Website Feature Requests

[Darkniciad]

This is your place to request features for the website. While I already have a lot of plans of my own, I'm certainly open to expanding them. That was the whole point of going with this new dynamic content delivery system. I should be able to add things in fairly short order.

[Darkniciad]

May as well test out attachments *laugh*

 

Here's what the Newsletter page is going to look like:

 

 

And to test the lightbox with a smaller image:

 

 

One I haven't found a good place to use just yet.

 

Hmmm... wasn't expecting that. The lightbox functionality in the forum is supposed to pop up images centered in an overlay window with a close button, not full screen and force you to hit he back button. Didn't expect an actual forum feature to be broken *laugh*

 

Have to look into it. The whole point of not modifying default files/templates was to avoid this, and there's one right out of the box

[Darkniciad]

Still working on the lightbox issue. Strange, that...

 

Anyway, I was testing the newsletter input verification and noticed something. The checkboxes alone really didn't seem visible enough to me. I don't want anyone accidently subscribing to an email alert that they don't want, so I've added some bullets to the page to make your selected options much more visible.

 

 

What the verification does is combine options together, cleaning up the lists in my database.

 

For example, if you checked to receive alerts on Lit for SOTM and Nobles, as well as Alerts from Dark on Lit, the verification would eliminate the subscriptions to SOTM and Nobles, because the "all from Dark" covers them.

 

If you'd also checked "Magic of the Wood" it would remain checked, because that's a Les Story, and thus not covered by "all from Dark"

 

Same deal if you check All Dark on SOL and All Les on SOL. It would combine those together into "All from Dark and Les on SOL"

 

More or less, you start at the top of the page ( see previous post attachment ) and work your way down. The top levels will deliver the most alerts, while the bottom levels are very specific.

 

Here's the beta of the two new trays that will be on the bottom of the main page when I finish coding the pages they link to and widgets that display them.

 

 

[Darkniciad]

Well, tried a patch for the Lightbox issue, but no love. On the support forum, hoping to find the solution without resorting to a support ticket.

 

For those of you using anything but IE 9, you probably won't even see the issue happening. It's an IE9 specific bug.

 

I'm considering modding the IBProBattle Mod to work under the Content App for the forum -- battle part only. Don't feel like dealing with securing all the input related to guilds *laugh*

 

I actually co-created that mod way back when. Oddly enough, the part I'm planning to leave out here -- guilds -- is what I did the most development on. If you've been on Invision 2.x boards, the odds are that you've seen it in action. What it does is generate stats for all members. If you turn the system on, you see those stats and attack links in profiles/threads. You can then battle it out with other forum members

 

Just thought I'd bring it up. For now, it's a major back-burner idea. If there's enough interest in it, I might give it a bit more priority. I think that with the new administrative abilities and the content app, it might actually be possible to do it without modding any default templates or files. That's the only way I'll add it to the forum.

[Darkniciad]

Looks like I managed to get the lightbox issue fixed for IE 9 - finally.

 

So, here's a few initial images I'll be using on the "characters" pages as a sort of sidebar to their physical characteristics. Probably bigger than the finals. In fact, the thumbnails are probably closer to what I'll end up using.

 

 

I've been hunting for images to use for this for a while, and just stumbled across the perfect tool for it

 

I'll be using these as a general "body type" with height, hair & eye color, etc. Also have cup size for females and a small, average, endowed, etc. listing for package on male. Hey, it is erotica, after all.

 

Planning for the main image to be a headshot that's as close as I have to what the character looks like in my mind. In some cases, that may be an image already on the website somewhere ( such as a cover ) and in others, it will be exclusive to the character profiles.

 

Already mentioned the physical characteristics. There will also be a brief history profile, an "appears in" divided into major, supporting, peripheral character that will link to the story database. Characters will also have a skills section detailing any magical abilities or physical specialities, and probably some sort of weapon section ( at least for major characters. Minor characters will probably only have basic statistics )

 

Probably be an images section as well. This may show parts of covers, website images, etc. that depict the character, and are likely to be nekkid *laugh*

 

Just a little of what's going on behind the scenes with regards to actually getting new content onto the website.

[Darkniciad]

Still trying to figure out the best layout for restoring the content that was up on the site before I took it down to rework it.

 

Amongst this was:

 

Maps from my fantasy world, including everything from the world map down to some individual buildings ( such as Zoraster's Complex )

 

Descriptions of the religions in the world. Descriptions of the various types of magic, and how they work. Information about customs, clothing, grooming, etc.

