notifications page compacted a little
Groups
Groups can now be set to open or closed
Group urls are all much friendlier now
Groups now have founders and the founder can delete the group
Threads can now be stickied to stick the thread to the top of the forum
Threads can now be locked to prevent further posting in them
Group members can unsubscribe from notifications about new stories/threads individually
Groups can now be given custom banners
Group pages in general are entirely restructured
Member page now supports searching and much better user level functionality
Can now add your owns stories to groups directly from the folder
Dashboard
Threads now displayed like a custom forum
Now see blog posts from your watched authors
Updated stories pane is a bit more compact and easy to see at a glance
Misc.
Hovering over a user name now shows a box about the user
Frontpage restructuring
Featured box moved to front page only to encourage users to explore the site beyond a few stories at the top
Avatars added everywhere appropriate
Footer updated
Story stats page using google charts
Banner page updated and you can click banners to select them
21 new banners for the site, using some of the best art the community has to offer
FAQ page updated to have a basic search in it (still needs updating content-wise)
Staff page auto populated
Everywhere that uses numbers properly formats them now ( ie: 1450 becomes 1,450 )
SPOILERZ
NTSTS Edit: for existing bugs and further site update information, please consult the original blog post
Good job on those features, Knighty.
You rock... Woohoo~
cdn.derpiboo.ru/media/BAhbBlsHOgZmSSJlMjAxMi8xMi8wOS8xN18xMl8yM18zODNfMTc3NTc1X19VTk9QVF9fc2FmZV9wcmluY2Vzc19sdW5hX2ltYWdlX21hY3JvX2pvc2VwaF9kdWNyZXV4X2FydGlzdF94ZDl4BjoGRVQ/177575__safe_princess-luna_image-macro_joseph-ducreux_artist-xd9x_op-is-a-faggot.jpg
Just kidding, wanted an excuse to finally use this one.
cdn.derpiboo.ru/media/BAhbB1sHOgZmSSJNMjAxMi8wNi8yOS8yM181MF8wOF81MTBfMjU3NTZfX3NhZmVfY2VsZXN0aWFfYXJ0aXN0X21lZ2Fzd2VldF90cm9sbGVzdGlhBjoGRVRbCDoGcDoKdGh1bWJJIgwyNTB4MjUwBjsGVA/25756__safe_princess-celestia_artist-megasweet_reaction-image_trollestia.jpg
This is good. Really good. Where is the button for founders to delete groups, by the way? Been waiting for that for a while.
- Fair enough. I think this will definitely encourage browsing by groups and by filter searches.
598311
It's on the group page in the user cp. I'll add it to the group page itself at some point.
cdn.derpiboo.ru/media/BAhbBlsHOgZmSSJCMjAxMi8wOS8wOC8wMl8zN18xMF8xOTNfOTIzMThfX1VOT1BUX19mbHV0dGVyc2h5X2FuaW1hdGVkX3lheQY6BkVU/92318__safe_fluttershy_animated_image-macro_derp_yay.gif
I do say that I miss having the feature box up at the top of the page within the banner. It was my goal to get one of my stories there someday... just seems that the goal lost its luster now.
Also, I liked the warmer colors the site had before. It just felt friendlier to me.
Still, overall, the improvements are for the better, especially now that most of the glitches have been fixed.
Keep up the good work!
Ah, a list of changes. Excellent.
A couple things, though
One:
The problem with that is that it's simply the oldest member. So if the actual founder misclicks and leaves the group accidentally, someone else shows up as the founder. Does that also give that person "founder" powers? If so, that seems problematic.
Two:
I really do like this feature. However, it seems to work rather sporadically. For example, it works on the front page for the authors of the stories and on comments for various blog posts. However, last time I checked, it wasn't working on my user page. Not sure where the issue is there, but that might be something to check out.
EDIT: Looks like this was something silly on my end. Just retested and everything seemed to work fine where it hadn't worked before.
Three:
I do like that feature. However, it gives the overall site comment number on many places, such as blogs. It doesn't go sequentially anymore (1, 2, 3, etc.). However, last time I went to a story, it did go sequentially. That inconsistency seems odd. Again, not sure where the problem is, but it might be another thing worth looking into.
That said, overall, the site update has been solid. Sure, it was buggy for a day, but the improvements have been worth it.
I explicitly want to not have an avatar, therefore giving me one is not appropriate. Please remove it.
598320
I can reassign founders if you need me to. The problem was before this update I was not recording that data, so when I did the update I had to populate it with the best data I could, ie: assuming the oldest admin was the founder.
This. I like this.
Any word on the random gaps between pictures? *crosses fingers*
598323
Ah, so for future groups, it will recognize that the founder as a name/link rather than a time of joining?
598326
For future groups it's recorded properly yeah, and the founder can't leave a group anyway. They can only delete it at the moment. I plan to add functionality to transfer founder status at some point though.
Finally! I've been wanting that feature for months.
Everything else sounds cool. Still hoping for our previous color-scheme though.
598328
Welp, that works for me.
Those are some pretty impressive technical changes, though! Now change the look of the site back to how it was.
Holy crap, Knighty, you're awesome. I love the new layout and all the great features! Thanks for the hard work you put into making this site a ton of fun.
fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/345/c/9/_ponkyclap___gif__by_pianoponky-d5nrd6j.gif
But not on a member's profile page.
Hey! That'd be great!
...Except I can't find that button/option/feature. I made a couple groups a while back to play around with group controls, only to realize I couldn't delete them. Being able to delete them would be much appreciated.
What exploration model would you prefer? Looking through people's favorites lists? Reading the most recent/most recently updated stories? Following authors and reading new stuff they post? You took the "Follow" button and the link to the author's favorites off story pages, so I'm not sure whether you want to encourage those options.
