Polly 537 followers

My favorites are cute things and video games! Praying for a cuter future!

News Archive

  • 197 weeks
    Downtime & Server Move

    Hi all. Firstly, apologies for the extended period of unexpected downtime. Obviously any kind of downtime is non ideal, but unexpected is more annoying all around.

    On Friday morning (GMT) we experienced a hardware failure on our database server. To our knowledge there is no data loss of any kind. We have fairly regular backups hosted off-site, regardless. The exact cause isn't entirely clear at this time, but instead of wrestling with trying to get the hardware sorted (it was a dedicated server) we decided that this was a good opportunity to make a server move we've been planning for a long time over to Digital Ocean.

    Read More

    236 comments · 15,317 views
  • 274 weeks
    BBCode updates

    Performance improvements

    Over the last few days I've been working on improving the performance of the BBCode parser. I've managed to implement a few major optimizations, reducing the run time in common cases to around 1/4th to 1/20th compared to the older version. This has reduced total server-side render times on some of the more complicated test pages I've been using to around 50ms–70ms, which should be a noticeable improvement.

    New features

    Opacity

    Read More

    49 comments · 4,871 views
  • 297 weeks
    Recent Changelog

    We've done various unannounced changes of the past few weeks so I thought I'd group up the things we've done so you guys know what's changed.

    • Added account linking page for Patreon / Twitter
    • Added ability to cross post stories, blogs and bookshelf additions to Twitter
    • Added twitter userpage module
    • Added account deletion page
    • Reorganised user toolbar dropdown to better fit more items
    • Added session management page to see logins and active sessions on your account
    • Added new articles system and moved some existing ones into it
    • Redesigned PM page a bit to be cleaner
    • Increased font size in major places across the site to improve readability
    • New cookie consent controls for EU users and updated privacy policy
    • Recommended groups list on groups page - WIP
    • Tooltips in many locations around the site with helpful tips

    Read More

    114 comments · 5,990 views
  • 298 weeks
    Help Articles

    Something I've worked on the last couple of days is adding the ability for us to add arbitrary "articles" to the site which we can use for various things. Sort of an extension on the manual articles we've added in the past like the bbcode page, writing guide, etc.

    So far I've added 3 guides:

    I'd love to know if you guys have any idea for articles that would have helped you out when starting out or anything else that comes to mind.

    65 comments · 5,166 views
  • 326 weeks
    Night Mode

    I've been working on it for ages but only really got the impetus to finish all of it off over the last few days. In the "settings" dropdown at the top on desktop, or the bottom of the slide out bar on mobile you'll find a toggle for night mode. Enjoy!

    Oh, and although I've tried to cover everything there is a 100% chance I've missed styling some things so apologies in advance for any funky pages.

    246 comments · 6,754 views
  • 327 weeks
    Additional Search Update

    Hey folks,

    Over the last few days I've added a few things to the new search system. A lot of people were unhappy with not being able to filter various things as quickly as they used to be able to. To that end, I've added a little filter dropdown to the right of the search box which effectively contains everything the old sidebar used to. It even has some niceties like quick word count filters and a highly rated filter.

    Read More

    132 comments · 5,271 views
  • 327 weeks
    December 2017 Update

    Hey guys, got a whole bunch of updates for you today.

    Tags

    This is a small but important step on our way to the tagging system I envision. The existing way we handled things like characters and genres has all been merged into a single tagging system. That won't result in much difference for you viewing and using the site but it makes it a lot easier to add new tags especially.

    We now have a couple of new tag types: series and warnings.

    The series tag is for identifying what series (franchise) your fanfiction contains. I've added a whole ton of various TV shows, movies, comics, books and games but clearly we will have to add a ton more in the coming future. Stories must also contain one of the four MLP tags which are FIM, EqG, Movie and Comic, as this is a pony fanfic site after all. Feel free to bug me on Discord if you have a requirement for a series to be added.

    Read More

    630 comments · 13,753 views
  • 327 weeks
    Math BBCode tag

    I've added [math] and [mathblock] BBCode tags, which can be used to display formatted math. We've had a few requests for this, particularly for group forum threads and blog posts. Most math-related TeX syntax is supported. (We are currently using MathJax to handle the layout.)

