• Member Since 7th Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen 6 hours ago

ocalhoun


I am not contained between my hat and my boots.

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Oct
7th
2020

Top 5 Features of Fimfic You Might Not Know About · 8:50am Oct 7th, 2020

Haven't put out anything bloggy in quite some time, and I've been meaning to do something like this for a while. I think it might help some people -- especially newer people who weren't around when these features were first rolled out. So stay tuned ... maybe you'll learn something new! ^.^ And if you already know about one, skip on to the next.
(Everything here is going to be based around the desktop site -- mobile version may be a bit different for some of them.)


#5: Custom Bookshelves
Sure, everybody knows about favoriting a story or putting it in their read it later shelf... But did you know that you can make your own custom bookshelves?
When you hover your mouse over the 'library' tab, there's a nice little button down at the bottom of the menu:

(As you can see, I already use this feature a lot.)

Once you click that button, you'll be able to create your own custom bookshelf with lots of options:

You can set it to be private or publicly viewable, give it an icon and a color, and you have a bunch of different options for whether you want to be notified about stories in that shelf. The 'Quick Add' option is really important -- that adds a button to all the story pages so you can add a story to this shelf with just one click. And, of course, it can all be edited later.

And have fun with the name! ^.^ When you add a story to the shelf, it will send a notification to the author that you added the story to ___bookshelf name___. I always really enjoy it when I see notifications that people have added my stories to a shelf with a fun name! And sometimes that even works as a kind of feedback for the story.


#4: Left/Right Insert BBcode
Most of Fimfic's BBcode formatting is pretty straightforward, and there's buttons on the editor for it. But there are a few interesting hidden BBcode functions as well. My favorites are the [right_insert] and [left_insert] tags.

With those, you can split a blog post, forum post, story, whatever into columns, putting stuff side by side.

For example, check out this totally adorable pone:

I made that using the [right_insert] tag, and the total bbcode for that little picture to the side of the text is: [right_insert]For example, check out this totally adorable pone: [img]https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2020/2/1/2262593__safe_artist-colon-hungrysohma_sea+swirl_ seafoam_pony_unicorn_animated_background+ pony_bouncing_ chest+fluff_commission_ cute_female_gif_heart_ mare_seador.gif[/img][/right_insert]

You have to be careful using it sometimes, though, because if you use one at the very end of the page, it can sometimes overflow off the bottom of the page. Oh, and of course -- if you want to do one on the left, you just use the [left_insert] tag instead!

I find that it's especially useful for making group pages and userpages ... which sometimes tend to include a lot of adorable pones like that.


#3: Embedding Stories
Sure, you know that the [embed] BBcode can be used to put youtube videos into your post. Maybe you even know that it can do other things like soundcloud.

But did you know that you can embed stories?

All you need to do is put your story's URL between the [embed][/embed] tags, and you get a little something like this:

EThe Most Annoying Infestation
Rainbow discovers that she has a pest problem in her house. The pest turns out to be both cuter and more annoying than she expected.
ocalhoun · 4.5k words  ·  1,953  26 · 21k views

That lets you easily make a link to a story -- a fancy link that gives a lot more information than just the story's title!
And it's just as easy as making a regular link. The code for the embedded story above is simply:
[embed]https://www.fimfiction.net/story/298492/the-most-annoying-infestation[/embed]

It can also be essential if you're trying to link to NSFW stories. In a lot of places on Fimfic, you're not allowed to post links to NSFW things, including posting links to NSFW stories. But if you embed the link, then it will automatically be blocked to anyone who has 'View Mature' turned off, so embedded links are safe to post anywhere!


#2: Story Stats
It's a pretty inconspicuous little icon these days, but it can tell you a lot of information!
On any story's page, look for the little graph icon in the top right corner next to the view count:

If you click that, it takes you to the story's detailed stats page:

And there's a lot more there than just a couple pretty graphs (though those graphs are pretty useful). For example, on this story, you can tell that there was a substantial bump of extra interest a couple months after it was first published. But in addition to those nice (and adjustable/zoomable) graphs, you get nice statistics such as where it stands in comparison to other stories in upvote/downvote rating (161st out of thousands ain't bad!), shows you how many people have added to bookshelves and (very importantly) how many people are tracking updates from it. Cut off down there at the bottom is a section for referrals. Sadly, that's been neutered since it first came into being. It used to be that it would give you a list of web pages that your story had been linked to from, showing you exactly where it was ... which was nice because those linked pages often include comments about your story that you'd never otherwise be able to read. Nowadays, though, it just shows you which websites in general are linking to your story. Still useful, but not as nice as it used to be.


#1: About User
This one definitely deserves to be at the top of the list -- I really love being able to use it. And for a time, I thought it had vanished from Fimfic ... until I eventually figured out how to get to it again after it had been moved.

There's an inconspicuous little tab on every Fimfic user's page that just says 'About':

When you click that, it takes you to a page with all kinds of stats about that user ... which is especially useful when checking out a new author you've never noticed before. Here's what it looks like:

The graph on the top left is super useful for getting an idea of how active an author is. Each dot is a story that was posted -- the higher it is, the more views it has, and the farther to the left it is, the older it is. That's great for getting a quick look to find out things like, 'Is this guy an up-and-coming newbie? Is he an old has-been? Is he consistent, or did he just have a one-hit wonder?' (Of course, you can see what I am on there pretty clearly, lol ... but then again, it doesn't show what my evil twin has been doing.)

The story listings on the top right are also great. They give you a quick preview of an author's best-liked stories. And I have to say that for me, it's pretty accurate. It's picked three of my stories that I'm most proud of ... and a fourth that's enormously popular for no good reason. It's great for getting a quick sample of an author's best work.

