Forums:
Taxonomy upgrade extras:
I've enabled two new things that will affect the look and functioning of BigCloset.
First, stories (including story, wysiwyg, fiction, and book and title page types) and polls will now float to the top of the front page while forums, blogs, links and other sorts of posts will now by default float to the bottom of the front page.
This will mean I will have to do periodical policing to remove stories from the front page so there are a few slots at the bottom for other sorts of posts, so if I take a vacation like I did the past month, things may get "sticky". That's a joke, the software calls the float up flag, "sticky". :)
Anyway.
The second is that I have included the capability for authors to upload their stories or artwork rather than input them. The upload capabilities are up to 2meg in size per post of files of .jpeg, .jpg, .gif, and .png images and .txt, .pdf and .rtf text files. Html and .doc files are not allowed since I would have to design a filter to be sure none such had hidden malware that the uploader might not even know about.
This will allow authors to upload their stories in exactly the form they want readers to see them. Most word processors, including MS Word and WordPerfect can save files in .rtf format and it is the native format of most of the open source word processors like Star and OpenOffice. Anyone with most modern PCs or Macs can also create .pdf easily.
Each author has up to 2meg per post, big enough for most novels or large graphics, and up to 64 meg total uploads allotted. If you really need more, I can double limits on request. Posts bigger than 4meg are probably not going to be downloaded very often. :)
Hope this works, I've been trying it out all summer.
Hugs,
Erin
I beg to differ...
...but, while RTF is certainly widely supported, it is NOT the native format of either OpenOffice or recent versions of StarOffice (which are based on OpenOffice, by the way). OpenOffice 1.x uses a XML-based format, which after some tweaking by a consortium called OASIS was standardized under the name OpenDocument -- which is the native format for OpenOffice 2.0.
Both can read and write RTF, though. And a bunch of other formats, including MS-Word DOC format.
Early Beta versions I guess h
Early Beta versions I guess had .rtf as the native format. I've been using a very old copy of Star for years. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
So, hmmm
Erin,
For the technically challenged here, does this mean that I can upload one of my *.pdf outputs that I generate for "premiums" from time to time directly to the site? If, so how does it display and how does the reader know what it's all about if anything in my case? I guess what I am saying is can they view any of it and if not how would they know whether they wanted to waste the time to download it? Or, maybe I don't really get what your offering?
Gwennie
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
More about uploads
No, you won't be able to see any part of an uploaded file until it is downloaded. That's what the framing post-type would be for, so a sample could be included. And .pdfs with a lot of illustrations may be larger than 2 or 4 meg. We'll see how that works. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
More hmmm on uploads or size matters?
Sorry for all the questions Erin and once I do one I will know more but just trying to get a grip on how this is supposed to work.
The output from Adobe acrobat pro 6.0 for the Maid to Serve premium only "weighed" 614KB according to my scale and had 14 or 15 full color .jpg images. Was that the real size on your end? Sounds odd but there seem to be discrepencies about the size of what is sent and received by folks from time to time. Next, in the framing text stuff how do you link or whatever to the pdf? How does and author know what if anything gets downloaded? Do you think people will print these out or will they just view it with the reader on screen? Last, what is the scoop on the gallery is that just dead? Ok, enough from me, thnaks!
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
Last things first
I'm just about to work on the gallery to see if I can get the server fixed.
614kb would be fine and the discrepancies are seldom huge in my experiences. What happens is when you do an upload you are changing between the operating system of your computer and the operating system of the server and they may figure sizes differently because they store stuff differently. It's usually less than 3% different.
You can link to the .pdf in the text by doing a copylink to how it appears at the bottom of your preview. That won't make it appear in your text, it will just make a handier link for downloading.
If you want to include images or text from the pdf visibly in the framing post, you'll have to do those the way we have been doing them--type or paste the sample text in and include any images with img tags referring to the images stored somewhere else.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Sounds good...
I like the idea of being able to upload a specially formatted document. There are some stories that can benefit a great deal from formatting variations.
However, I can't seem to find where you've put the uploading "gateway." (I don't have anything to submit right now; I was just checking things out for the future.)
Amelia
"Reading rots the mind." - Uncle Analdas
"Reading rots the mind." - Uncle Analdas
Where is this capability at?
I've searched the ADD CONTENT and CREATE CONTENT sections and do not see such a feature as upload. Where is it?
Cindy
New uploads
Click to create any story format or blog. Scroll down past all the usual stuff and you should see a add attachment or attach file box.
The blog, story, fiction, title page or wysiwyg entry will serve as a frame and teaser for the reader to download the attached file. Attachments will NOT just show up in the window, they will have to be downloaded by the reader. Eventually, I may be able to display .rtfs and .pdfs right in the frame.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Sounds Great
Can't wait to use it.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Damn, You're making My Job Harder
You mean I have to use bold, italics and indents and even -- gulp -- maybe graphics?