 

At this point, here's what I'm considering. The "My Worlds" page will have the following links:

 

• Maps
  
• Danica's World FAQs
  
• Characters
  

 

Maps will be an all-in-one page, encompassing the maps from Danica's world, as well as any from other worlds I write about. At this point, the only likely map outside of my fantasy world will be the map of the area where the family lives in the Magic of the Wood series. I have a basic pencil sketch map of this completed, which I've been using as a reference when adding new stories, to figure out where to put new characters and where to move family members as the family expands.

 

Danica's World FAQs will obviously be a specific page to my fanstasy world. If I ever think that there's a need for deeper explanation of the way things work in another setting, I'll probably just add it to the "My Worlds" page as a new link.

 

Characters is where I'm puzzling, right now. Most of what I'll be entering initially will be characters from Danica's world. However, with the constant expansion of the Magic of the Wood series, there's a chance I may want to start adding bios for those characters as well.

 

Should I divide up the Danica stories from Nobles by Deed? After all, the Nobles are peripheral characters in Danica, while Danica will be a peripheral character in the Nobles stories.

 

Any input welcome. I'm going to cheat and go the easy route at first, just adding the Map and Danica's World FAQ sections when I first roll out "My Worlds" *laugh* Characters is where I need to do a lot of thinking to create a reasonable layout.

 

Think I may borrow my Sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights II ( now that I have a computer that will run it ) and fool arond with the toolset. I used the original NN toolset to create my interior maps, and the new version looks to have much more customization. Might be just the thing to add new location maps.

 

I may look into creating creature images from this toolset as well. I had a "monsters" document on the old site for Danica's World, and I'll probably add that to the DW FAQ section at some point.

 

I'm absolutely going to redo my original region maps ( Fractal Terrains maps with legend overlays ) First off, I'm going to save them as PNGs, in order to avoid the fading and pixel artifacts present in the original gif images. Next, I'm going to hatch a brain and keep copies of the maps with all the layers saved, so I can easily edit/update the damn things in the future

 

Hoping to find something a little more elegant than drawing lines on the maps for borders and such, as well.

[Darkniciad]

Starting to think about the website updates a bit again. I finally worked out the problem I had with organizing the "My Worlds" section.

 

What I'm going to do is make a sidebar standard. It will be fixed on the left side of the page by default, with a part linking the major sections of the site at the top, and a second set of links specific to the section you're on at the bottom. That provides the navigation ease I want, which is what was keeping me from moving forward with restoring the website content.

 

If you select the "floating menu" option ( in your forum settings ) then these menus will hover in the upper left portion of the screen as you scroll down. The default will have the menus fixed to the top left of the screen. I'm doing this because some browsers may have problems with the floating menu. If it works for you, though, I think you'll prefer the floating menu for the ease of navigation it provides.

 

First things first, though. I need to apply the updates to the underlying software of the website. That will likely happen on a weekend after Thanksgiving. I've scheduled off every Friday between Thanksgiving and New Years, plus will likely have some Mondays thrown in there as well in late December for four day weekends. I want to have plenty of time to debug any issues that crop up with the update, because it's a major one.

 

Once that's online and working properly, I'll start coding the new sidebars, and begin the process of restoring the website's content, as well as building the backend utilities that will allow me to update the website with simple form entry, as I've done for the "My Work" section already online.

 

As I finish those utilities, I'll be able to add new content to the site quickly -- and just as easily as I'm typing this or a blog entry. Feel free to ask about background information on my stories you'd like to see. Once everything is in place, I should be able to fulfill those requests in a jiffy

[Darkniciad]

Just finished the upgrades to the forum and all underlying software. That was the big hurdle with rolling out more content sections for the website, so I'm going to start gearing up for that whenever I'm not in a writing mood or conditions make it impossible.

 

Thought I'd drop a little update. Your suggestions for what you'd like to see added to the website are certainly welcome!

[Darkniciad]

Here's some previews of what will probably be the next major section to go live. It is possible that the bulk of the LST3K section might go up first, though. The "About" section is going to require a lot of scanning, converting ancient text documents into a readable format, taking new pictures, and the like. The bulk of LST3K ( Not including the interactive features I'm planning for members who've signed up for the site ) will simply be designing and posting the new pages.

 

Anyway, here's some screen shots of "About" in progress.

 

WARNING! Nude images ( not of me *laugh* ) Click thumbnails to view larger images.

 

 

On the subject of the interactive features of the LST3K section:

 

First, there will be several stories ( probably my ancient porn writing ) available for people to riff on as the application process to become a riffer with me on new LST3Ks. Potential riffers will be able to insert comments simply by filling out a form built into the awful story. You'll be able to save drafts, only submitting them for me to check out when you're ready.