    The documentation from the BBCode guide is repeated below for your convenience.

    Read More

    84 comments · 4,395 views
  • 350 weeks
    Fimfiction API

    If you're not a developer you can probably ignore this post.

    It's been like 6 years, but hey, things take time. The API is currently very WIP still but it's ready for people to get working on in our development chat room.

    API documentation can be found at https://www.fimfiction.net/developers/api/v2/docs and you should join the Discord Chat and PM me to add you to the private API channel and I can help you get started. The functionality is very limited right now but I'm dedicating all my time to it at the moment and would love to have people add their input to the process.

    60 comments · 7,368 views
  • 355 weeks
    New BBCode Tags

    Hey guys,

    One of the features in this new update was reader-side paragraph formatting. This helps improve consistency for readers across the site, especially for those of us who can’t stand reading indented text on a computer screen.

    However, one thing that wasn’t accounted for was the legitimate need for specific indenting of passages and for certain blocks of text to have no paragraph formatting. Some examples would be lyrics and poetry.

    Taking this into account, we have come up with a couple of new tags that remedy this situation which are documented below (copied directly from the bbcode guide)


    [indent] Indent

    The indent tag can be used to, unsurprisingly, indent portions of your text.

    [indent]The indent tag can be used to, unsurprisingly, indent portions of your text.[/indent]

    It also support levels of indenting

    Read More

    168 comments · 6,377 views
Oct
8th
2014

Site Update » The Library Update · 4:04am Oct 8th, 2014

The Library Update

Howdy, folks! It's been a while, hasn't? The last major update to Fimfiction was... gosh, I'm not even sure! We've been making incremental updates here and there, like adding support for Sequels, improving the way we send you email updates, and probably some third thing. However, today we're finally unveiling a pretty huge update to Fimfiction, one that's been in the works for a while, and one we've been teasing for quite some time. Welcome to the Library!

Bookshelves


Probably the first thing you'll notice upon logging in today is that your Favorites and Read it Later lists have been merged into the Library button on our navigation bar. Never fear - all of your stories are still here, they've simply been added to a Bookshelf of the same name.

A Bookshelf is sort of like a playlist for stories. To start you off, we've given you three default Bookshelves: Favorites, which will contain all of your Favorites from before the update; Read it Later, which contains all of the stories from your Read it Later list; and re-introducing Tracking! These default Bookshelves provide all of the same functionality from before the Library update, but give you much more control over how you organize and present the stories you love. Note that you can change the options on these default Bookshelves if you like; they're just there to give you some ideas.

To show you how powerful Bookshelves really are, let's walk through the creation of your first Bookshelf! As soon as you enter the Library, you'll see a New Bookshelf button, off to the right.

Once you click this button, you'll be presented with a list of options for your new Bookshelf. Not to worry, it's really quite simple to understand. I want to create a Bookshelf for stories that I like, but not quite enough to call them my "Favorite." That shouldn't be too hard. Here's what it looks like when it's all done:

The first thing I've done is given my Bookshelf the name "Cool Stories." Fitting, right? Just below that, I've added a quick description of the Bookshelf. This is visible to anybody that can see the Bookshelf, and is entirely optional. Next, we have three different privacy settings for your Bookshelf. These work just like the privacy settings for videos on YouTube.

Private - Only you can see this Bookshelf. For your eyes only!
Public - Anybody can see this Bookshelf, and you can even display it on your profile!
Unlisted - Only you and anybody with the link will be able to view this Bookshelf. It won't show up in searches or on your profile.

This is a great time to note that you can share ANY Bookshelf that isn't labelled as Private with anybody! Simply copy the URL from your browser, paste it to a friend, and voila! They can now view everything on your Bookshelf, as well as any of your Bookshelves marked as Public.

Moving on, we have two additional options for your Bookshelf. Enabling "Quick Add" will add a tab above any story that will allow you to quickly add it to that Bookshelf. Your default Bookshelves already have this option enabled, and you can turn it off at any time. You can see the Quick Add bar here:

Clicking on the ellipses (...) next to the Quick Add icons will allow you to select from any Bookshelf in your Library, including ones not on the Quick Add bar. You can add things to as many Bookshelves as you want at a time, so go nuts!