Oh the horor!
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Could you...
...upload a full html document and a CSS then have that display in the frame correctly? Or I suppose HTML with CSS in the head section.
The Legendary Lost Ninja
I gave it a trial run
I uploaded chapters 5 and 6 of Timeout 2 today and I attached the original MS Word 2002 files.
Does it display with indents, the hypertext links, and bold and such? I haven't checked it yet.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Well...
I seems to have worked for chapter 6 anyway, which is odd because I specifically excluded .doc files because of the possibility of malware.
I need to investigate.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Uploads
You're not supposed to be able to upload html at all because of the risk of malware but see the reply to JiW below.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Blogs, Forums, Weblinks, Non-English Posts and most reposts
Most Blogs, Forums, Weblinks, reposts and non-English postswill not be made or left sticky at the top of the front page for very long, usually. Also, if multiple chapters of a story are posted close enough together that more than one of them is on the front page, only the most recent one will be left sticky. In the case of three or more posts of chapters of the same story on one day, I may choose to collect them under one post with links as I've done in the past.
Just clarifying things a bit. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Page jumps
Just ran across something puzzling. I was trying to use the page jumps at the bottom of the title page to go back a week or two, looking for a story. The second page went back to about 9/26/06, but either clicking on page 3, or using the next page click jumped me back to about 8/8/06. Couldn't find the stories in between at all, unless I can remember the author.
Clarification: On page 2, the stories jump from Constant in All Other Things II - Chapter 01, posted on 9/17 to Sweet Dreams, posted on 8/19. Nothing in between.
Just FYI.
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
They're there
I just have to figure out why they dont show up. Sheesh.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I hope I found them all
The problem was that a post that is both sticky and not promoted is apparently stuck in limbo. If I missed any, someone please tell me.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Gallery working?
Erin, it seems that you have managed to restored the gallery server? Thanks very much!
Gwen
Gwen Lavyril
Gwen Lavyril
You're welcome
I meant to announce it, thanks Gwen. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Larger Recent Comments Box
Is there any way to extend the Recent Comments box? As it is now, a lot of comments can scroll off the bottom and be lost to view if things are busy, like today. I like to look over all the comments, sometimes I find a story I didn't know about. Perhaps a timeframe setting, like all comments in the last 12 hours, or 24 hours, or something like that?
Thanks!
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Comments RSS
would be even better. Unfortunately the Drupal module that used to do that isn't compatible with recent versions - was clearly abandoned.
Correction, Comments RSS *is* possible
Erin, unpack this into your modules directory and enable. :-) It appears to work on my 4.7 drupal anyway.
Drupal version
This is 4.5.8. Upgrading to 4.6.x has crashed the server everytime it has been attempted. 4.6 is not as scalable as either 4.5 or 4.7, hence the Drupal catch 22. I can't get to all the neat 4.7 stuff because I can't upgrade my huge site past 4.6.0.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
RSS not practical for all
I tried RSS one time, and found it just doesn't work well on dialup access.
Many of the other boxes, such as the Recent Blog Posts, have a "more" button, perhaps something like that could be done for Recent Comments box.
See what happens, Erin? You give us an inch or two, and we start wanting miles! ;)
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Odd, I'd have thought RSS...
... would be *more* practical on a dialup. I daresay it depends very much on which RSS aggregator software you're using. There's quite a lot of diversity, and I never much got on with the inbuilt ones in Firefox, Safari or IE7-beta.
Oh actually, I can see why you might have a problem... if the aggregator itself is only online for a short time, during which it has to make the rounds... Some might not get updated before you go offline again.
Personally, I use Google Reader. That might work for you too, as the updating would be done at their end, so whenever you go online, it's up to date with all your subscriptions.
(Also has the benefit I can use it from any computer I'm sat at.)
Hacking the comments box
I already hacked the comments box to make it as big as it is, the original code provided only 10 recent comments. The slow loading of the main page is in part due to the larger comment box.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Swiki?
Ok, what's this new thing that showed up on the home page? And is it possible to turn it off?
Edit: OK, I found I can turn it off, but I lose the search box. Can I keep the search box and lose the swiki?
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Swiki
The Swiki (search wiki) box comes with a search box. If you don't like it, you can turn the whole thing off and turn on the google search box, if you're logged in and go to the my account link in the left column. :)
150 people used the swiki in the first ten hours, which is more than the google search box got used in a normal week. As the swiki gets used, it gets smarter about doing searches and finding things people like. Kinda cool actually. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
To each his own
Well, I was cheating and looking at BC at work, and having the search items other people have looked for show up on the homepage was a bit startling to say the least! Fortunately nobody was looking over my shoulder just then! Does it really need to display everybody else's search parameters? I haven't needed to use the search feature so far but I like have it available.