Then, mostly cut off on the bottom left is a graph of their blog posts. That gives you a good sense of how often they're going to spam you with blogs if you follow them.

And entirely cut off on the bottom right is the follower graph, showing how their following has grown over time. (It's almost always grow. I don't think I've ever seen someone with a follower count that shrank, though I assume it is possible if you drive enough people away.) And just below that is your rank. This one all-important number tells you which Fimfic authors are better writers -- and better human beings -- than others. It certainly doesn't need any nuance or second thought. When it says I'm 51st, that means there's only 50 people on Fimfic who are better than me, and all the rest of you are worse. ... What? You were all thinking it! Wait, you weren't? It's actually a pretty meaningless number? Well, um...


And that concludes the top 5 features of Fimfic that you might not know about!
I hope you learned something that you didn't know about before and something you can use! If you did -- or if you want to share any other cool 'hidden' features of Fimfic -- let us know in the comments!

Report ocalhoun · 1,841 views ·
Comments ( 17 )

Cool stuff!

Something else to check out is the BBCode Guide page, which includes a lot more than just the left/right_insert tags.

It's worth noting that the left/right_insert tags are both deprecated in favour of the [figure] tag.

Highly useful reference sheet for some of the site's lesser-known but highly useful features. Mind if I link to this from my user page?

5372802
No! You're not allowed to link to this from anywhere!

:rainbowlaugh:
Of course you can!

The only one I wasn't aware of was the left-right insert options. I knew people were using them, but I never understood how. So thanks for that!

Of course, I use the bookshelves religiously for sorting the stories I review by their ratings. This means that anyone looking for higher-tier stories (at least by my rating) can use my publicly available bookshelves. I have no idea how many people use that or if they're even aware it's an option, so I thought I'd mention it.

Wonderful. Of course now I need to figure out how to use the figure tag.

I always really enjoy it when I see notifications that people have added my stories to a shelf with a fun name!

On the other hand, there are the bookshelves with insulting names. Like "An Insult To Fire" although most people probably aren't willing to be that blatant. Or to specifically have a bookshelf for things they downvoted because they take accountability for their actions seriously.

mobile version may be a bit different for some of them

"Mobile version"?
I wasn't aware the site even had one.

Also, is there a limit to how many Bookshelves that a member can have?
I'm not really sure about that.

You have no idea how much I've depended on the custom bookshelves feature. I kid you not, I have over forty shelves.

I've been trying to master that left/right insert feature, so thanks for the example.

Nice features. I wish there was statistic for amount of reading ( how much did i read on a particular day, month) and not just the sum in my bookshelf.

Awesome :D
That needs to be tested immedeately ...
Just put the "The most annoying infestation" into my "read again" list :twilightsmile:

Edit: okaay ... even works in a comment ... but looks a little wierd :O

Insert story on the left

EThe Most Annoying Infestation
Rainbow discovers that she has a pest problem in her house. The pest turns out to be both cuter and more annoying than she expected.
ocalhoun · 4.5k words  ·  1,953  26 · 21k views

Insert image on the right..
cdn-img.fimfiction.net/story/o7wz-1446769556-298492-full

Edit: Added a little more text to this posting just to test the feature. Especially added some text after the left- and right-insert blocks to see how that behaves.
I think the features are really nice and useful and this page is a nice reference-sheet.

5373158
Yeah, if you use the left/right insert at the bottom of a post, it can flow outside of the post's text box.

Thank you for writing this. I've been wondering how the hell to embed links to stories!

Another fun feature about Fimfiction that I bet a lot of people don't know about is the Interactive Pony. It's a cute little Rainbow Dash that follows your mouse cursor around the screen. (I doubt it'd work on a tablet or phone, where you don't normally have a cursor to follow around.) Just click on "Settings" at the top of the screen, and "Show Interactive Pony" is one of the "Local Settings."

You should know that most of the images you embedded in your blog are missing. :derpytongue2:

Here's where I found a link to this page:

EPlease don't do this
It was supposed to be a simple spell. Not to interact or interfere, just to test. To reach out and see if alternate dimensions really existed. I didn't want to do it.
Kodeake · 1000 words  ·  312  17 · 3.5k views

Do authors still get notifications when you add their stories to your bookshelves? In the past few weeks, since I discovered the feature, I've added dozens of books to my shelves, but haven't gotten a single "Thank you" message.

5764973

You should know that most of the images you embedded in your blog are missing. :derpytongue2:

Yeah ... on a post this old, it's kind of to be expected.
And I don't think I have these images anymore...

Do authors still get notifications when you add their stories to your bookshelves?

Yes.
But some authors get a lot of such notifications, so they might not send any messages about it. I know I sure don't. There can be hundreds per day sometimes.

5764974

There can be hundreds per day sometimes.

I totally get that. I can't imagine how many notifications popular authors like Pen Stroke get every day. The main reason I don't follow very many people is that I don't want my notifications to blow up.

I'm just sayin' that when I prowl around on Fimfic, I often see messages like "Thanks for adding my story to your favorites!" or "Thanks for adding my story to your Funny Stories shelf!"

In the past few weeks, I've added dozens of stories to my bookshelves, and haven't gotten a single message like "Thanks for adding 'Blink' to your Other Stories shelf!" Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Do you have a tiny Rainbow Dash following your cursor around your screen yet?

5765070

Do you have a tiny Rainbow Dash following your cursor around your screen yet?

I did for a while, but honestly it got kind of annoying, so I stopped.

5765117
I'll agree, it can be annoying when she decides to take a nap in the middle of something you're reading.

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