News Archive

  • 204 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 · 15,439 views
  • 281 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 · 4,934 views
  • 304 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 · 6,043 views
  • 305 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 · 5,208 views
  • 332 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 · 6,831 views
  • 333 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 · 5,327 views
  • 334 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 · 13,785 views
  • 334 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 · 4,425 views
  • 357 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.

    57 comments · 7,431 views
  • 361 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 · 6,411 views
Oct
16th
2014

Site Update » User Stats · 10:31pm Oct 16th, 2014

Today I've been working on a stats page for each user. You can access it in your user toolbar dropdown or from any user dropdown (the button on the top right of a user card). You'll get a variety of stats for your account:

This chart shows you your story views (purple) and stories posted (blue)

This chart shows you your followers over time

And finally, blog posts over time.

Enjoy.

Report knighty · 5,059 views ·
Comments ( 129 )

One story is a tragedy. A million stories is a statistic.

Hmn, user stats. Any chance of the long lost words read counter coming back, if only for personal viewing?

I completely understand if the answer is "not a chance" given the performance issue it was previously.

I can barely move the page on my iPhone 4S.

I'd like a Total Words Published number, personally.

How do I make it so I don't get site updates? My thing is on the part that says I don't get them, but I am?

knighty
Site Owner

2537147 You can only turn off social site posts, not major ones.

SS&E's data is good data

Thank you, based Knighty.
Serious talks, you actually do a crapload of work and deal with a crapload of crap, so I want to thank you a crapload :D

2537136
I wish to second this request.

As much as I like statistics, mine are worse than pathetic...

Also, how is the guy who created this site only ranked 12th on follower count? :derpyderp2:

Er..
My stats graph overlaps my user bio module atop the page.
i.imgur.com/vtjxNIg.jpg
Just letting you know.

Yeah, great. But how do we find out who favorited/is tracking our stories?

Can you add a "comments" statistic to the "general stats" on the statistics for my story? I remember when I was able to actually see how many comments my stories had, which was taken out. So I was hoping that with the last update, where in you added more statistics to stories, you were simply moving the total comments, as well as maybe add comments per chapter to the statistics panel.

I will admit I'm one of those statistic junkies. I needs more!

2537171
Same problem here.

2537171 Having the same issue. My story modules on the right overlap as well.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

Yes, yes, more statistics! :D

Neat.
Thank you. :twilightsmile:

Ok, this looks quite useful. I shall have to explore more.
And if they do not cause any 502 issues, then all shall be golden.
Thank you for this, Knighty. Useful working additions are always appreciated.

AWSOME! An updated look to something that looked perfectly fine!

A nice addition! I like seeing how many individual times people are looking at stories, but is there any way to show the total viewer count like there was before, as opposed to each additional view?
One more thing: would it be possible to get the little bio section of our profile cards working again? Personally, it's a little bothersome seeing "No bio provided" when I did indeed put something in there. Is that something that's being worked on by any chance?

Great job with the updates, Knighty. :pinkiehappy:

knighty
Site Owner

2537245 You need to edit it in your edit account page, not the user page module.

Preeeetty...

Man, I make a ot of blogs in january.

Great feature, now is there a chance for the read words counter (only for your own account) to return?

Gotta go DEEPER.

Total words read.
Total Individual Stories Read.
Longest Running Story.
Longest Chapter in a story.
Total Story Words Submitted Per Day
Total Comments On Individual Stories
Total Attention Whoring Collective Upvotes and Downvotes one has received
How Stories Compare to Respective Stories of Same Rating E, Teen, Teen+Gore, Teen+Sex, Teen+Sex+Gore, M, M+Gore, M+Sex, M+Sex+Gore.
Most Used Character Tags Permitted To Have Stories Written For.
Total OC stories
Total Amount of Calories Burned Typing and Clicking Through Pages
Most Commonly Used Words By A User


Gotta go DEEPER. DEEPER DE- AHH~ :raritycry:

Sorry... :pinkiesad2:

2537247 Aaahh. Awesome— got it. Thanks a bunch! :yay:

2537275 Deeper? We can't fit it all in ... yet.

Loving all the changes. But I was curious about one thing regarding the mobile version of the site. I'm not sure if it's the site or my phone causing the issue, but when ever I am typing text in a field and I try to scroll down the screen suddenly jumps to the very top of the page. When I am leaving comments that require scrolling down, it gets a little annoying that I keep getting sent back to the top of the page after maybe making it a few sentences down. Long comments means I have to repeat this process until I get to the section I want. I'm using a Galaxy S3. It may just be my phone, but curious if this happens to anyone else.

Curious to know if the Top 50 chart will be coming back or not...

I found it useful and nifty.

~Skeeter The Lurker

I weep for those who try to make a formula out of this new data. The overall approval rate was mind-boggling enough.

FUCK YES! I love stats; as much as I can get the better!:heart:

Now all we need are a few TOP 50 stat boxes and we'll be perfect!

The best thing about this is that I now no longer have to do tracking on my silly excel sheet to look at this stuff.

How do I stop getting updates?

2537333 Get classified obsolete. :trollestia:

2537136

Not even joking, my heart was pounding in excitement/dread when I thought I might get to see that terrible, terrible number.

Now, that's a good thing! Thank you for this update, now I can finally check my ranking :rainbowkiss:

*squee* 94th :rainbowwild:

Wow, that's pretty neat.

That's cool. Nice work. :pinkiehappy:

Thank you, knighty! You have fed our ego and for that we are grateful!

Oooh, shiny! One can never have too many stats! :twilightsmile:

Yes, yes, very lovely. Now, before you go adding any more bells and whistles, perhaps you could:

(A) get rid of this wretched, eye-straining, muted-grey "Open Sans" font and colour scheme, and put the normal solid-black Arial sans-serif font back;

(B) provide a "sort alphabetically" option for the bookshelves and the stories contained therein;

and (C) provide a way to permanently set the sort order for a particular bookshelf?

Because right now, (A) is making much of the site intolerable for me to read for more than a few minutes at a go, and (B) and (C) mean that the bookshelves don't offer any particular advantage over my current practice of just bookmarking the stories in the browser (which at least does know how to sort things alphabetically from A to Z).

2537600
What is wrong with your monitor that this site is painful to look at? I've browsed current fimfiction on multiple screens and computers and it's never come even close to "eye straining."

Either that or you have sensitive eyes.

2537610

I have special eyes.

knighty
Site Owner

2537600
A) i.imgur.com/pjlcDRV.png

B) If you're looking for a story by name, type it in the search box.

C) Will come eventually.

By the way, nobody uses solid black. It's horribly ugly. I'm sorry if your vision is poor but if you're having a problem with Fimfiction then you must also have a problem with google and *every other website*

i.imgur.com/GVjAQPi.png

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