 

Next, there will be an iRiff section. This will display several stories ( again, probably my ancient porn writing ) and allow anyone who's signed up to present a riff of their own for visitors to read. Again, you'll be able to save drafts until you're ready for your iRiff to run loose on the wild of the internet. Other visitors will be able to give your iRiff a thumbs-up if they like it, and iRiff's will be displayed by the number of thumbs-up ratings. There may even be a sort of "award" on your forum profile showing your total thumbs-up iRiff rating.

 

Readers will be able to comment on your iRiff, and you'll have moderation control over those comments. So, if someone leaves a nasty troll comment ( If I don't delete it first! I hate trolls! ) you'll have the ability to delete it yourself. You'll also have the option of preventing anonymous users from entering comments, limiting it to only members signed up for the website. You'll probably get fewer comments that way, but it will cut down on some of the potential trolling.

 

In essence, I'll be publishing you here on Darkniciad.com. You'll retain full copyright and rights to your comments.

 

Naturally, I may approach you with the possibility of joining in on a published LST3K on Literotica if you're delivering some serious comedy gold!

[Darkniciad]

Speaking of LST3K...

 

 

The more I look at it, the more likely this is to go live before "About". There's a lot of digging in the back room through boxes, scanning, and picture taking involved in finishing "About". Getting the main info on LST3K online won't take as long.

 

The riffers page could be done within an hour or less. The donate and audition pages will take a little longer, as I need to do some research on how to cheat at something to make my life easier *laugh*

 

Have to have some way on the donate page for people to make anonymous donations - preferably with attachments - and likewise on the audition page for people to send me their riffed stories. I'm pretty sure the functionality I need is either built in to the forum software somewhere, or available as an add-on app. That just makes life so much easier, as the forum software will take care of the bulk of the validation and security.

 

I'm likely going to template out the main "Worlds" page soon as well. I'm sure that's the content most people would really like to see. Odds are that it will go live with minimal information available at first, and I'll then add to it as I have time, making announcements via the blog and the "Web Updates" widget/page on the front page of the site.

 

That's when this thread can probably begin to serve its intended purpose, rather than a blog/preview of what I'm coding behind the scenes. People will be able to use this thread to request characters, places, and information they'd like to know about behind the scenes of my world.

[Darkniciad]

Here's an initial work-in-progress screen of the main My Worlds Page

 

 

From here, if you choose "Characters" you'll be provided with a drop-down menu. All the characters in the database will show up in this menu in alphabetical order, listing which pen name and series ( if any ) the characters belong to.

 

There will be a character profile already displayed below this. Most likely, this will either be Danica by default, or a character from a recent story release.

 

Once you choose one, it will display all the information about that character, and the menu will remain at the top so you can quickly choose another.

 

If you choose "Maps" you will be presented with a list of thumbnails and text descriptions. You'll click the thumbnails to bring up the maps in an overlay window, or the text link to to open the map in a new window.

 

"Danica Info" is a sub-section of the "Worlds" page, and will have its own menu of behind-the-scenes infomation available for you to delve into. Among these will be...

 

Documents on how the various forms of magic work, interact, and where the inspiration for them came from.

 

Documents about various aspects of daily life. Why are so many women shaved? There are panties? Why are so many men circumcised? Things like that.

 

There will be a database of gods with information about not only the god, but also their proxies ( angels ) and followers.

 

That's just to restore the content that used to be on the old version of the website in a new, better looking and easier to update form. Naturally, I'll expand that with requests and thoughts of my own about things that might be useful or interesting to know. It's entirely possible that the continually expanding Wood universe may get a sub-section for that world in time as well.

 

One thing I'm very likely to do in time is create databases of spells, items, monsters, etc. from my world, which will probably include PnP role-playing stats for them, so they can easily be imported into your own role-playing games and live on at the roll of multi-sided dice. That really tickles me when someone tells me they're using things I've created in their own games.

 

Just thought I'd post a few things. I said I was going to move forward with getting all the sections of the website running once the major software upgrade was over, so here's the proof

[Darkniciad]

Working on some of the About pages again. It warmed up a little today, and I just couldn't get in writing mode, so I decided to do something productive.

 

I've added to the text, and took advantage of the warmth to pull a box of old D&D stuff out of the back room for scanning.

 

Here's a couple samples of the scans.

 

 

That's the first page of Darkni's Character sheet and the original, full world map. The central continent is where almost all the locations you know from my world are.

 

Just a little hint of what kind of stuff will be on the About pages, if you want to delve that deep.

 

I'm really hoping that a few things ( Darkni's spellbook, All my other personal player characters sheets, the detailed map of the area around Freeland, which should contain many locations readers are familiar with ) are in another box somewhere. My young one got hold of some of this stuff when I had it out to show some things to a fellow player several years ago, and I know he tore some things up. I'm just hoping it wasn't any of those really special pieces.