598343
You can hover over someone's name and follow them from there. It's rather nifty, actually.
598343
That was unintentional, I didn't realise I'd taken that out. It's back now.
Hey Knighty, I just wanna say thanks for everything you're doing around here. It sounds like you're working your ass off trying to make everyone happy, so take a break every now and then, all right?
598337
Fixed
Actually, I have another question. The Site Statistics page. How does updating for that work, now? Has it changed from the occasional update from days past to something more regular? Or is it still the same, slow updates we've grown used to? Either is fine, though I'd prefer the former. Just curious, is all.
Thanks for the time you've been putting into this Knighty! Also, has the chapter content deleting bug been addressed? I still get the warning about it when I enter the editor suite.
Is it on the drawing board to have the option to choose different color schemes? White on gray just makes me feel depressed, lol. But yeah, as for the whole change in general, my only real complaint originally was the lack of the popular stories list on the front page, but that was re-added super quickly, so now I have no complaints! Awesome update! Maybe a suggestion, though, lol. Since this new update seems friendly to making boxes pop up when you hover over things (I'm sure there's a better way to say that), maybe have a short bit of the story description pop up when you hover over a story in the Popular Stories section, which currently only shows the titles and author? Then I wouldn't have to load a whole new page every time I want to see if a story's interesting title means it has an interesting premise too. The usual answer is no, it doesn't...
which is kind of worrying, because if there's titles that catch my eye for stories I don't care for, then there's certain to be stories with titles that don't catch my eye but who's descriptions might have drawn me in, and it'd just be nice to have an easier way to see those descriptions.
You've all clearly worked super-hard on this update (Knighty especially, from what I can tell), danke~!
598363
Should be I believe, I just left it there as an "incase" for now.
Oh Knightly, you please me so with the redecoration of the Shipping folder. Also, that is one handsome avatar you have there.
598368
We should probably add a clause to the front page that says "If you don't make external backups of your work you are a crazy person."
Though... that might not be PC.
598368 Awesome. Thankfully I backed my stuff up and only ended up losing a couple paragraphs. Also, I have a title of an unpublished fic that displays a jumble of letters and numbers when I use an apostrophe (ex: don't, won't). Any idea why this is? It's under my works in progress on my user page if you need to take a look.
My user page's bio/story list still doesn't know what apostrophes are (although they show up fine on story pages). And periodically when typing a comment pressing U or I triggers BBCode instead of typing the letter (although that's not new).
On the other hand you can finally turn off group story additions This update was worth that alone
This update was so worth it.
598376
I think the bug you mentioned is still in the bug list here.
Also, Knighty might have an explanation as to the BBCode trigger, but when it happens to me I usually just smash my face over the alt/shift/ctrl keys and that seems to fix it.
Hey just a heads up, I left a group and its not registering that I left it on my user page. Also, side question regarding comments, is the chapter the comment is posted in, like where it said chapter 4 next to the timestamp going to return? I found that useful for gauging the flow of a story before starting it.
I definitely like the new and improved Groups! That was pretty cool Master Knighty.
All of the functionality stuff I'm basically sold on. It's neat--I liked the old, but I'm quite alright with the new! I like being able to do the hover thing and the new statistics page is really nifty.
598348>>598352
Sweet!
Nice work, Knighty. It's looking pretty sweet.
A few things:
-Can we have a tutorial/guide for the bbcode tags?
-Have you ever considered splitting the View Mature box into View Sex and View Gore, for the people who like/don't mind one but generally despise the other?
-Can we change the greys?
598392
1. lolno
2. I've recommended to Knight we add something like a 'content preference slider', which would let users select between different degrees of maturity in their available content. This is probably going to be a bitch to code, but it's one of the things I'd most like to see, so something like that might be available in the future.
3. The site color design is a hotly contested issue at the moment and is under heavy consideration.
I'm still very unhappy about the smaller images and lesser space for new stories. It feels like one big fuck you to all new writers, while featured stories get flaunted.
598396
The redesign of the front page is intended to encourage the exploration of other parts of the site, as well as letting users see updated and new stories in place of just new stories. We're still discussing what layout will be accommodate this philosophy - for now, calling it a 'fuck you' is a bit extreme.
598393
Four checkboxes? Light Sex/Gore and Heavy Sex/Gore?
Perhaps multiple colour schemes would be better?
While we're on the topic of aesthetic changes, what about uploading a custom banner for userpages and stories?
598402
I was envisioning a slider, but it'd be exactly along those lines, yes. Again, this is purely in the realm of fantasy, because Knighty still hasn't told me the same thing I told you in that first bullet point. >>;
Multiple color schemes is a possibility but requires a lot of work on Knighty's part, so it's not on the table right now.
Custom banners for userpages and stories may or may not have been discussed (I can't remember the last 24 hours too well) - they may appear at some point in the future.
Poultron's userpage banner will be covered in dicks.
598399
Why not use something similar to what the feature box is using? Make it scroll through the most recent x fics. And have one for both new and updated.
598399
Maybe so, but it's most definitely harder to notice new stories. At least the Popular Stories is back, that's great.
598412
But I want a slider!
598412
Yeah except that's not super trivial to do.
598414
Unlike your mom.
A question about the front page, as I'm sure you are all well aware.
Right now, new and updated fics show only the minimum "short" synopsis. It is of my opinion that this is not an ideal way to show newer works, as it can be very difficult to interest someone with a single line. Is there a way to simply expand the New and Updated fics to show the main synopsis again?
Huh. That's strange. When I hit that new refresh button for the comments, the little hover box feature for usernames no longer works. That seems rather odd and perhaps was the source of the issue I mentioned way up there.