The final option for your Bookshelf is "Track unread chapters." This functions the way your Favorites did before the update. With this option enabled, you will receive a notification every time a story in this Bookshelf receives a chapter update! In this Bookshelf, I've decided that I'll just check for updates whenever I feel like it, because I'll be adding a lot of stories to this one and I'd rather not get spammed! You've probably also noticed that you can select from a multitude of icons and colors to help you quickly identify each Bookshelf. Feel free to come up with a combination that you feel best suits the flavor of your Bookshelf!

After you're done creating your Bookshelf, just click the Save button at the bottom, and it will appear in your Library for use across the entire site. knighty has been working on this feature for quite some time, and we're very excited to finally get it into your hands. We hope that you come up with some exciting Bookshelves to share with us and the community!

The Feed... and Group Threads


Your Feed has received a visual update, with some brand new filtering options at the top to help you sort through all your stuff much more quickly! In addition to these new filters, here's a big change we're happy to announce. Group threads will now show up in your Feed! While we initially removed this feature for performance concerns, we've always wanted to bring it back, and after some hard work on the back end, we're pleased to bring this feature back.

Chapter Selection


There is now a chapter selection bar above every story while you're reading it. This bar allows you to quickly jump between chapters to your heart's content, see which chapters you've already read, and even how many words are in each chapter. This same selection box is also present at the very bottom of every chapter; no need to scroll all the way back up when you're ready for the next part of the story!

Group Blacklisting


Here's a long-requested feature that we're glad to finally reveal. It is now possible to select which Groups that your Story is in that you would like to display on the Story's page. By default, all Groups are shown to the right of your Story, but this behavior can be changed on the Story's edit page. In order to select which Groups appear next to your story, simply click on the link highlighted below, to the right of your Story:

You'll then be presented with the following screen. Here you can select which Groups will be Featured next to your Story, and which will not be displayed. Note that this does NOT remove your Story from any of these Groups. Instead, only readers of that Group will be aware that your Story is listed in their Group.

Followers


We now display your followers, and people you are following, on a brand new page. You can now find both of these pages either on your profile or from the drop down list underneath your user name on the nav bar, here:

Don't worry - none of your followers are gone, and you haven't stopped following anybody. We've just made it much easier and prettier to sort through all of your followers! Take a look!

Story Cards


We've added a neat little feature to stories, called Story Cards. Just hover over any story's Card on the front page, click the tab that appears at the top right corner, and the Card will flip over to reveal some handy shortcuts! You can add the Story to one of your Bookshelves, add it to any Group you're a member of, or even download the story in .ePub format! These appear in quite a few places on the site, including the front page, Groups, and a few others.

User Panel Headers


The User Panel has received a nice update, and is now displayed on your Following/Followers pages. You can even select a color for your User Panel on the Avatar page, where you normally set your avatar. You can select from 3 different colors chosen based on your Avatar, or you can select the color black, if none of them suit you.

Story Statistics


"Come on, Poultron!" I hear you wail at the top of your lungs. "What about the stats!? I LITERALLY cannot get enough stats!" Alright alright. I'll give you what you want. Just head on over to any story's page and you can now view a spiffy graph of the story's views and ratings, as well as some other bonus stats. Just hit the button highlighted below to see them!

We've also updated our dedicated Statistics page so that it looks fancier and has even more stats. Check it out!

Misc. Changes


There's much more in this update than just what's on the surface. Some things have been shuffled around, some things have improved, bugs have been fixed, but most importantly your Fimfiction experience should feel a lot better now. Don't forget to thank knighty and Xaqueseg for their continued incredible work on our codebase, and the entire moderation team for keeping things running in the background! Below, you'll find a list of some of the additional changes that we couldn't touch on above.

• .ePubs have had their support slightly improved; cover images should now work, and bbcode is now stripped from the story so that they should now display properly on more devices. In the future, full bbcode formatting support will return.
• You can now choose which Groups appear on a Story's page, instead of every Group the Story has been added to appearing by default.
• The Browse page's filter menu has received a visual overhaul! You can access the Browse page at the top left of any page on the site.
• Most menus on the site have received a visual update, and are now more consistent in their appearance.
• Site posts are now tagged based on their content, so you can browse only Interviews, for example.
• When you make a chapter, you will now automatically start editing it, instead of having to hit the Edit button first
• There is now an indicator on the Story Panel when a story has a lot of Heat. Heat is a custom algorithm that takes into account a number of factors to determine which stories are currently popular on the site.
• Emails should be less buggy if you've blacklisted our sending addresses, and you should be better informed now when this is the case.
• Unpublished Stories should not longer be visible in Groups.
• You can now add a Sequel by inputting the story's URL, as well as the ID of the story.