Is the Google search working on the site? Last I saw you'd posted that it wasn't.
Hugs!
KJT
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Searches
It's not that it needs to do that but that's what it's designed to do. And yes, Google still isn't working for no reason I can understand.
But swicki doesn't just search BC, it starts at BC and the other TG story sites (including Storysite :)) and searches all the web with the finds on the tg sites at the top. Doesn't always work at finding stuff either.
I'd think visiting BC or any website where titles like "Shemale Harem Slave" might show up near the top would be risky at work. :)
I did change the colors to make Swicki a little less prominent.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
the disappearing author list...
i absolutely understand the need to raise revenue. hopefully, you'll be able to fill up the entire left column with paying ads.
i also understand that one can still do a "multi-search" to locate a particular author. however, not all are as brilliant as you or me.. (that was a joke!)...
perhaps a link in the home page banner box? "Author Search"... or some such.
thanks for a wonderful site.. yes, a site for soar eyes!..
darla...
It's still there
Just select the Author List in your account settings, and it will pop right up. I had selected it before and lost it when Erin did the rework, but I got it right back.
In fact, I like the new defaults, I am able to make the homepage look much more like I want. Before, I was stuck with the defaults for some items I didn't want. But now it's much better.
Make sure you're logged in, click on My Account and select the Edit tab. Trust me, if I can do it, anybody can do it!
I don't much care for the ads either, but until we all start contributing more, they are a necessary evil. Besides, I do laugh at what Google chooses to throw up there sometimes, based on word content. For instance, I'm seeing an ad for Children's Closet System, Top Quality Custom Closets. That is SO funny!
Hugs!
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Ads & Authors
The google ads amount to between $30 and $110 a month; it varies wildly depending on what Google has changed about how they do things and how quick I am at adjusting. The Swicki list in the corner contributes a few dollars a week, too. And I get $8 to $15 dollars a month off of the Doppler Press link. The donation box is bringing in a hundred or so a month; since I'm all paid up on bills, I haven't actually been pushing for the amount I really spend keeping this running.
TopShelf server: $170 per month, paid up through May 2007. (big and fast)
Gallery server: $40 per month, paid up through December.
Classic and email server: $110 per month, paid monthly. (not fast but very reliable)
TSMovies server: $20 per month paid up through December. (also my DNS)
Experimental server; $6 per month paid up through May.
RALabs backups and tech assistance by Bob Arnold: Donated.
Home Business ISP: $60 per month paid through November.
Misc. Expenses: ~$44 per month (telephone calls, domain renewals, postal box rent)
===================================================
Total: ~$450 per month.
I contribute ~$100 of this myself, so my goal is to raise $300 to $400 a month. Ads bring me $50 to $100 a month and regular contributors add $100 to $150 a month. So I need about $150 bucks a month in extra donations to break even. I tithe to other TG sites from the donations so I never do actually break even. :)
I like having the author list on the front page for the non-logged in people, since they outnumber the logged in by four or five to one. I used to have an author list button in the header, maybe I'll do that again.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Just a couple more questions
I missed your post while I took my sweet time writing mine (eating lunch!), so now I have a couple more questions.
What's the email server?
What's the Experimental server?
Thanks Erin!
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Website options
Erin, I was just browsing back through the various options for the home page, and I have a couple of questions.
First, I just discovered I can turn off the display of the Google ads. Does doing this affect your revenue? Or do you only get paid if somebody clicks on a sponsored link? As I said before, I can live with the ads. I'm in the magazine publishing business, where the content is directly determined by ad sales, and there are a lot more ads in the average magazine than online.
Second, I just noticed the Browse Archives calender. A handy tool that I'll be using in the future. But, the calender shows contributions on the 26th and 30th of this month! How's that? Is John's Joanie going forward in time and posting stories now?
Third, I really can't tell much about the alternate website layouts from the little thumbnails. Could you set up dummy pages we could look at to see what the various choices look like? Sometimes I get nervous about changing things and not being able to change them back. I like to look before I jump.
Thanks!
Karen J.
"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin
Options & Servers
I'm paid per click on the google ads, it works out to be about 6 cents a click. I made them options for logged in members as incentive to log in. :)
When I make an announcement, I generally date it in the future so it will stay on the front page near the top longer. Then I end up removing it before it moves to the bottom anyway. Also, it's possible to enter things so they don't show up for a few days, I think that's what that one on the 30th is.
What alternate website layouts? That's supposed to be turned off. LOL. Don't use any of them, I haven't tested them and I've hacked the code for the one I use so things might not work with an alternate.
The email server, I run my own for privacy; that's what qnez.com is. The experimental server I use for testing software, though I can also use one of Bob's servers for that.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.