Conclusion


Well, that was one doozy of an update! So, what are you planning on doing first? Change up your Featured Groups? Change your User Panel color? Maybe you're planning on making an awesome Bookshelf? Tell us what your favorite feature of the Library Update was in the comments below, and be sure to share your awesome Bookshelves with everybody! We can't wait to see them.

For additional information on the update and help answering questions on it, check here.

Report Polly · 19,489 views ·
Comments ( 891 )

Fuck yeah the new patch is out!

Meeester
Moderator

[youtube=BOpt30TiJX8]

Spacecowboy
Moderator

Oh no, Change!

Time to make the bookshelf of "Stories I'm ashamed of reading, but like anyways that I don't want anyone else to see"

HERE IT COMES

OH MY GOSH, CHANGE! :pinkiegasp:

I HAVE TO USE ALL THE FEATURES!

Book yo shelves before you wreck yo shelves.

IT'S SO PRETTY

Awesome work, guys.

Comment posted by Kleora deleted Oct 8th, 2014

I can now spell favorites the right way!
i.imgur.com/Q0Oz0NU.png

I DON'T LIKE CHANGE

This is all great!
Only problem I have is, why the change in the logo from the old serifed one to a generic, block-y looking 'F'? :unsuresweetie:

IT'S ALL RUINED NOW

OMG

WHAT YOU GUYS THE END OF TIMES

YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED IT

NEED TO MAKE BOOKSHELVES NOW

THANK YOU BASED KNIGHTY

GROUPS ARE ALIVE AGAIN

EELONIMAUGHTY CONFIRMESSDD?!?!?!?!?

Awesome :D I've been really looking forward to the bookshelves feature!

BLARGH BLARGH I HATE THE NEW STYLE ITS TOO FLAT

This is a cool rollout. Time to make some bookshelves!

My god, you people have been actually doing things! I apologize for all the doubt!

:unsuresweetie: Not too sure about the new look...
P.S.) 502's... 502's everywhere...

2515943

Shameful secret HiE shelves for everyone!

2515970

If it's any consolation, that's basically what everyone said the last time there was a new look, and the time before that, and the time before that.

Right on back until the site first went up and nobody was really sure about the look of it, as compared to the caliginous void it replaced.

So, whats the difference at this point between tracking and favorite?

Yay bookshelves!

Lotsa 502 errors.

But yay, bookshelves!

--Sweetie Belle

Neat.

Now it's finally time to move 90% of stories in my Favorite list to Tracking.

I've been waiting for this to happen for ages.

EDIT:
On a second thought, I'm way too lazy to do that. I've been waiting for nothing!

I think I'l-502-l try to-502-get my-502-story upda-502-ted or som-502ething. O-502-r mayb-502-e I'll lo-502ok at my-502-stat-502-s.

2515975

Functionally, none. But back when Tracking and Favorites got merged to become just "Favorites" a lot of people mentioned that there were many stories that they just wanted to keep an eye on, without having to mark it as a "Favorite." Because calling it a Favorite implied things about how much you actually liked the story, and not everyone enjoyed that. Sometimes you just wanna go "Hey, this looks... interesting, I guess. I'll keep an eye on it for future updates." Y'know?

So Tracking as one of the default bookshelves is a nod to that old issue. If you don't see a use for it, you can just get rid of it, I think.

2515953 Ha! Americans is so silly :trollestia:

When it comes to supporting sequels, how about something that automatically lets people know when a story in one of their bookshelves gets a sequel/prequel? A simple automated pm saying, "We see you have X in your bookshelf. It has a new update to its series here: *insert link*" I can't tell you how many times I see people acting shocked that X story has a sequel.

Overall, nice update. I'll definitely be playing around with the library function later on.

Wait a minute! This means I can implement the Dewey Decimal System for my pony books! Sweet sassafraz, that's just...

derpicdn.net/img/2013/7/17/376147/large.jpeg

Books...

2515980
Looks like you forgot your daily dose of FREEDOM.
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhnUgAaea4M]

2515958

LETS REBEL AND CREATE A NEW SYSTEM THAT'S EXACTLY THE SAME BUT WITH A DIFFERENT NAME!

APB

100/10

But no new emoticons! :raritydespair:

2515989

Compliments of Fimfiction staff, have this delicious new cake icon to make up for your sorrow.

Yay! Feed is all fixed! *seizes Knighty and kisses him. Chastely and on the cheek, but still kisses him after seizing him*

>Probably the first thing you'll notice upon logging in today is
You mean you actually log out?

how long will this patchy gateway thing last(pretty much every other time I click a link, it give me the bad gateway page)?

[obligatory complaint]

[rant]
Two things:
Yuck. POS.
[end rant]

[TLDR-SUMMARY] Quit screwing with the way I use the site, it's a terrible nuisance. [/TLDR-SUMMARY]

Why the heck do you always destroy beautiful aesthetics in favor of some stupid idea?

The tab-esque replacement for the top of a story box/panel? and the current chapter is downright ugly and unpleasant by comparison to the previous one. I really preferred complete when it was actually spelled out at the end. It made it easy to just look past the recent chapter to see whether or not it was done. The check mark is visually unpleasant and does not intuitively say 'Complete'.

Also, the boxes on the right hand side. I HATE the stupid floating bars and elements. It was much neater and tidier as boxes. The profile box in particular was much better the way it USED TO BE. The ways the news items are separated on your profile is nice-ish, but it's a space hog and tedious to to go up and down to browse it. Was there a reason to hide the month people joined?

Additionally the floaty-ness of the comment panels (rather than being connected in a boxy manner) is not appreciated. at all.

For the Nth time, I really hate fly by night updates that I don't hear about until they are either: about to happen, in the process of happening, or have already just happened. Facebook's tendency to do that has very nearly made me quit using it several times in disgust. Don't read that the wrong way, it's just very irritating to have no say at all.

Bookshelves are a neat idea, but not having quick drop down access to a list of my favorites and particularly the to-read is very annoyingl

P.S.
It'd be really nice to have the words read counter return, if you ever find a nice, efficient way to ensure reasonable accuracy of it.

P.P.S.
The site icon looked better with the old, thinner font 'F'.

[end obligatory complaint]

,Wow you guys have added a lot of stuff. But, just from reading the info above, I can say that it's looking great!

We're aware of several issues with the current update, most notably that the "Report User" button has taken an unapproved vacation. Rest assured it will be dragged back kicking and screaming in short order.

2515981
Good suggestion, we'll try and add that in.

Let's hear it for the return of 502Fiction, the update we've all been waiting for!

Seriously though. The site is looking great, can't wait to try out this new stuff! :rainbowkiss:

Already adding a bookshelf (after the website is finished lagging). EDIT: I may of accidentally made a ton of bookshelves of the same name

1) Compact view for stories is a bit borked.
2) The black bar above chapters (marks chapter progress thing) gets weird when you toggle the author tab.
3) 502nd legion
4) ???
5) Awesomesauce.
2515989
Check out Sollace's Userpage for Userscripts. He has an Extended Emoticon Script.

2515971 Shameful? Secret?! Boyo, I'mma wave my HiE freak flag high!

2515978 Site's getting hammered after a big update. I'm sure Knighty wishes he were getting hammered too.

2515974

*nod* My impulsive reaction was negative but, since I'm aware of that tendency, I gave it a minute or two to sink in and I now like it.

...I think the only thing I'm gonna need a Userstyle for is to set "color: #333" rather than "color: #555" on the feed view to make up for the font size being so small compared to other places that shade of grey is used.

Great update, but I've run into one issue so far. The interface for adding new bookshelves is too tall to fit on this laptop's 1280x800 screen. (This is on Firefox with the menu and title bars turned on, and with Windows 8's default taskbar thickness.)

The love update!

2516007
Compact view is being fixed as we speak. I believe it should already be fixed, but if it's not, it will be soon.

Hey Poultron, how do you view others favorites then? I cannot see an option on the page.

Login or register to comment